Normally I'm not a fan of digging through the archives, but here's something that I did long ago that fits in with the Hella Gems aesthetic that I would like to release. Back when I assembled my first home recording rig back in 2003, I wanted to try recording some stuff, but I didn't have anyone else to record and I was hesitant to record my own music as I'm only now starting to get over my reservations on recording music. One day, apparently around that April (the timestamp on the original file is April 30, 2003), I recorded a single track out of pure frustration of nothing else to work on. It was an early experiment to test out some odd (one might say progressive) ideas I had about heavy metal production at the time, and I've felt that despite my being somewhat unknowledgable about the whole process, it has held up much better that I had initially suspected.

A quick breakdown of the component sounds and the ideas therin:
- The drum tracks were built with Buzz tracker before I picked up any instruments. they were totally a guess, and it explains the song's structure. 3 parts, looped four times. The cymbals are noise with an ASDR envelope. The bass drum is....generated somehow. Forgot what the snare was (probably some sample). The details were lost years ago. This was exported from buzz as a wav and imported into Cubase (which I actually paid for, but no longer use.  Such is life.)
- All the other tracks essentially get progressively sloppier as they go along. This has the odd effect of making the song sound like it's destabilizing, if not exactly falling apart. The robo-tracker drums hold it together, but the rest of the parts seem angry and erratic. I kind of like how that worked.
- There are two bass tracks, recorded separately. One is running through the bass octave pedal I have and provides the synth-ish lows that I adore so much. The second bass track was more a guitar double recorded through a Behringer POD knock off on the Boutique Overdrive setting, which sounded terrible by itself but interestingly filled out a crucial space in the track between the guitars and the sub bass. I cannot recall if I double tracked the grindy bass, but I don't think so.
- There are two guitar tracks, panned hard left and right, played with a hollowbody 60's guitar totally unsuitable to the task into the V-AMP on the dual rectifier setting. That guitar feeds back with any sort of distortion on it, so this sound is one of those "Can't occur with real gear" things, but works alright. I think it's the layers that save this one.
- The lead guitar is basically a combination of several of the most dissonant things I could figure out how to play on a guitar. There's not much real skill involved, but there was a plan, and I don't know if I could recreate it if I tried. For some reason, I love it.
- Finally, there was an FM synth. I picked up this Yamaha FB-01 years ago, and I went through patches until I found several that were either good, weird, or reminded me of stuff in Sega Genesis games. (that's way, way to big an influence on me, I think) Anyhow, I found a few "distorted guitar" patches that reminded me of the distorted guitars in certain genesis games. The thought was to layer this on top of actual heavy guitars and basses for a meta heavy sound. with some careful EQ (man it wanted to stick out like a sore thumb) it kinda worked. It provides a strange overtone to the whole mix. It also fills out the beginning (along with the sub bass) and the ending (by itself). It's something I'd love to revisit (I still have the FB-01 within arm's reach) but it's such a pain to do.

The track was hastily assembled in a day, and ever since I've wondered what I would have done to follow it up. With a few exceptions, I'm still wondering - I've never followed up or refined the ideas presented here (the laptop battles were much closer to traditional metal ideas shoehorned into Ableton Live) , and I'm not quite sure I could really rekindle the fire that this came from. But I think it says something about who I was back then, and the fervor to create something new. Enjoy.

metal_demo

Sinking Under Your Spell

Yesterday I was screwing around the guitar and came up with a nice little chord sequence. Problem was, while I could get it to a resolution, it started off from a point of tension.

So to fix that I came up with a beginning to the song and tried to pull it to the beginning of that chord sequence and milk it for all it was worth.

Of course then I had to have lyrics. I have been fat. I am currently running. I worry that if I get back into shape my stunted  libido will return and drive me to obsession, disappointment, and finally to depression. So because of that, and because of the way the end of the song sounds, I wrote about that. 

Hopefully this pattern is something other people can relate to! If not, then back to the drawing board.

Thanks as usual for listening.

The Factory

This is my first completed rap song. It's about the negative feelings I have towards mandatory schooling. I'm pleased with how it turned out.

The beat has a slightly different structure from Part 1. The rap vocals are three layers each panned differently and pitch-bent to make my voice sound cooler. The master track has some reverb and a saturator acting as a limiter. Live 7 doesn't have a straight up limiter, so that is why I used a saturator instead.

Lyrics:

SUNG CHORUS:
Oh
those children they must conform
we'll protect them from all the storms
you'll know it was good for them
once they're working in the factory

VERSE 1:
At ten years old I took a test
to prove I was gifted
not one of the rest
I used hands to count, but I wasn't dumb
I failed by one point, for using fingers thumbs

I couldn't quickly multiply
so I was quickly classified
a person with a lesser mind
was not allowed to spend the time

with my best friend in school
in the gifted class
I was just a fool
who had trouble memorizing math

we had separate lunches
we had separate times
that we could go outside
we had separate lives

My mom tried to plead with them
was one point that much
you fail one test, and forever you're stuck?
but in a system based on rules, the rules cannot bend
when rules are the king, they must break you instead

if you run a factory, you're gonna need the labor
so start training the children you're doing them a favor

CHORUS

VERSE 2:
For eleven more years
I coasted through the system
did the minimum, sat in class and listened
I did all the homework, I followed the path
the funny thing is, it turned out I was good at math

I thought college was where I could find out
what mold my brain conformed to
what I was all about
what external label, to myself I could apply
and maybe on the way
there'd be other things to try

instead I was met
with bureaucratic limits
unable to play art
for not meeting prerequisites

so I realized
school could never show me
what was in my soul
it could not control me

Shedding the skin
of society's goals
I now chart a path
into a future of gold

to take what was mine
from the start
before the machine tried to break my heart

CHORUS

bread-and-buter1

This song is a reaction to being a waiter and how bad people want bread and butter.

This is a bonus beat because I missed my last turn.

Back when I first got Fruity Loops, I made two whole CDs of little concept peices. I called them Crappy Techno 1 and 2. As I went, I was learning to use the various features of the software, but after awhile, I guess I was finally "done" with these. I haven't made much in the same vein since then.

Anyway, here is my attempt to return to the spirit of those early days with a peice that's nothing but the standard fl drum kit and 3xOsc synth. It sounds kind-of Jungly. Unfortunatly this piece wouldn't have been long or substantial enough to make it into one of those former CDs.

jungleloop