Felt bad about last week's song, so I retreated back to the QY-70 to make something tuneful :)
Would have liked to have polished this a lot better, but, this project is all about demos, after all.
Also, between moving on July 1st and 2nd, and work keeping me at the office all weekend, I don't exactly have the time to do anything more with this (not even to add vocals). My initial session making this week's song turned out to be my final one. So there you are: a snapshot of my creative process!
And, oh hey: did I mention that this marks the half-way point for this project? :D
My intent: introduce my Moog to my guitar, and see how they got along.
What went wrong: my Moog was feeling full of itself, and in two simple patches, tried taking over the whole damn song. What you hear are the two instruments having an awful, terrible fight.
Contributing factors: exhaustion. Even though I got an early start with the guitar track, I didn't start doing anything else for it until the night before this was 'due.' The lyrics, written at the same time, reflect this exhaustion in their "wtf?!"-itude.
Why it didn't mix better: I think the guitar and the bass patch just sounded so similar to each other that they bleed into one another. Panning and eq weren't doing anything for me (although mixing while being tired is supposed to be a big no-no).
My final word: lesson (hopefully!) learned. Use sounds that don't interfere with each other so much. Or, study eq better, its limitations, etc.
If you could: give me a tip or two on how to avoid results like these :) Is there something very basic I'm missing? Probably so.
"Try something that I said
Fly over to my head
Inside it's black and its dark red
Don't hide 'cus this time we shake dread"
And thus concludes the Moog Trilogy! (?! Yes, I'm making that up)
Used the Moog on everything for this tune, except for the drums. The results? Even though there's not that many different tracks happening, it sounds very buzzy and cluttered, to my ears. I did my best to sort of separate the tracks from each other, but in the end, I only want to spend so much time on these each week :)
Had to double the vocals to try and get them to stand out better.
I think this week's tune was more of a conscious effort to write two different sections of a song (my weakness has always been to just write a chorus, with little else!); a reaction to last week's tune, I think.
I think the reason I was hard on last week's song was that I tend to use the same sets of notes for most of my songs; I should do a bit more investigation into different scales to play in, and see how that affects my output.
"What if I could say
Time's not set in place
There's motion in the sway
If you could travel now
Would you wipe me out
Would you change today?
Came up with a melody on my way in to work earlier in the week, so I phoned home and sang it into my answering machine so I could remember it later. Happily, the result isn't as goofy as the answering machine message :)
Learned that with an analogue synth, tuning can be an issue, so I tried to keep that in mind this go-around. The QY-70 is providing drums, and the final two synth sounds that appear (one during the 2nd verse, and one during the outro). Roger is doing everything else.
If you wouldn't mind answering this question to help me out: what's missing from this song? What do you suggest changing to make it more - I don't know, relevant? Distinctive? To me, it sounds pretty generic, forgettable...but maybe it's only because I feel like I've written this song over and over already? I was really pleased with last week's song, but this doesn't really seem to do anything. Feedback please! :) Or slip me some suggestions I can try out in coming weeks?
"And I realize far too late - it doesn't matter
And these feelings I can't take - they're getting better
And it's shocking me awake - because I never
Tried to heal it all away"
The drums and piano line come from the QY-70, while I'm happy to say that everything else you hear (other than vocals) is coming from my new friend:
(Minimoog Voyager Select Series)
Essentially my tax refund, "Roger" (?) arrived on Wednesday. One you thing you can't tell by listening is just how HEAVY this thing is! 42 lbs on its own, and the hard case it came with adds another 22 lbs; it was not a good day for the elevator in my apartment building to break down o_O
The voice used for the bass line, to me, doesn't quite fit with the rest of the music. But you try finding a preset called "Dr. Who Bass" and not forcing it into the first thing you do. Go on. Just try it, I dare ya. Can't be done. Srsly.
This song is for Jill.
"All I want is next to me
Immediate and warm and clean
Save your fire and gasoline
This time I'm killing apathy
All I want is next to me and clean"
I made two versions: one normal, and one tuned down real low, just for fun.
EDIT: just wanted to point out that I still really like the music on this one, but I'm right ashamed of myself lyrically though. It's alright, though, because I was experimenting at least :)
"I’d like to take a moment now
and talk about Hyperion
Eighth largest moon of Saturn
was found by Bill Bond and his son
No life, but has hydrocarbons
Dry and wet ice contained therein
Low gravity, chaotic spin
I feel Hyperionian
I feel Hyperionian"
o_O .....seriously, I should upload an instrumental version and put these monstrosities out of my misery :)
Dug out the ol' Triton LE for this week's tune, and used the QY-70 to control it. The drums, computer voice and the lead line come from the Triton, and the bass line comes from the QY-70.
The main intent this week was just to re-acquaint myself with the QY-70 controlling the Triton. Next week, hopefully I'll have figured out better how to control it channel by channel. As it was, I happened into this song kind of randomly: I was controlling a piano ballad combination sound that just happened to have a drum set as part of the sound, and where the kick and snare would usually have been on the QY, is where the computery-voice was instead.
I told my vocalist I didn't want his whiny, self-pitying lyrics bringing the party down this week (see: "19", for example). He tried something anyway, but no. Not this time ;)
