Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Sausage Music 2

I put another song in the can a couple days ago. This was an experience so unlike my last post that I felt I should document it.

I laid down a riff against a click track on Thursday. It was sloppy. This was a song I had written over forty years ago, and it was not jelling. I redid a few bots, patched a few others so the riff was functional. Then I laid a quick vocal over it. The vocal sucked, but it was a placeholder. I dicked around with Loop Designer trying to come up with a beat that matched. I was utterly unsuccessful! The song was a swing thing, and Loop Designer was designed for electronica. It can do more, but I was barely able to get something merely WRONG after wrestling for several hours. I left it where it was and put it to bed.

Friday, I cleaned up the riff better, and laid a few more tracks down to beef it up. Sounded something like a song now! I re-did what I had just done, this time more competently. I played around with the mix and put various effects on, took them off, changed them, and maybe removed them altogether. The day went like this, each iteration inching closer to the song in my head, being dragged will he nill he by dint of sweat and curses. It was now a crap song, but at least it was a song.

Saturday I poked and prodded at the sullen thing, attempting to wrestle Loop Designer into making something like a swing beat. It was not pretty, but if I mixed it low and didn't look too hard at it, it sounded OK. Maybe! It just wasn't swing! The good part is I mic'd a far better set of vocals. I sent it to Klaxon, my son. He is not a musician, but has an unerring gut feel for music. He said the song was fighting with the beat... and losing. Crap!

Sunday I was busy all day. On-line RPG over Discord till 6, watch Red Sox and Patriots. Yay!

Monday I got down to work. I listened to it once more and decided Klax had nailed it again. I was never going to get Loop Designer to give me swing. It wasn't possible. I pulled out Beat Box 2. Compared to Loop Designer, Beat Box 2 is primitive and awkward, but I got an actual swing beat from it! I put that into place, laying down breaks where needed. The drums sounded much more fake than those in Loop Designer, and the structure was simple, but it was definitely a swing beat! I tweaked what had to be tweaked, and I was done! I sent it to Klax and he had problems with the sound of beat Box's drums, but it all worked. I smoothed out where I could and the sausage was made!

Tuesday I nailed everything and had the next song in the can in one day. Go figure!

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