Hey!! I finally made another song! Yay me!
OK, that bullshit aside... Yeah, I've arranged another tune.. runs 3:48 (not bad) and took about 3 hours, start to finish...
I'm proud, cause this is both the quickest project, and I feel one of, if not the best tune I've made so far. It's different from my norm anyhow.
I use short and long "loops" or clips of sound -- beats, harmonies, etc.. Up til now I've used primarily pre-made beat loops and then added one or two extra sounds to them to make them unique. That, or combining multiple beat loops together to make a new beat... either way, it meant that I was basically using a beat pattern that was pre-made.. There's nothing WRONG with that; a LOT of other artists do it.. but I wanted to challenge myself and design a beat totally on my own.
So, I just grabbed single samples... a snare drum hit, a bass drum hit... single hits, then I built a beat digitally, the same way a drummer would tap out his own beat... Since I can't play drums, and don't have a drumset... well, I have to do it digitally instead =)
So I came up with a snare and kick beat (most evident at the beginning of the song, but runs throughout), and then purely by chance, happened to break it up so that out of 4/4 time (4 beats per measure), it would keep missing a hit every 8th beat.. that's that pause you hear in the snare section. Then I added a nice big bass drum kicker to it all, and started playing with other samples.
I also used a lot fewer total samples than I have in the past. Instead I tried mixing it up and keeping it interesting by shortening clips, repeating segments of a master clip, and so on.. I also played with some filtered effects...
Of course, early on, I was inspired to include the voice clip (for those that wonder, it's Paul Harvey, the guy who does those radio spots called "The Rest of the Story")... Ever since i first heard the original clip, I was stuck on the mental image of those words..
Now, since I don't yet have any turntables, I have to get creative with Acid Pro to add the turntable-style effects that I like so much.. I figured I'd augment it as well by making the echos sound like they're on TV or an AM radio or something.. It's a neat effect, and the cool result is that one can use the echos way more with the effect present than I could get away with, without the effect... If that makes any sense.. =)
Anyhow, the song is (of course) called "Somebody Singed A Kitten" -- Much thanks to Diamond for her feedback and for being so nice while still being repeatedly subjected to clips (over and over and over and over and over and...) and segments of the song during the creative process... "How's this sound? How about now? What do you mean 'What's the difference?'??? No there! I changed THAT! What does a shrug mean?" and so forth... =)
Please please leave a comment here if you do listen to it. I always value feedback, good and bad!!!
Download/Listen to: David Taylor (Saturn) - Somebody Singed A Kitten
