Posted by: alexanderpander on: March 18, 2009
I have been studying the drums recently.
I found a very cool drummers blog by some LA session drummer who pumps out a drum loop a day and talks about drumming technique in general. Has really helped scope out the head space of drumming theory for me, and I constantly keep checking back so I’m always thinkging about it.
Things I have learn for composition:
Thats all I cn think of right now.
Posted by: alexanderpander on: September 30, 2008
Today I started a track while working on another. It was a random idea that I got while working with a filter on a loop in Dr:Rex. I immediately started another file and perused the new idea. I think this is a good way to work, fun too, but makes for many unfinished works. I would hate to be dry of ideas!
SOLID CREATIVE PROCESS
While working on this new track I cam to the idea to work on one element at a time and when I had it to my liking, combined it with a second and worked the two together, getting ideas for recording the two together, then laid this down, and then finally introduced the third element. Like mixing a cake, bringing in new elements a little at a time once the existing ones are combined well. Its a solid process but slow and can be draining.
TODO
I think I need to practice more improvisation and live recording as I feel a bit scared of doing anything live and I feeling it would speed up things and keep it fun (and require less energy).
Also, I’ve rendered out all the stage 3 tracks I’ve made and imported to iTunes so I can listen to them mastered down and see how I feel about them. Already after one hearing I feel I know things that need to be changed in some tracks and see what it perfect the way it is (well, some mastering couldn’t hurt on them all).
Posted by: alexanderpander on: September 28, 2008
Using Reasons ‘Randomise Pattern’ option it would seem that as long as the pattern starts to repeat then it really doesn’t matter what the pattern is too much. Increasing the length of a random pattern from 16 beats to 64 still doesn’t seem to have much of an effect. The longer it s the more interesting it becomes but the less like a pattern it seems.
The question really is what gives some rthyum some swing, or funk and others nothing? I know that the basic swing beat, alternating between two sounds every 4 beats gives the maximum swing. The two seperate sounds each create their own space and the mind moves from one to the other with enough time between them, back and forth like a swing. The more sounds you bring in the more the mind jumps. Things to experiment with here might be:
Posted by: alexanderpander on: September 27, 2008
What is the most minimal amount of repitition in noise/chaos that will cause one to think there is a rythum, in music, in life? Can we take any sound and repeat half of it, then half again and so on and still get a ‘rythum’? Can we take any sequence of sounds that have some elements in common, but not all, how many can be dropped out before it is still the same rythum?
Posted by: alexanderpander on: September 19, 2008
I have a lot of drum patterns and riffs in Reason and it might help to mix then don into sample loops and then mix and match them in Ableton Live. This might be a faster way to work and get new ideas for combos.
Posted by: alexanderpander on: September 19, 2008
I have started to play around with the appegiator wave that I came up with in Prague. Its basically hooking in an LFO to the velocity of an appegiator which makes the sound sweep in and out giving the appegiator more of a live feeling. I came up with the idea when I was on that bridge in Prague and a woman was playing a cello, appegiating over 4 notes and moving in and out which gave it a lot of feeling. I hooked up the device while staying on the farm in Czech and made a piano piece with it which sounds great in reason as the piano is well sampled and responds to changes in velocity.
Today I hear some Spanish sounding music and it was using a very tight change in velocity while appegiating like mad over something. It was an organ sound and had a pop’y feeling to it.
Posted by: alexanderpander on: September 4, 2008
Today I experimented with mixing a steady drum pattern with Redrum and a more organic drum pattern with Dr:Rex with Propellaheads Reason 4. I found that if you keep a classic, yet funky, with the steady drum machine you can basically mix what you like over the top of it with the organic pattern. Some patterns don’t go so well together obviously but this is just taste.
I was using a mix of classic rock style drumming on the stead state and some weird electronic stuff which I messed with even more by playing with the LFO on Dr:Rex, applying it to the filter and the OSC.
I then tried to lay down a choppy, yet fat, bass over the top. I need some more experience making the bass work with the chops in the drums. Perhaps the Groove mixer ould help here a bit(?).
