The list of musicians who will play on the song is pretty much complete. We do need a bass player however. Lenny Lee was going to do it, but had to back out because of prior commitments. So all we need is bass to complete the lineup. Anyone who would like to be a part of it please let me know, either here or in IM.
It might interest/amuse/irritate you to know that I, hypocrite that I am, have written and recorded my own Japan tribute song… just need to finish the vocals, and then I’ll post it or give it to you guys to ignore or use as you see fit
Looking forward to seeing this develop. What other instruments will be in this?
My gut, on this particular mix, is the introduction of the drums should be dry and punchy then go into the roomy sound the first time it repeats midway into the song. That could be the interlude place that lays the piece back. You could get creative with the keyboard attack at various sections of the song too.
Just my thoughts.
Anyway, if your players are going to record their parts to this, you should make the mix a little more dynamic to evoke emotional responses that will affect their playing and create the rise and fall in energy of their performance. Right now, the mix is really static. Everything sounds good, but I feel it is missing emotional content that will rub off on the players when they record to it.
My gut, on this particular mix, is the introduction of the drums should be dry and punchy then go into the roomy sound the first time it repeats midway into the song. That could be the interlude place that lays the piece back. You could get creative with the keyboard attack at various sections of the song too.
Good idea. This was a rough, only an arrangement mix, but I plan to refine it as we go. I still have a lot of work to do for drum levels and a couple of fills that I need to tweak. When I export the drums to an audio track, I’ll make sure to split each one out to work on individually. Robin and I will be sharing the keyboard loads, and I plan to give my Izotope Spectron a whirl to uniqueify some of the sounds.
Anyway, if your players are going to record their parts to this, you should make the mix a little more dynamic to evoke emotional responses that will affect their playing and create the rise and fall in energy of their performance. Right now, the mix is really static. Everything sounds good, but I feel it is missing emotional content that will rub off on the players when they record to it.
I quantized my parts pretty tight on some spots, so it may have taken some of the emotion away. I’ll be replaying and refining them as we go as well, so yeah, still a WIP. I sent the song structure to you via email. I may completely remove the 2nd verse / chorus due to song length, but other than that, do you have any specfics regarding the dynamics that you hear / sense? I wanted to start with sort of an open book to let everyone work in their own ideas equally.
Put together a rough bassline on keys to provide guidance for the others. If the timelines work I should be able to do the bass for this song (although I haven’t yet heard it).
Sounds good. No special goals for time. Tom has added some arrangement ideas that I like, so new arrangement should be up within a week (let’s say Sunday, May 1st) (many of the parts are going to stay the same, just a few modifications on transitions), hopefully I’ll have a rough bassline written by then as well.
If it works… we’ll have an entire band! Well, sans the drummer. But I’ve been lovin BFD2 since I got it so no worries there.
Are you sure you want me to create a (key) bass part first? I would have thought you might like to do that (creative license and all that) rather than playing off something I wrote.
A fretless may sound really nice… I’m not sure how much of the song could use it, but a unique idea might be as an inventive line behind the more agressive choruses where Steve is playing the rhythm.
I’ve been known to play some non-traditional basslines or, at the very least, riffs. The general feedback I’ve received by our peers here has been positive but if you wanted something more straightforward I’m not necessarily sure you’d get it. That’s why I asked for guidance. It’s certainly not required though.
You might want to hang out for a bit. I’m working up some changes based upon what Tom said, so a few things will change (not so much the patterns or style, but where the verses / choruses fit).
Changes I’m currently working on:
1st verse was originally repeated.
Changing it to 1 1/2 (that was a hard one but I’ve finally got it figured out).
2nd Chorus is now repeated.
Last Chorus is cut.
I should have these changes in place and uploaded sometime over the weekend.
Hey Tom,
So far so good. From the storms we had / are having, my work on it has been spotty because of having to shut down from time to time. Maryland was mostly spared thankfully. But it looks like we have another disaster to add to the quickly growing list.
I’ve figured out how to give the 1st verse a repeat and cut it in the middle, to go into the chorus.
Bryan, my singer is a tactician, he’ll find a way to make it work. Plus: @Steve, if you bring in a solo-comp over the rhythm at the beginning of the repeat, you’ll be able to introduce the transition into the chorus. (I’ll get you the times when I have it planned).
Other than that I just have to change a couple of notes so the 2nd chorus repeats smoothly, and that should at least set us the “potential” final structure to work with.
[edit]- A quick addition. I’ll be cutting the intro in half as well. I think it will be less monotonous and give the listener less time to bass the whole song on just one part…
I can answer that. It helps to use the same BPM so that when the guy who is assembling all the takes for mixing can import them using the same frame of reference. You can use whatever sample rate you want – it will convert to the one he;s using when he goes to import it. However, to maintain fidelity and consistency, it’s better to just use the same rate
Hey Steve,
I’ll have it all in order once I get the “revised” song out. I was never very apt at the technical terms of musical arrangement and production.
I can definitely use this thread to post the song info. But I have all involved in a group email that I’ll be sending ftp details to and other stuff that isn’t appropriate for the forum.
If anyone else needs me to clear stuff up, ask away! I’ll do everything I can.
Hi Larry.
The whole crew is as follows.
You on bass.
Steve on Guitar. (Aka ZapAxe)
Wim will do a sax solo. (Aka HornForHire)
Robin and I will share the keyboard load. (Aka Northwood Mediaworks)
Glyn will do spoken word / poetry or prose to finish the song. (Aka Zenda)
Tom will provide the finalizing on the mix (Aka Woodcrest Studios).
My singer Bryan will do the vox. (I wanted him to be a part of this, because he has had a hard life and I feel for him). Plus he’s an excellent singer.
Great lineup eh!?
Yes, the most recent mix is as you mentioned. I have some time tomorrow so I hope to finish up the changes to the arrangement.
The body of the choruses / verses / interludes, etc… will be almost the same. The only changes are: shorter song, intro cut in half, slightly different transitions, the end chorus removed, the previous chorus doubled and the repeat of the first verse cut in half. (Ok, so those are a lot of changes)
If you get a chance, please PM me with an email address so I can set you up in the email group when I’m ready to send all the details.
Glad that you did.
Well, sans the drummer. But I’ve been lovin BFD2 since I got it so no worries there.