Testing, testing…

Reuse and recycle

I do my bit to not waste ones and zeroes, so often, when I’m testing something out – a bit of new kit, a completely moved and rewired studio – I end up working up a complete song. The last two songs I’ve posted are good examples.
(The photo is a bit of a contrived connection, as it’s some of my photography that I happened to have to hand, and rather than upload another picture of a guitar, I thought I’d use it!)

Here in the Studio

This track started out as a test to see that my relocated studio was all wired up properly. I thought I’d create a Go-go rhythm as I’d be listening to a lot of Trevor Horn/Steven Lipson, and the pretty much perfect “Slave to the Rhythm”. Go-go was on the verge of great things in the early 80s, and is such a languid, catchy groove, but I suspect House was more flexible, and went massive.
I think I did a pretty good job of programming the beats – there’s almost nothing out there in the way of libraries for Go-go, reflecting I suspect its nicheness. After that, it went a bit jazz, especially when I put guitar on it. I seem to be doing a lot of guitar at the moment, but it’s the only instrument I can actually play (and I suppose, bass by extension), and I’m liking it a lot.
Anyway, here is my take on Go-go.

Who Knows (Question Mark)

This song had an odd start.

I began by messing about with sounds after I patched a Kaoss Pad into my recording set up. It was intended to be a throw away bit of stuff that just allowed me to play with the KP, but this riff came along. I thought it was catchy.

I found some chords that modulated it. The bridge turned out to have to change key for the chorus, hence the slight ramp. The chorus went guitar crazy. Lots of Scritti style details on the synths (though less used for punctuation than they liked).

The break (and intro) came last. I like those chord changes best, thought I also really like the other chord sequences. Probably my best mix to date, though I will remaster at some point to get rid of a few (almost unnoticeable) clicks and pops – the electricity around here is a little active at the moment!