Guitar and the New Metal.. journal of madness
As we speak I’m getting ready to rush out of the house for a Jeff Pulver type meet up thang… So not too much time to talk about too much..
I’m working on the guitar solo section, for the track I’ve been talking about in recent postings.. I haven’t figured out the proper work flow with the liquid mix.. even when I turn all the plugins off.. I get high latency… so I decided to just create a new project, where I’d do the the guitar parts, and then import then into the main project.. hoping i can import the midi tracks whole sale.. just another thing to have to work out.
I’m engaging in a process I’ve done before.. You sit at your guitar and try and work out the parts, while programing them into the computer.. for synths to play / stand in for the guitars… so you can work out exactly how things fit together.. This process has its pros and cons.. not the least of which is it’s hard to make things swing.. and the midi parts are more approximations of what it’ll sound like, and the performances.. then they are actually what you plan on playing.. which creates the problem of hearing things kinda wrong during this stage of things. Further.. or even as a result.. this process can change what you’re writing.. so you write it in such a way to make it easier to program or perform.. which is less then ideal.
The advantage of this sorta thing.. well what I’m trying to do is create a solo section which is somewhat of a “jam out” section. You have two guitars doing there thing.. they, to one degree or another.. exchange between playing rhythm and lead… and will eventually work out to doing harmonized leads..
The plan is to actually attempt to perform the thing.. probably at about half speed.. and then edit / speed up to real speed.. in post, so to speak. This will result in a lot of work…. but I’m hoping it’ll be worth it. Just the fact that it is a lot of work.. may make it so this section will be rather short, tight, and concise.
lyrics
Another issue I’m having is in the lyrics: There is no verse chorus thing going on.. right now we just have 3 riffs that play into each other.. I’m writing out vocal lines without knowing what they should say. I have this feeling that there ought to some sorta chorus-ish part.. where we here the same lines repeated at different parts of the song…. but for now it seems like the first few words of the first riff.. will repeat.. and then it’ll all go in a different direction after the repeat.
guitar
Another idea that’s evolving is we might have 2 solo areas in the song.. The one I’m working on now.. and another that’ll be… fairly insane…
insanity
One thought is to just improvise out some guitar playing.. and then edit the solo’s in melodyne… make them all work together.. The challenge I foresee with this approach is.. that I play too damn fast.. The song is already a very fast song.. and even relative to that fast tempo.. the notes will no doubt go faster then any grid will work.. and I’m not sure how well Melodyne will cope with all that.
The real advantage of working this way is.. its a lot more human.. a lot more “the real me,” in a certain sense.. The performance will be more organic.. and the actual playing will be.. more and unpredictable.
Later, back from Pulver:
Had a really great time, I LOVE these things. There was a kind of after twitter-ish party that lead out to karaoke.. It was a rather intimate crowd at this point… Apparently there was a party from Google there as well.. which made it sorta surreal.. being with social media folks and the fellow who started VON….
I’d say more about.. the project or the night.. but I’m feeling like my blogging has had better moments, so I’ll just leave this as it is.