| There is a method? |
As a matter of fact, yes, indeed - there is a
method to this madness! I would not take it seriously though. |
|
| How do I do it? |
A lot of people ask me about the nuts and bolts
of my method that seemingly allows an engineer (myself) to produce
an "artistic" product (the music). I advertise it as a
nice hobby and encourage everyone to try. Here is a brief description
of how I do it, your mileage may vary:
- I start with a sound. I can spend hours, days, and weeks (again,
I do not do it professionally, so there is no deadline) searching
for an inspirational sound, whatever it may mean. The only criterion
I've got is it should create an "idea of a melody" for
me. This is what you hear as lead instrument in most of my songs.
- Having the sound selected, it is relatively easy to write a
melody at the keyboard - the sound leads me to it. The only thing
is to record it, so I can reproduce it later. I initially record
the melody on piece of paper as best as I can - the rhythmic structure
is crude, the tonality is usually A minor, etc.
- While writing a melody I also try out some harmonies to match.
The resulting chord sequence gets recorded on the same piece of
paper. At this point, the hardest part of creative work is over
- I've got a skeleton of a song.
- I enter the chord sequence in a Band-in-a-Box software. It creates
an arrangement for several instruments in a variety of styles
based on this sequence. I listen to different styles the software
produces until the sequence sounds close to what I have in mind
for the song.
- I record the melody while the Band-in-a-Box plays the arrangement.
The great thing for musically impaired like myself is that the
software can play in any tempo you want - it's really important
for the melodies that I cannot possibly play fast (it means almost
all of them). In 90% of the cases this is the last time I touch
the keyboard.
- I instruct the Band-in-a-Box to produce a couple of choruses
of improvisation - it sometimes can be used in a real song despite
its totally soul-less origin. Band-in-a-Box can also harmonize
the melody in several ways, which is also can be used in the final
product.
- I export all the recorded and generated material into a simple
MIDI file, that is the file that contains notes' codes.
- I load the MIDI file into the real sequencer - Cakewalk's Sonar.
This is when the real fun starts.
- Sonar can do many things, but first and foremost I re-map all
the default instruments of Band-in-the-Box to Roland XV-3080's.
Then I try to reduce the number of voices from 4-6 to 2-3 and
re-arrange their parts time-wise. Sometimes I pick a different
tonality. Usually 50 to 70% of material accumulated so far is
eliminated at this step.
- I add some Acid's loops for decoration.
- I play with various sound effects, arpeggiators, and software
synthesizers to get a more or less cohesive song out of this mess.
I might compose and record a couple of new choruses on the keyboard,
mostly for variety sake.
- The final stage - recording. It's somewhat more involving process
than it should be, but this is when it all comes together. There
is about a 40% chance that I will not like the result and will
have to repeat the whole exercise from one of the previous steps.
Or abandon the song altogether - it keeps down the amount of obvious
crap.
- I apply final effects and equalization, so it would sound good
on a regular stereo.
- The rest is a matter of arranging songs on CD and burning them.
That's basically it! On the "Gear"
page I describe most of the components of my "studio"
and what they do. |
|
