Production that I'm proud of over the weekend.

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Rodgre
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Production that I'm proud of over the weekend.

Post by Rodgre » Mon Apr 12, 2021 10:49 am

I am not trying to toot my own horn, but I wanted to share an experience I had over the weekend and perhaps it will inspire someone to try something similar.

I have an album project that I've been producing with a solo artist. It's a sort of post-rock/emo folk kind of thing, reminiscent of Owen https://open.spotify.com/artist/4PJbP0d ... TJG8v1eTzQ.

The client has a very thought-out idea of how the album will go and he recorded everything except for one instrumental interlude to bridge between two particular songs and to have a very specific dynamic "story" to it. When it came time to track it, he was out of ideas. He didn't know what to play, only how he wanted it to feel.

I set up a click track at a tempo not unlike every other song on the record. I set up a cool guitar sound with a stereo vibrato effect and I asked him to just noodle to the click for 20 minutes or so. He did. I left the room and listened from the lounge, so he wouldn't be distracted by me. I made notes in my head of what he did that was cool and could be used for a section of the song. I wanted to have 4 sections to it.

I came back in and I sifted through what he did and found 4 bits that could be arranged into a song, looping a riff here and there. Then I armed the recorder again and asked him to play to THAT. He did. Then I muted the original ideas and listened to what he did as an afterthought overdub. There were more and better cool parts to that so I found those and edited those into the arrangement. It was now starting to resemble something special. We addressed each section and added more overdubs. I suggested a few specific things to do to build sections up. Then I added a programmed drum part which we will probably replace later, as well as an unobtrusive synth bass part to establish the roots. Lastly, I added a feedback guitar track toward the end of the song to build a sense of chaos and intensity.

What we created is, at least in my opinion a day after the fact, the coolest song on the record. It came from literally nothing and within an hour or two we created something really special that has a great sense of dynamics and flow and tells a story without a vocal.

What I want to impress on you all is that the point was to push the client out of his box, where he felt like he'd run out of ideas (many of the songs on his album are very very similar and I really wanted the opportunity to push him creatively and this was my last chance). Taking the pressure off him to write a song on the spot was a crucial piece to this. He just noodled. Aimlessly. Not thinking too much. It was up to me to hear his moments of brilliance, not up to him to deliberately create them. What we ended up with does not sound constructed or cut-and-pasted. It sounds organic and very dynamic.

This is something that modern day DAW based recording has allowed us to do. A small indie project could never afford to waste a reel of 2" just experimenting for 20 minutes in order to chop up the tape and cobble something together. This is a good thing. The way that visual editing affords us the ability to do this is kind of a miracle. I do realize that pretty much every commercial rock/pop/hip-hop recording has been built upon copied and pasted verses and choruses and that's sort of an unfortunate tool of modern technology that makes "hits" easier to make, but not always great for artistic expression and music with much soul. It can be a very "plastic" and disposable musical experience at times. Not that what we did is the epitome of soul either. I was just proud that we used the tools at hand to create something expressive and beautiful within a couple of hours when there wasn't even a germ of an idea at the start.

Go make music my friends. Any kind of music by any means. It makes the world a better place.

Roger

Magnetic Services
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Re: Production that I'm proud of over the weekend.

Post by Magnetic Services » Mon Apr 12, 2021 12:00 pm

That sounds like a wonderful session and I hope you get a production credit on that song!

drumsound
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Re: Production that I'm proud of over the weekend.

Post by drumsound » Mon Apr 12, 2021 1:12 pm

That's a great story Rodge. Editing creatively, evocatively, beautifully is fantastic. You had a FANTASTIC idea to start with, and your talent and instinct lead to something wonderful. Please bump this when it's released so we can all enjoy it.

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