tom can make a song to order???

- p.d. (guest) 1-26-2007 1:52 am

let me try that again...
tom can you make a song to order???
- p.d. (guest) 1-26-2007 1:53 am

I've done it occasionally. What do you have in mind?
- tom moody 1-26-2007 2:18 am

just want something thats a bit more club & mc friendly so i can play it out. like maybe make a track as you normally would but if you could do a special mix of it thats:

1. 140 bpm
2. kick drums brought up in the mix
3. percussion - either swing the hi hats and misc perc a bit [house] OR preferably strip out the snares and some of the kick drums that aren't on beat 1 and put a massive snare/clap on beat three [grime].
4. only have 2 "parts" that switch back and forth every 16 bars

also as your melodies [subharmonic duo] still cling to tonality, if you feel like it rock some pitch-class set theory on em
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_set_theory

this isn't a critique or anything just a "wonder what would happen if..." kind ofthing
- p.d. (guest) 1-26-2007 2:48 am

Wow, that's really weird.

P.D., Could you rewrite that request in spanish? I'll recite it at a Whataburger drivethrough tomorrow, kind of drive through friendly... "wonder what would happen if..." you changed some things for me.

PS I'd like the kick drums really early, before I ask for mayo.
- ls (guest) 1-26-2007 8:23 am

I appreciate the tips to make the tune club-friendly but these are more like "start over from scratch."
I don't really have the listening environment to do club mixes, unfortunately. As in, I have neighbors. My ears take a beating as it is from obsessively reworking these tunes.
Quip: "I mostly make songs for me... and the hundreds of kids in China who download them from free mp3 sites."
Quip 2: "I thought the academy was clinging to atonality."

- tom moody 1-26-2007 9:04 am

my "floor filler" (I'm sure the mix is all wrong for actual room acoustics--it's more of a computer speaker trance epic. I wrote this after someone gigged me for using presets.)
- tom moody 1-26-2007 9:22 am

really?? i'd think 1-4 would be about 15 minutes of busywork after you've sketched out a tune already. the set theory stuff is just [neglible] taste
anyway just thought i'd ask,cos i like to play different stuff out but it still has to fit within constraints in order to be sustainable in a club environment.
to me the most importantthing is the sounds [timbre re: our previous posts] - since your sound pallette is really similar to the stuff i play anyway i think a t.m. club mix would go down well.

- p.d. (guest) 1-26-2007 7:00 pm

ls here's the best babelfish can do:

1. 140 golpes por el minuto
2. golpean los tambores con el pie traídos para arriba en la percusión de la mezcla
3. - haga pivotar hola los sombreros y el perc misceláneo un pedacito [ casa ] O pélelos preferiblemente fuera de las trampas y de algunas de los tambores del retroceso que no son encendido el golpe 1 y ponga un snare/clap masivo en el golpe tres [ grime ].
4. tenga solamente 2 "parte" ese interruptor hacia adelante y hacia atrás cada 16 barras

you've got 24 hours to get the whataburger video on youtube starting now :)


- p.s. (guest) 1-26-2007 7:05 pm

Muchas gracias, p.s.
p.d., it wouldn't be that easy for me. I could make all the substitutions but to get the balance of the track right I'd need to be playing it over and over near 0 dB. I don't know how the "pros" can stand it.
I'm glad to hear my pallette is within range!
- tom moody 1-26-2007 9:02 pm

hah just realized i signed that last one p.s. :)
gotcha on the balance thing. i've got these akg k500 headphones that i can recommend. they're supposed to be audiophile classical music headphones but i use them to mix...they sit well off my ears - comfy for long-term listening, good balance and they dont blow your brains out because of the extra distance.
www.audioreview.com/PRD_117745_2750crx.aspx
ok so i'm gonna do a remix or two then tonight of some of the stuff you've posted, see how it goes
- p.d. (guest) 1-26-2007 10:02 pm

Great, I'll be curious to hear it.
If it would help I could post .wavs of individual tracks in the mix (synth only, etc.)
Making the drum substitutions you mentioned would be easier than increasing the bpm (for me anyway). A lot of this is audio that I record as I go, a loop or track at a time, that would have to be timestretched or Rex'd to speed it up.
- tom moody 1-26-2007 10:24 pm

first attempt:
http://www.beigerecords.com/paul/moody1.mp3
tom i was imagining you pointing your gunfinger at all wack new media artists. did it come across?
- p.d. (guest) 1-27-2007 5:27 am

This is great. It makes my track feel dainty by comparison--like a Victorian carriage getting thrown off the road by the Truckosaurus.
I like the gunshot.
I'm not sure I could/would do a piece this intense and ghetto-tech. But I'm open to any dancefloor variations you want to try.
Did you speed up the original song in its entirety or did you break it into chunks and then speed up the chunks?
- tom moody 1-27-2007 8:14 am

yeah thx i think it came out pretty good. used the second method...i selected the bits i wanted, cut it into chunks and then sped them up...basically to save memory because my pc is really slow.
i'll do another one this weekend, for the future if you'd want to do your idea and bounce versions that are just the synths or have the kick drums stripped out it might give me more flexibility but in this case it didn't matter.

also will you mc? that would be really cool.

dont see a whatabuger video anywhere around here... :(
- p.d. (guest) 1-27-2007 2:35 pm

Let me know which tunes might work for you and I'll see how they could be broken down. Generally the ones using the Electribe (like Song 10) will be harder to separate into tracks since the sequencer is playing everything "live" and I record the whole thing as audio and then EQ. Others have specific drum tracks than can be removed. I may not have mentioned that the "synth" parts on those Electribe songs are drum sounds that have been modulated into weird pitches and then played as one or two note melodies. The set theory possibilities are pretty limited with that gear (harmonically anyway) but the textures can get interesting.
- tom moody 1-27-2007 9:28 pm

the other one i downloaded to have a go with was "two note lead", can you see if you've got separated tracks for that one?? not worried tho...since you're recording so much stuff in live at once i'd be loathe for you to change your process in order to have separated audio tracks and i did ok withthe full mix of song 10 anyway.

instead of set theory you coudl also go catchier...like just stick to [1] harmonic minor scale. again this is club aesthetics ONLY, cos your melodies are holding a middle groud in the sense that they're usually too weird to be catchy in 2 bars, but not weird enough [in 2 bars] to make an audience think "wow thats fucked up". they work perfectly for listening when you've got time to sit back and watch everything unfold but they don't have the functional immediacy i can use on the danceflo'. thats why song10 worked it had lots of cool soundsand textures and good rhythms, but not much harmonic content to negotiate and i could put in a bassline without worrying.

and again, i beg of you, please please spit some lyrics too
- p.d. (guest) 1-28-2007 4:05 am

Yeah, "Two Note Lead" is all pretty much one take, sorry.
It's 114 bpm if that helps. Do you want the .wav?
And sorry about no vocals--I don't even own a mic.
I did one song with a vocal sample--the word "Hey!" that I saved off the Grimetime website and slowed down.
I'll think about the melody thing.
- tom moody 1-28-2007 4:38 am

thats no excuse moody, just rap through your headphones

i'll be ok with the mp3 as is, will have time to play with it tomorrow
- p.d. (guest) 1-28-2007 4:49 am

attempt #2:
http://www.beigerecords.com/paul/moody2.mp3

also noticed a cool thing about your blog: yesterday when i checked the beigerecords.com web stats there were 21 downloads of moody1.mp3, and also [amazingly] exactly 21 attempts to look in my beigerecords.com/paul/ home directory as well :)


- p.d. (guest) 1-29-2007 4:35 am

Yeah, we don't mess around here.
This is very nice--I like that it keeps the air of menace, and the baleful Trans Europe Express train whistle is a great touch. I think I know that plink from somewhere...?
- tom moody 1-29-2007 10:40 am

both the whistle sound and the plink sound are from the drums being sent to a "frequency shifter" effect.
ok hows about i send you a microphone for your vocals then?? gonna keep on you about vox cos if we ever decided to, say...oh i dunno put out a 7" or something...i think we'd need them.

- p.d. (guest) 1-29-2007 2:29 pm