You know how, when you see a gorgeous girl across a room and you actually (and uncharacteristically) think of something to say to her that she finds funny? So you talk for a few minutes, just long enough to build the nerve to ask for her number and she gives it to you enthusiastically? Then you try to leave since all you can do at this point is screw things up by saying something stupid but she asks you to stay and she spills a drink on her boob but since she’s wearing a black sweater it doesn’t stain and you realize that you now have a one dumb move buffer to protect you so you talk a bit longer?

When you try to leave again she suggests going to this gay bar nearby where her friend bartends and so you agree intrigued by the prospect that a girl that looks like that could be so into you so you agree? She suggests you follow her in your car, so you do and a few moments later you’re following her down this dark side street lined with dark warehouses and not a bar in sight and you start to remember those stories about gorgeous girls who pick up a guy and lure him into a secluded spot where a bunch of guys are waiting to beat the shit out of him, take his wallet, his car and possibly his kidney leaving him in a bathtub full of ice? Then her car comes to a stop at the dead end and she gets out carrying a gun, you are sure, but it turns out she’s empty handed and she just giggles that she turned down the wrong street? In relief you follow her down the next street which is also dark and lined with dark warehouses but at the end of this one there actually is a small bar?

So you go in and sit at the bar and she introduces you to her bartender friend and you continue talking and somehow you seem to be leaving the impression that you’re endlessly fascinating and funny so you start to wonder if she’s just been release from jail, or a nunnery or some other cloistered situation? Then you excuse yourself to go to the bathroom but just a few seconds after you lock the door she knocks on it! And you’re like WTF!? Where is this going? Maybe she’s some kind of kinky freak? You don’t want to have sex in a public bathroom in a gay bar but you have to find out if that’s what’s going on and you open the door to find out it’s not her at all but some other random bar guy and you have to excuse yourself explaining that you’re not done and leaving him wondering why you’d stop in the middle to answer the door? Meanwhile, instead of trying to have sex with you in the bathroom, she’s getting the “gay man’s opinion” on her new catch because, as she explains later, gay men are the most critical of other men but that you passed with flying colors?

Finally it’s getting late and you really have to go so she offers to walk you out to the car and when you go in for a goodnight kiss she attacks you, practically crawling into your clothes with you, and you make out in the parking lot against the brick wall of the bar while everyone inside of the bar watches your shadows, lit by the streetlights, against the frosted glass windows until, finally, the gay bartender friend comes out to tell you that the bar is closing and could someone come in and pay the bill?

You know, those kinds of dates? Well, I think such a date could have sound track like this.

It’s a two minute hard rock version of the dating game theme into which I crammed as many notes and as my little fingers would allow. I wonder though, what does it say that I did the theme song to dating show as a short guitar wank-fest?

Oh yeah, I added lyrics to it as well. Here they are:

oooh!

This was recorded entirely in Sonar. There are three guitar tracks all recorded through a PODxt Live. I’m particularly proud of the drums though. Not being a drummer I can’t be sure the drum part is even playable. It started mostly from loops that I extensively tweaked, sliced and diced. It’s kind of crazy but I think it works well. There’s also a midi bass part that I played on my m-audio radium 49 at a much reduced speed and then sped up to the 180bpm of this tune.

I hope you like it but I doubt you’ll like it as much as I did. That’s the thing about a wank-fest!

Happy Listening: The Dating Game

I almost missed September! But here I am with hours to spare.

This piece was built around a vocal sample that I’ve had for so long I forgot where it came from but I really like it. Unfortunately it’s in a foreign language and I don’t know what it says. I don’t even know what the language is, but it sounds like something from the middle east.

As a consequence, I had to come up with a title that could possibly be completely inappropriate given what the singer is actually saying. To me the piece sounds like it could be the soundtrack to something that pops into your head while you’re not quite awake but not quite conscious either. Hence the title.

But for all I know the lyric could be the punchline of a dirty joke sung in Farsi. If anyone knows the language and can fill me in… awesome!

This started off in cakewalk’s Project5 but when I decided to add guitars, I added Sonar. You can record audio in Project5 but it’s more difficult to work with because it can only use one audio device at a time. So I can’t use a firewire device to get audio into my computer while using the computer’s soundcard to hear the song as it plays, which is what I like to do.

So this song contains the vocal sample of forgotten origin, a couple of real guitar tracks through a digitech GXN3 and midi programmed drums, percussion, string bass and violins.

Happy Listening! An Aesthetic Twilight

This is an instrumental cover of the Led Zeppelin Hit. I tried to modernize it a with a bit of an industrial accent.

It was recorded and mixed in Sonar, with Reason handling the synths and percussion. The only real instruments are the guitars of which there are 3 tracks worth. Although the guitars are real, they were recorded through amp and cabinet simulation.

The song was a lot of fun to do. I’m a huge Zeppelin fan and I like doing covers so they can be re-spun and possibly viewed from different angles.

I’m particularly happy with this one.

Happy Listening: immigrant song.mp3

Is this piece too weird? It came out of some free form experimenting with a free VST plugin called Delay Lama. It’s one of the most unusual synths I’ve seen. It simulates the sound of a human voice reminiscent of Tuvan throat or overtone singing. You have control over the pitch, the size of the vocal tract and the vowel being sung.

Of course I had to automate it in completely inhuman ways to make it clearly still a machine (am I threatened?)

What makes the plugin so unusual is that it also visually represents the singer. As you manipulate the synth’s output an animated monk’s face follows right along. It’s fun to play with and watch during playback.

It works on both windows and mac and should work in any VST host although I hosted it in Sonar. I used propellerhead’s Reason, in rewire mode, to do the percussion. I think the percussion options in Reason exceed that of Sonar by a good deal.

So I ended up with with a short, world-music inspired bit of electronic music.

Happy Listening: newage-sewage.mp3

A sensitive piano solo about picking one’s nose perhaps?

I can’t play the piano so this piece came about from just noodling around with a midi controller (M-Audio Radium 49, no longer available). I recorded the midi results of my halting, uneven playing into Cakewalk Sonar and through the magic of midi editing, I was able to fix it up and make it sound like it was played somewhat competently.

It was then rendered through a piano patch in Sonar’s DS864 software sampler.

Happy listening: Just Out Of Reach

This song was inspired by the printing on the side of a grocery bag from an Asian grocery store.

Check it out:

The lyrics are taken entirely from the text on the bag. Also, for some reason I tried to make the piece sound a bit like a theme from a TV show (from the days when TV shows had songs that introduced them) so it’s short. Of course, due to my stunted imagination, most of my songs are short, so it’s not like I really needed to make excuses.

While being short is not rare, me singing *is* rare. Most of the singing is heavily processed so I felt OK doing it. All the spoken parts are NOT me. They’ve all been synthesized from various web sources all of which I’ve forgotten.

Other than my voice the only other real instrument is my guitars. Everything else was done on the computer.

Elephant Family was recorded entirely in Cakewalk Sonar. The guitar was recorded through a Digitech GNX2 processor.

Happy Listening: Elephant Family