A Little Lite but Really Tasty!

Song Title: 116th Street Junk Food

Recorded On: GarageBand

Instruments: (In Order of Appearance)
                    Funky Latin Drums 09 (GB Preset)
                    Cool Upright Bass 01
                    Upright Funk Bass 01
                    Simple Cabasa 01
                    80's Dance Bass Synth 09
                    Chordal Synth Patter 08
                    Funky Electric Guitar 02
                    Club Dance Beat 006
                    Exotic Beat 06
                    Funky Latin Drums 01
                    Percussion Combo 07
                    Motown Drummer 02
                    Conga Drummer 02 (All GB Preset Loops)

Uploaded to SoundCloud: May 24, 2013

Statistics: 12 Plays (4 US/4 Japan/2 UK/2 Germany/2 Viet Nam/2 Netherlands/ 2 Spain)
                2 Downloads (1 US/1 France)
                2 Comments (1 US/1 UK)
                2 'Favorites' (1 UK/1 Canada)

You can listen to "116th Street Junk Food" here: https://soundcloud.com/c-l-neal/116th-street-junk-food.

Again, this was a pretty simple piece. I simply dove into the loops that come with GarageBand and went crazy. As so often happens, I was trying to do something else and was getting nowhere. I was completely frustrated working in Ableton and went back to GarageBand briefly to just snap something off and remind myself that I really can write songs.

Burch, who has kind of been my mentor and often been my sounding-board since I started writing EDM, has told me many times  that I need to get rid of all the loops on my computer. I will agree with him while we're talking but then not do it. Why? Because I'm supposed to be having fun. Come on! And if I'm trying to master something and getting nowhere, why not work with a few loops and put something out?

No good reason, that's why!

Anyway, I've told him that I know the loops are really like junk food. They can be really tasty but have no nutritional value. But I've also said before that there is an art and a science to working with loops. If you do it right, you can come up with something pretty cool.

In fact, several people have agreed with me about this one. One of the comments came from a grumpy English guy who I would have sworn was not listening to my stuff (he's also a musician and his style is completely different than mine.) And he likes it! So if that's not affirmation, I don't know what is.

And the fact that anybody at all is listening to this song in Viet Nam also means that I'm doing something right. I would love to be big all over the world!

So Burch, I luv yer but dude you gotta lighten up a bit on this.

And anyone else who thinks that loops make for sucky or lightweight music?

Bite me!

ShankThr33 - It's In The Genes~

Copyright (c) 2013 Christopher Neal

It's a Big Messy World After All!

Song Title: Big Messy World

Recorded On: GarageBand

Instruments: (In Order of Appearance)
                    Darksitar80b_d (Downloaded from Platinumloops)
                    Indi120_c (Tabla loop downloaded from Platinumloops)
                    Indyfolk120r_g (Mandolin loop downloaded from Platinumloops)
                    Alternative Rock Bass 03
                    Alternative Rock Bass 04 (GarageBand loops)
                    Distance (Loop)
                    KSK Vox Fx (Loop)
                    Club Dance Beat 002
                    Electronic Drum Beat 02 (GarageBand loops)
                    KSK Risa 002 (Loop)

Uploaded to SoundCloud: May 24, 2013

Stats: 6 Plays (United States)
         2 Downloads (1 US/1 Portugal)
         1 'Favorite' (Canada)

You can listen to "Big Messy World" here: https://soundcloud.com/c-l-neal/big-messy-world.

I love EDM but sometimes it just takes it out of me. I had been trying to learn "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" (which I still haven't completely learned) while at the same time trying to learn how to do a four-on-the-floor beat. Trying to learn two such completely different things, even though one is a whole lot easier than the other, is hard. I just got drained. So I turned to my crutch in order to do something fun. And really, isn't this supposed to be fun?

I had downloaded a bunch of sitar and tabla loops. I have for a long time been wanting to do a real kickin' World beat. I went through them, looking for something that I could build a decent trance beat with but not finding anything that quite did it. But I found a few sounds that I hadn't remembered downloading (the KSK Vox and KSK Risa loops) and thinking I would like to do something with them. I'm on a lot of loop websites and I haven't kept proper track of them. Sorry!

This is not one of my great pieces, but I had a lot of fun. Burch likes to roll his eyes when he hears I'm working with loops again but what I always want to say at that point is, "Bite me." I was drained from trying to master things that weren't working and needed a little fun. And like I said before, isn't this supposed to be fun?

So enjoy it in the spirit in which it is offered.

Peace out and catch you later...

ShankThr33 - It's In The Genes!

Copyright (c) 2013 Christopher Neal

Next Stop, Fourth Floor!

Song Title: Fourth Floor Rehearsal Space

Recorded On: Ableton Live 9

Instruments: (In Order Of Appearance)
                    DrumSynth Kick
                    Hi Hat Open
                    Snare Electro
                    DrumSynth Clap
                    Buster Synth Lead
                    Horny Morning (This is an audio effect and no, I didn't name it.)
                    80's Wavepad Pad
                    Bright Pad Filter Sweep

Uploaded to SoundCloud: May 29, 2013

Stats to Date: 2 Plays (United States)
                      2 Downloads (1 US/1 Portugal)

You can listen to "Fourth Floor Rehearsal Space" here: https://soundcloud.com/c-l-neal/fourth-floor-rehearsal-space.

This was the second piece I tried to write and the first I wrote successfully using a "four-on-the-floor" rhythm. I'd never done it before so to learn how I went looking for help. Other producers had told me this before and I'm here to testify, Youtube is your friend. Now, I'd gotten the idea that most people associate house beat four-on-the-floor with 130 bpm. How true that is, I don't know, but the video I watched that showed me how to do it, the guy who made it wrote in 123 bpm. So that's what I wrote this song in. And I tried writing just the drum part in 123 and then speeding it up, but it just didn't sound  right, so it stayed at 123.

I played it for Burch and he said, "Good four-on-the-floor." I'll take it where I can get it. At least it told me that I wasn't wasting my time learning how to do this stuff.

Being an EDM producer is hard. You're a one-man show (or one-woman show, depending.) I love to jam with other people and feed off their energy and ideas. Usually they are also better musicians than I am so I learn by watching what they do and listening to how they do it. It's not like that as a producer. I'm sitting in my bedroom all by myself and hoping that someone other than me likes the ideas I'm committing to the internet. If I get frustrated with something, there's no one there to say, "Hey, you can do it," and encourage you to keep going. The upside is that there's also no big, egotistical jerk trying to front the band and telling you how bad you suck, whether you do or not. And I've always been one of those people who is never quite sure when they've done something good. I wrote a book once that I thought was brilliant. My wife and kids read it and politely decided not to tell me how terrible it was. Then I wrote a poem that I almost threw away. Two days later my wife backs me up against a wall yelling at me for more of that. So I usually need someone else to tell me, not that I'm great no matter what but whether what I'm doing has any value at all. Cuz everyone sucks sometimes. I don't care if your preferred style of musician is Deadmau5, Prince, John Lennon or Beethoven, none of them produced all winners. But it's always nice to hear that you're doing it right.

Let me know what you think!

Peace out and catch you later...

ShankThr33 - It's In The Genes!

Copyright (c) 2013 Christopher Neal

Harlem Digital Nocturnal, a beautiful place to be

Title: Harlem Digital Nocturnal

Recorded on: GarageBand

Instruments: Ambient Beat 01
                    80's Pop Beat 09
                    Lunar Strings
                    Nylon Shimmer
                    Motown Drummer 06
                    80's Dance Bass Synth 04
                    Deep Round Synth Bass
                    Deep Electric Piano 04

Now we come to the song that was my first "favorite song" and is still the second most popular song I've done. On SoundCloud it's received 21 plays in approximately 2 months and has been played by people in the US but also people in Canada, Turkey, Brazil, Indonesia and the Asia Pacific Rim. Fantastic!

I wanted to write a piece of mood music and something that would kind of fit onto maybe some 1970's blaxploitation style movie. Something kind of soundtrack-y at any right, whether for a movie or for a video game. Something you could listen to and kind of see the action as it went along.

Kind of is what I got. The song itself is pretty good, in fact until recently I would say it was the best I've ever done and undeniable proof that I do, for real, have talent. It was also, in some ways, a lucky accident. Most of the stuff I've done on GB shows how new I am at this. Even when I started getting the writing together under my Three Rules, there would still be glitches or gaps. This one didn't have anything like that. It came out pretty close to perfect as-is. In fact, when I played it for Burch he told me that he couldn't believe this came out of GarageBand.

What can I say?

A-Mac also really liked it, so I decided to go out on a limb. Of all the songs I have on SoundCloud right now, this is the only one not available for download there. I went ahead and posted it to Beatport. It promptly got lost there, the only way I can find it is to log onto my account. But it's up there, waiting for the day when some clever DJ will discover it and pay me 9.99 to download and tear it apart for beats.

Part of the reason, I think, is because it has sucky artwork. But artwork is a subject for a different posting.

You can listen to it here: https://soundcloud.com/c-l-neal/harlem-digital-nocturnal.

I tried to find orchestral sounds but had little luck. Some of the bass presets I was actually able to utilize better by lowering the octaves on my controller (I have an Alesis QX25 controller. It has 25 keys so I can't do too much two-handed stuff, and if I want to play low I have to lower the octaves manually. I want the Ableton Push and a Korg midi controller so bad!) And also by raising the octaves on the "Deep Electric Piano 04" preset, I was able to get the piano sound to somewhat mimic a glockenspiel (Burch thought that it was that sound.)

I started with long, slow, bass-heavy chords and went back and added the drums in later. Then, when I had the rhythm down and the groove was really set, I added in the texture bits. This is the song that more than any other showed me how to find the groove. "Lost In The Big House" would be the opposite end of the spectrum. But everything really clicked on this. And I had been listening to it on a pair of cheesy headphones. After I finished it and took it to Burch, who has access to a decent studio, he popped the disc into that Mac and when I heard it through some good studio monitors, wow! I blew myself away!

It got the name "Harlem Digital Nocturnal" because, and don't ask me why, when I listen to it I often hear the opening strains of Earle Hagen and Dick Rogers' "Harlem Nocturne." So I wanted to pay homage to that in the title.

Anyway, thank you very much to everyone who has enjoyed it so far, and if you haven't heard it yet, you are in for a treat even if I do say so myself!

Peace out and catch you later...

Yes, I Want To Eat Some Cake!

Title: Eat Some Cake

Recorded on: GarageBand

Instruments: Clean Electric (guitar sound)
                     70s Ballad Drums
                     Rock Kit
                     Upright Jazz Bass
                     Trumpet Section
                     Fingerstyle Electric Bass
                     Angelic Organ
                     Megaphone (for primary vocals)
                     Male Basic (for other vocals)

Once again, the instruments are all presets in GarageBand.

As I struggle to learn Ableton and therefor am not writing any of my new ideas down, I go back and revisit some of my older stuff. This one was deliberately written as a single and although I don't think it would sell well (and SoundCloud apparently agrees because in the month or so that it's been out it's only had 17 plays,) it's still fun. It was written as a tribute to the band Cake and I sometimes wonder what John McCrea and the boys would think if they heard it. Hopefully they would take it in the spirit which it was written in.

I'll be the first to admit that this song owes a lot to "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" even though that's not my favorite Cake song. Right down to the reference line to wanting a woman who is "sharp as a tack." I was trying to write an original song but I was listening to the "Comfort Eagle" disc a lot and also writing about my recently deceased wife. So there you go. In a way, this is the grown up version of "Short Skirt," being about what kind of woman I would want for a long-term relationship, unlike the twenty-something fantasies of Cake's song.

I went with an entire trumpet section instead of trying to emulate Vince DiFiore's single, clear trumpet because, well, I'm just not  that good yet as a producer or a keyboard player. And besides, for all the great things you can do on GarageBand, the truth is that a lot of their sounds suck. The loops tend to be good but the presets all by themselves can be really tinny, or sound canned.

I used the Megaphone preset for the primary vocals because it was the best way I could find to mimic John's monotone, disaffected vocals. I don't know how he does that. I'm not a singer (I don't actually sing on this song,) so I tried to fake it as best I could.

I played this song for Burch and he laughed out loud. It's good that someone got the joke, at least it means that I did what I set out to do. It's always a good feeling when someone reacts positively to your stuff!

I posted this one a while back, you can listen to it here:https://soundcloud.com/c-l-neal/eat-some-cake
. I hope you enjoy it!

Peace out, catch you later...