Modblog

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, I should meet the RPM Challenge with room to spare. The challenge asks for 35 minutes worth of original music, and I’m already past that. I’m shooting for the full 70 or so minutes that make up a modern cd.
I’m using Band in a Box to compose things, for the most part, and then replacing some of the midi files with live instruments, edited piano rolls, loops, whatever seems to fit.
Right now I have an intro, space/classical/prog in nature, that’s @eight minutes long, and barring any additions from a potential collaborator is mixed, mastered, and ready to roll. Sonic Dave says it’s Genesis-esque and might try to layer some pads onto it.
The second track has some problems and is in the process of being reworked. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll make something else. I need it to be in a certain key and style to fit the general theme and can always do an Iommi-ish short guitar piece.
The third track is in the vein of my recent track Floydian Slip, using the same combination of instruments as that track. It needs a little more work and perhaps a new bass track, but I could let it go as is and that’d be okay. None of these three tracks have any more than a working title at present. Eight minutes long, more or less.
The slide guitar sequence from the third track leads directly into the track I worked out last night, called Arizona. The instrumental portions are done…I’m trying to fit some lyrics into it and will then do some vocals. It’s got a little bit of pedal steel that I synthesized from a couple of BiaB parts and a simple progression made of cowboy chords. It sounds more or less like an Eagles tune. It’s about six minutes.
After that I have a hard rock piece, with some loud electric guitars, a bit more uptempo than the rest. I’m not happy with it, though I need something of that nature for the dynamics, and may well write another one to fit. That’s also between five and six minutes long, and that’s thirty-five minutes right there, if I don’t go any further.
There’s likely to be a few more tracks before I get to the coda, which has some of the same chord progressions as the intro, though in a different key. That’s a ten-minute workout, with a lot of different instruments playing the same sequences for maximum tonal density. Has a nice lead part that I fashioned by sequencing a guitar line and then monkeying with the piano roll editor, and (I think) a good repeating progression, with some small variations.
I’m using some of my newer toys for these tracks…my Korg mini-midi keyboard, my Casio 61-key, and my Jay Turser hollowbody bass. The Ovation is the main axe as there are a lot of acoustic parts, and the Ibanez solidbody for leads. I haven’t been playing much these last few months, and my fingers are a little clumsier than I’d like-it’s taking multiple takes to get something decent.
So far so good, though. I’m pleased with the genre-hopping and the overall sound, am hoping to do more than one vocal track, maybe a cover, maybe one of my older tunes that hasn’t been recorded…and I’m practicing scales every night while everyone else is asleep, trying to have some semblance of dexterity.
Once the thing is done, I’ll go back to my “covers” album and get cracking on the rest of Children of the Atom, which I’ll have to re-do as a good portion of it is on a hard drive that I can’t access because my external enclosures both gave up the ghost (before I could get them backed up). Can’t afford new ones right now, and that’s the only loss besides some vsts, which can be replaced when I need them. Since I have 2 1/2 Tb of memory on this system, there’s no need.