This one was fun. Today’s challenge was “Pachebel’s Canon”. You more than likely know the song as it’s played at just about every wedding these days, or least a good number of them. So, the obvious question to this version would be: what would be different?
As you can tell, I took some leeway with the music. The key melody is there, the famous deedley-dee-stringed-opening, though played with a Russian Balalaika.
Why a Russian Balalaika?
Because that’s what Logic Pro came with.
I knew I was never going to replicate the music on my own nor did I stand a chance of making any sort of go at creating an original variation on it within the time I’ve given myself. So, instead of trying to mimic, I knew I was going to search out a MIDI version and then play around with that.
Originally I was going to do the most obvious thing I could think of: make a heavy metal version of the song complete with pummelling double kick drum work. But that started to get complicated when I realized I would have to finesse all the starts and stops. In other words, although it be cool, it would still take a bit of time to construct the necessary pauses and accents that would separate “this is a double kick drum to Pachebel’s Canon” from “this is a very heavy version of Pachebel’s Canon and those drums are sweet.”
Besides, there are far better versions out there (just search YouTube) and any attempt at making a metal version of Pachebel’s Canon would seem vain at best.
So, I had to find something different.
I eventually found a few different MIDI files online, in addition to various PDFs or sheet music and audio files of the track. The one I settled with was from http://www.kunstderfuge.com/pachelbel.htm. I selected the full versions (with no Gigue) which, as far as I can see, was arranged by Denes Agay.
This version gave me eight tracks to play with and, had I left it as is, it would’ve sounded alright on its own.
But I wanted to add some drums. After all, it’s just a MIDI file, I could select whatever I wanted and see if it worked. But where to put the drums? And if I put in drums, would I need to put any guitar in? That would make sense.
I tried out two guitar tracks, the British Combo Synth Lead and the British Stack Synth Lead, both of which complemented each other, covered the melodic basis, and would most likely fit the drums.
But, what sort of drums would I put in? Would I create my own beat or simply select one of the MIDI tracks and make that the drum beat?
Turns out, playing random drums to Pachebel’s Canon can be quite interesting, but some kits were creating artefacts (I imagine because the notes were technically too low in scale so they distorted when played as drum triggers, but I’m not entirely sure) so I had to try out a few of them. I started with the Smash+ and the Heavy+ kits, both of which gave me a lot of cymbals smashes and some drums but, as I listened there became a problem.
Part of the problem was that the bass drops out in parts of the track. That’s because the entirety of these eight tracks were meant to be played together in a complementary fashion so one instrument’s “voice” and another instrument’s “voice” would create a seamless transition in sound. But I was using “voices” of a different octave so they would often break away from that unison.
I knew there had to be some high pitched sounds (strings such as violins or guitars), some bass (upright seemed the best choice), and the piano seemed like a good melodic base to run through the entire track. But, for the drums, the kits that Logic Pro provides (as with quite a few of the guitars), weren’t really filling the necessary spaces, especially since I was just using the MIDI file as if rather than modify it to be drum-specific. So that lead me to use the Speakeasy+ kit and a European Folk Kit.
In the end, I settled for the following instrument choices:
Each instrument came with its own pre-set plugins and effects and I didn’t touch those:
So this track was more of a practice with MIDI and sound samples in Logic Pro. The overall theme of the Canon remains noticeable throughout but the soundscape is a touch different. No doubt some might not like the mixture of instruments I put together but I think they work well together and, in a more philosophical way, speak to my travels around the world! (But really, it was because these instruments were available and I had a deadline and they worked the best given what I know about how to manipulate MIDI notes at the time being.) Either way, I’m happy enough with the result and consider this challenge to be completed!