Late but not missed! I’ll publish this one on Winnipeg time as I fell asleep last night and didn’t wake up until 11.30pm. At that point it was better to simply go back to bed and attack this one in the morning rather than try to force it through for a midnight deadline. Here it is:
Another very “simple” track but one that took a while to formulate. Since today’s challenge was 1-4-5, I naturally believed I should go with different time signatures. That is, 1/1 (which is possible as just one beat), then 4/4 and then 5/4. But I was having a time of it trying to make it work.
Initially I went to the Drummer function in Logic and tried to assemble something there, first using the drums and then trying to layer other parts on top. But it wasn’t working.
Not only was it not working, but I was unmotivated at the start and, after work, after having a beer, those things didn’t help. I also had no idea how to make this one work. Odd time signatures or something else?
So I slept on it and by the time I woke up, I knew what I could do.
In order to meet the deadline I had to simplify. I had originally thought of simply counting out the time signature but mostly as a basis for layering other instruments on top. But what if the counting was the main instrument?
And so that’s where I went with this track.
1
1 2 3 4
1 2 3 4 5
That’s it.
I then added off-note claps, then another later of double claps after each “verse”, and then some “emm’s” to give the track a bit of a melody.
The “emm’s” were a bit difficult to judge because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to have one melody or rhythm that repeated in one way or for them to be a bit more dynamic. After listening a few times I went for the more dynamic approach, which is why you can hear one “emm” after some verses but two after others.
Although I usually record everything in one go, for the “emm’s” I had to cut them up in post and move them around. I think it sounds better this way.
For post production work, I added the Expansion plugin to each track to kill room noise, but I used the “Crisp Up” setting for the main counting vocals and “High Expansion” for the others.
I then bussed each track to Aux 1 for some reverb, using the ChromaVerb Vocal Hall “Chamber” setting. For each I only sent a small amount, -35.6 on the main vocals, and -27.3 on the others.
Finally, for the main vocal counting, I put on the Multipressor with the “Strings” setting to give the track a bit of presence. It’s subtle but it sounded better with it on than without.
After all of the that, I panned the Off Count Claps and Double Claps to the left a little bit, and then the Emm’s to the right. I left the Basic Counting track in the centre. It worked better this way as the sounds didn’t clutter the centre too much.
I can say that, at this point of the Jamuary challenge, I’m finding myself running a bit dry of ideas easily coming to mind. I couldn’t imagine doing this every single day simply due to the creative output necessary. That being said, I have started formulating a list of challenges for next year and other ideas that I would like to try out.
I find I am running a bit stale in some ways, not just with sounds, but with the effects that I’m using. I find myself returning to the same effects time after time and wondering if I’m doing this right. I’m always using the Expansion plugin to kill room noise, I’m only adding slight bits of reverb and only slightly touching pan and volume knobs. It seems like everything is very slight rather than big glaring changes. I have looked at getting some other plugins but I’m at loss as to what they’d add given the type of work I’m doing.