Day 16: Difficult Drums

For the final day of my intensive, I kept on writing lyrics and lead guitar parts. I also am working on figuring out a drum trigger system for recording drums instead of programming them. Once this intensive wraps up, I plan to keep writing lyrics and instrumental parts until I end up with something I’m happy with.

Today, I kept working on “Lion God”. I finished the lyrics for now, but I think I might have to abridge them, because it seems a little bit wordy. I also continued working on the lead guitar sections… for the last chorus, I wrote a simple root-fifth melody that the lead guitar plays to add a little variation. I also wrote a small sextuplet lick to transition from the solo to the chorus, but I still need to practice much more to get it up to speed.

The other thing I worked on today is my drum recording setup. Drums are difficult to record because each drum must be recorded individually in a well-treated room. I do not have enough microphones or a good room to record in so, I need to find another way to actually record my drums. Enter triggers. Drum triggers are electronic hardware that essentially allow you to treat your acoustic drum kit as an electronic drum kit, which you can then use to play very high quality sounds from your computer while maintaining the timing and feel of a real drummer. However, drum triggers are not cheap either, so I am planning to build my own using piezoelectric sensors and a microcontroller, which will send serial MIDI data to my computer and trigger the same sounds in EZDrummer that I am using right now.

I don’t have any demos today because most of the stuff I was working on still needs some time before it can be recorded. However, I am overall very pleased with how this intensive went. I had to readjust my goals pretty starkly very early on, but I put a lot of work in and I got a lot out of it too. I feel like I’ve expanded my songwriting abilities and my creativity as well as brushed up on my technical abilities for drums, bass, and guitar. My plan is to spend several weeks this summer continuing on leads, lyrics, and drums until I have a demo that I am semi-happy with. After that, I plan to take a short break, and then critique it and continue iterating in that fashion until I have compositions I’m happy with. Then, I will record, mix, master, and release the album.

Day 15: Fills, Leads, and Lyrics

Before my intensive ends, I want to briefly work on adding drum fills, lyrics, and guitar leads to all of the songs on the album. To start off, I decided to work on “Lion God”– it’s one of my favorites off the album, and I think it’s one of the more original sounding songs. Additionally, it’s one of the songs I’m considering taking to mix next week because it has vocals, lead guitar, and clean guitar in addition to the normal rhythm guitar, drums, and bass.

I started working on the song today by adding drum fills. I find that having these fills in the song really helps transitions as well as breaking up the monotony. For a few places, I used common hi-tom to lo-tom rolls– not the most unique, but they’re loud, flashy, and they get the job done. In other places, I opted for fills with cymbals interspersed and syncopation and quick 32nd note bursts. These fills are definitely more attention grabbing, so I made sure to use them sparingly. On the guitar side of things, I started writing a solo over the clean build. I don’t want the section over the clean bit to be too fast or overwhelming, so I stuck to bends, legato, and long, sustained notes. I’m saving the crazier bits for the heavy section of the solo. Writing this solo made me realize I need a slower build into the solo, so I might add another iteration of the clean build riff to facilitate this.

Writing leads and drum fills is much more difficult and strenuous than writing rhythm parts, but I enjoy it because those are the parts of the song where you can show off technique at the same time as being musical and building something that differentiates it from the background. I hope to finish “Lion God” this weekend. I have most of the lyrics done and I’m working on the vocal melody. The solo needs about 12 more bars, which will be not too bad to fill as I have most of the clean section already mapped out in my mind.

Demos:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=16vP1AGwm7mmHpg-oQmVrDxDH5VxkwG-j

Day 14: Fifty Seven

Today, as the intensive is wrapping up, I finally finished writing the rhythm parts for my album! The demo recordings I’ve made total up to about 57 minutes– I’m really happy with the way it has turned out. With double tracked guitars and bass included, that means I have about three solid hours of playing guitar recorded! Although I didn’t get remotely close to having a fully composed, recorded, mixed, and mastered album, I got partially done with the first item on that list! Here’s how I finished up the rhythm parts for the last song.

For “Dr”, I knew I wanted to end with something flashy– a fade out guitar solo. I needed a riff that was melodic enough and somewhat chord based so that it provided some interesting harmony to solo over while itself being powerful, so I created something fast and syncopated that I think is pretty good! It’s a little fast and shreddy, but I think it will be able to stay out of the way enough for a solo with a large range both dynamically and tonally. To build to this riff, I also made a toned-down and muted version that foreshadows it as well as a groovier power chord riff that actually incorporates some major chords! Although it’s only three riffs, I believe that a simplistic background is often the best for something flashy like a fade out solo.

I’m really proud of the way everything has turned out with this intensive. Not only the specific song I finished today, which ended up being eleven minutes and still interesting (in my opinion), but the entire album has expanded my boundaries in the way I write songs and also my guitar playing technique. When I was writing riffs for these songs, I found myself picking sixteenth notes and triplets at tempos above and around 200 BPM– riffs I probably would have stumbled all over just a year ago. I also have noticed a big deviation from the typical verse-chorus song structure, which I am proud of because I find myself becoming less repetitive and much more original.

Demos:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1TlI_EN4XycI0XOhO1Af-VhAe8mpzF7Ve

Day 13: The Fastest

With the intensive period nearing its end, I am wrapping up the first stage of producing this album. I have twelve songs, ten of which will have vocals. The third song on the album, entitled “Dr”, is the longest song on the album, and probably the most story-oriented. Today I set out to finish writing the C section, which is the fastest section in all of the album with a BPM of 215.

I first expanded the brief riff I came up with yesterday by first writing a descending triplet lick that is extremely fast and intricate. I think it sounds really neat and really grabs your attention when it first plays. Following this, I wrote a more traditional death metal riff that is entirely sixteenth notes and incorporates some diminished scale and chromatic notes. Realizing that the transition between these two riffs was lacking, I came up with an eighth note riff that is fairly melodic and reminiscent of something by At The Gates. Finally, I wrote a small chorus riff to follow the fast riff and arranged all of these into a tight section that is pretty brutal and conveys the mood of the story at that point in time.

I’m excited to finally wrap up the rough draft of the rhythm parts tomorrow. I’ve added up the lengths of the songs and I have nearly an hour of recordings made! I’m really proud that in three weeks I’ve been able to accomplish so much– even though I am much further from my final goal than I hoped to be at this time, I am extremely grateful for everything I have learned. I feel as though I not only understand music better and am more proficient at my instruments, but I also have a better creative workflow and am a better and more distinctive songwriter.

Demos:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XeDQdS4pV80-1g7Hal1JEHteSTKn6dxI

Day 12: Long Gong Song

To start the final week of my songwriting, I am finishing the rhythm composition for the final song that needs rhythm parts, “Dr” (meaning both drive and doctor). As I finish the writing for these songs, I am also scheduling with a professor at Owen’s Community College to work in a mixing session for one or two of these songs so I can learn more about mixing from somebody with much more experience than me.

“Dr” will be the longest song on this album by far: I am hoping for it to be at least ten minutes long, but it definitely could end up being a few minutes longer. I intend for this song to have four sections: a heavy, fast section, a slow and brooding major section with fuzzy bass, an erratic section, and then a fast fade out with a solo. Today, I decided to finish the slow major section. I needed a “verse”, so I wrote a F# minor chord progression to fit between the E major sections. The bass is the lead instrument (other than the future vocals, of course), so I gave it plenty of room with some distant clean guitars and closed hi-hat drums. I also wrote a short transition to go from F# minor back to E major, which I also build on to exit the lighter section and go into the heavy section. I wrote the start of one riff in the heavy section, but I want to make sure the transitions in it are quick and surprising.

Overall I’m happy with the way the last song is going and also I’m happy that I will be working with somebody who mixes professionally. I know a little bit about mixing, but my knowledge pretty much ends at EQ, compression, and reverb. I know about bussing and how to set up a mix, but I really don’t know a whole lot about specific plugins or tricks that can make a great mix and I think my skills have a long way to go, which is why it’s a great idea for me to work under somebody who has those skills.

Demos:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=15cGCF5OzrUUkEJGp9NVRr1aTJF4b2xEW

Day 11: Cleans

After I got home from taking a test at school today, my plan was to work on a song I had briefly started on called “Lion God” (temporary title). I intend for this song to be a song that switches back and forth between clean and heavy sections, which is somewhat difficult to do if you want the transitions to be smooth. For this particular song, I took inspiration from Mastodon– big riffs with somewhat looser playing and some quirks.

All I had of this song from earlier was the main lead idea. To expand on this, I wrote a harmony, which serves as the chorus as well. Then, I devised a quasi-verse section: the progression Em – Em – C – Bm repeated twice, followed by G – Am/M7 – Bm – D, then the original progression again twice. I’m pretty happy with the guitar part for these chords because it builds tension in an interesting way off the bass part with 2nds and 7ths. After this and a chorus, it cuts to a clean solo. The second time around, it deviates from the intro to modulate to Bm. I think this modulation could use a little work or support, but I think overall it doesn’t seem too jarring. Then, I wrote a clean riff that will have a solo over it, which transitions into a heavy riff with the same progression: Bm – Bm – D – Em. This then modulates back to Em for a final chorus and verse. I think this transition definitely needs work, but I think that help will come in the form of the last bar of a guitar solo. Some quick arpeggios could help to pivot-modulate back.

I’m happy with the way this more complex/atypical song turned out. I’m glad that I put work into writing unique/interesting clean rhythm parts when it can be appealing to just strum the chords. It seems to take on a slightly jazzy yet clinical character, which I think suits the song very well. I’m also happy with the way the bass and the guitar interact, and I’m glad I could finally incorporate some actual hi-hat into the drum beats!

Demos:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1H7mAdx9VAB8NexLQcrl7zI2keq5tWUTH

Day 10: The Great Re-amp Experiment

With the second week of the intensive coming to a close, I’m hoping to quickly finish the remaining songs in my album to have a demo ready for intensive fair. This is my plan: write rhythm parts, leads, drum fills, and lyrics/vocals. Briefly mix/master as time permits. Then, listen to the entire thing over and generate a list of criticisms and fixes, both compositionally and sonically. I hope to reach this stage at the end of the intensive, so I can use the summertime to revise these songs until I reach a good place and then record with real drums and guitar amps.

Today, to get the project a little bit closer to this goal, I set out to finish “Hamartia”. Compositionally one of the most complex songs on the album, it doesn’t have any solos or lead parts. Instead, it has a huge variety of guitar parts and is very melodically driven in many places. To finish this song, I wrote a transition from the B section to A’, and finished the C section, which incorporates the tense chord riff from B. Finally, C ends with an ascending progression to the #7 chord, which then modulates from Bm to Em into the intro again.

Additionally, I did an experiment to determine the viability of re-amping with my current setup. Re-amping is the process in which guitar is recorded to the computer raw, in contrast to through an amp and microphone, and then the raw signal is sent out to be recorded through the amp at a later time. This has the advantage that you don’t have to deal with the volume of the amp or worry about microphone placement and other considerations when you are recording yourself playing guitar. To do this, I connected my amp’s input to my interface’s playback output, which is technically a bad connection electrically because the impedances don’t match. I definitely observed much more noise when plugged into the interface than when plugged into my guitar. I recorded a track with my guitar plugged straight into the amp and I recorded one track with my re-amp method. You can hear the results below. I think it was mostly a success, but I definitely do not want to deal with the noise. I think I will have to build my own dedicated hardware to make this more viable in terms of signal quality.

Here is the recording setup I used for the experiment. Each track has a distorted and a clean part. For the distorted part, I played the main riff of “Heartwork” by Carcass, and for the clean part, I played the chord progression for the middle section of “Master of Puppets” by Metallica.

I’m pretty pleased with the way “Hamartia” turned out and I’m also glad I experimented with my recording setup. When I go to make the final recordings of the album, I definitely want to use my amp because I really like the sound it makes and it is also more rewarding to use a physical amp instead of a simulator. It was a little strange to hear me playing guitar through my amp but not in real time! Anyway, tomorrow I have to take a test at school in the morning, but I hope to finish another song or substantially add to both of the remaining songs, both of which are going to be songs with clean and heavy sections.

Demos:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=163OWC8cpw9AZTnoxC77OE6wyOaQugrg3

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1QiDeBA1dB13KTq5JD9DujkAkD6Ud3L8U

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pOhnsK2E7Rq0iweUFlrcN35y39jPeMFt

Day 9: Intonation

Today I had to go to school in the morning in order to meet with some people, so I had to plan my day around that. To make the most effective use of my time, I worked on drum programming and lyrics at school. Then when I got home, I intonated my instruments and continued writing instrumentation for “Hamartia”.

When I worked on the drum programming at school, I was adding fills to existing drum parts. For those who don’t know, fills are essentially short breaks or deviations from the main drum beat/pattern that add variation and novelty to the song. They can also serve to make smoother transitions between sections of songs.

The lyrics I worked on were for “Hamartia”, which is essentially about somebody who is so consumed in a tiny imperfection with themselves that it consumes them and makes it difficult for them to cope with everyday life. This song is slightly more complex in structure– it goes Intro-A-B-A’-C-Intro. Each section marks development to the lyrical theme. I have ideas for A that I just need to trim down, so today I generated ideas for B, which is essentially about the difficulties the character faces.

Once I got home, I intonated my guitar and my bass. Intonation is essentially the process of making small adjustments to the length of each string so that the 12th fret matches the octave of the open string perfectly, putting each fret in the best position to be in tune to the open string and the other frets. When I did this on my bass, I found that the vibrating length of the strings were much longer than they should have been. For my guitar, it was the opposite. After correcting these problems, the instruments sound much better in tune with themselves, which is very important for when I go to record! Before and after pictures of the saddles (the pieces you adjust to intonate the instrument) are below.

After intonating, I decided to finish the day by working on “Hamartia” instrumentally. This song is one of my favorites because it is really melodic but also very heavy. I decided to finish writing the B section today, so I wrote a fast treble-y riff that transitions surprisingly well to the chord based chorus I already wrote, so I did away with the 1-bar transitions I wrote previously. After that, I came up with a palm-mute based riff that is loosely based on the verse riff but is very rhythmic and chromatic, so it essentially just provides a very rough texture before exiting the B section. This riff is one of the few riffs for this project that I have a great deal of difficulty playing! I haven’t recorded the complete version of it because the palm-mute pattern is very complex and tricky to time correctly.

I’m happy with the work I did today because I was able to get meaningful things accomplished outside of school as well as improve the quality of my recordings and continue building on my songs. Tomorrow, I want to expand on the B section of “Hamartia” with a A’ melody that incorporates ideas from B to transition back to A before I do the final C section.

Day 8: Instrumental

I am planning for my album to have two instrumentals. One of them, “Going Down”, I already wrote much earlier in the year and is essentially a short song to feature my bass playing. The other instrumental, which I am calling “Pantheon”, is designed to feature my guitar more with rhythm and lead. Additionally, I am trying to show off my composition and musical skills with this song, not just my technical skills. I previously wrote a major section with lead bass and a fade out portion with ninth chords. Today, my goal was to finish writing all of the rhythm parts for this song.

To begin with, I finished the second half of the song, which begins with a section in D major featuring bass in an upper register. It then transitions to D minor with more chord based riffs. It builds into a fast power chord passage, which I plan to solo over. After a brief pause, it goes into the fade out with the ninth chords, which introduces a lot of tension. When I go back to write leads, I might put some ambient guitar over this part.

As for the first half, I kept the tremolo riff I wrote earlier as the introduction, but I wrote a more chord based riff as an interlude. The first time, it goes B-C#-D-C#, which builds some tension but then goes back into the tremolo riff. The second time however, it repeats, and then goes D-E-F-E, which modulates the song to D minor as well as introducing a neat little drum/bass fill before going into a very heavy riff. The fast, heavy riff is followed by a slow yet heavy riff which allows the song just enough time to breathe before it transitions into the second half with the D major section. I plan to solo over the fast and slow riffs in D minor as well.

I’m happy that I wrote something in a key other than B minor! I’m proud of the variety that this track has already even without guitar leads and drum fills. Once I write leads and put in fills, I’m expecting this track to be one of the most interesting but also one of the heaviest on the album. I am hoping to go for something like “Ashes of the Wake (Instrumental)” by Lamb of God in terms of the solos, so I want to incorporate solos that play off of the rhythm parts very nicely but also take the music in a different direction with a unique style that modifies the sound.

Demos:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1eQ8y4RJzkuckLhx62vch26qEip0djlyP

Day 7: Heat Death and Observance

Continuing with my work for the weekend, I wanted to finish “Heat Death of the Universe” as well as finish the lyrics for “Mass”. For “Heat Death”, I wanted a fade out that was more powerful and unique. The one I had already written from yesterday just seemed too generic and not at all interesting, so I thought I should scrap that. Otherwise, I wanted to continue building on the parts I had already written.

For “Mass”, I finished the lyrics and decided on a final title of “Observance” because one of the themes in the song is the idea of becoming detached from life and seeing yourself in third person. All the people you see but don’t think about– what if you treated yourself as one of them?

And for “Heat Death”, I wrote a riff that I am really proud of that is in 4/4 for 3 measures and switches to 3/4 for a single measure each time around. In my opinion, this riff has a lot of groove and energy and it glues together its surroundings very well. To complement it, I wrote a more traditional death metal riff that I tremolo-picked for the verses. Interestingly, I thought the melodic riff was more interesting than a fade out, so I decided to cut that altogether, instead ending quickly. You can hear the arrangement below.

I’m happy with the flexibility I exercised when I decided not to include a fade out on the last song. It would have been easy for me to incorporate some generic-sounding descending progression to solo over, but I don’t think that would contribute something that hasn’t been done before. Instead, I opted to end on the high energy, almost Killswitch Engage-like riff I came up with. I know it isn’t what I wanted to do, but I saw my opportunity and I think the song is much better for taking it.

Demos:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1bbOTCA_KbowV1dehLbRs6CWM1w_XupVH