Diary of a sex romp (part 1)

OK, as described in my last post, I've written my sex romp tune. So, for giggles I'll keep a running diary of the tune from conception to demo recording (which if I can remain focused should hopefully be before I leave for vacation next week; at least everything except for the vocals since I'll need to find someone to sing it.)

Now, although it will frequently be referred to as a sex romp tune, that doen't necessarily make it so. I just think it's funny. It's a song about women. In fact it's called "Woman". As mentioned in the last post, it's my attempt at something different, my perception of what a stoner/desert rock tune would sound like (from the few bands I've heard that describe themselves as such.) I'm probably nowhere even close, but whatever.

Anyway, enough preface, on with the diary.

Sunday night the music and about half the lyrics were written. It went incredibly fast; we're talking in the span of about an hour, maybe less. This is pretty notable as I've had lyrics take me months to write before. However, in this case, it was a case of having the verse music written and the lyrics basically flowed by what fit rhythnmically. The chorus is basic a souped up version of the verse. The solo section is the chorus music in a different key. Modulation is fun when done right.

That was Sunday night.

Last night I sat down and tightened up the arrangement. Basically that's when you decide: OK the verse goes here and is played for this long. Next is the chorus. Here's the transition back to the verse. Solo. Chorus. Outro. Into. All these things get decided in the arrangement, although nothing is set in stone, as it can always change in the recording process.

But for now, I have the arrangement I plan to work with.

The next part was harder. The drum part I have in my head for it isn't a typical beat. Now, I have about a metric ton of drum loops on my computer to work with, but the question I had to ask myself was: Do I want to just use something that I could play over but wasn't exactly what I wanted, or should I take the time to see if I could put together the drum track I wanted, one that was closer to what I pictured in my head?

There's a couple of problems with the loops I have. They sound excellent, and there's a lot to choose from, however because there are a lot, it takes a while to search through them to find what you want. It can be an exhausting process. With one of the first tunes I recorded a demo for, probably about a year ago, I spent a good three hours just listening to drum loops. It's murder on the ears and a great way to give yourself a headache. I have a better idea where to look for stuff now, but even still it takes a while. However, if you can find stuff that fits better (as opposed to taking a straight beat that, while it fits, isn't fitting), then you'll be happier with the end result.

With that in mind, I ended up deciding to try and build the drum track I wanted. Or at least as close to it as I could with what I have. I imagine it wouldn't be perfectly right without an actual drummer playing it, because although I do have a lot of loops available, my options are limited. And if I don't have the right fill, or beat, then I don't have it.

Luckily, I picked the right folder pretty much right off the bat. Hard 90. Which means they are "hard" drum loops, as in hard rock, and are at 90 BPM. Luckily, that was close to the tempo I wanted. A great feature of Nuendo (the recording software) is the Time Stretch option. Which means, you acn take a drum loop that is close to the tempo you want and either lengthen (stretch) it or shorten (compress) it to get the tempo you want. You can only do it within reason or the signal degrades to a point where it's unusable, but if it's close to begin with, you have a good amount of leeway.

First thing I tried to do was to see if I could get two cymbal hits closer together than what the loops provided. This would/will involve modifying the .WAV files, which I've never done before. I messed around with this for a few minutes, long enough to determine that it should be possible, before I decided that this was the wrong way to start.

Instead, I grabbed the loop for a hi-hat hit, which is exactly that: one hi-hat hit and used that as my first drum track. The hi-hat is going to be featured prominently on the sex romp, so it made more sense to start with this. Also, because of the nature of the drum part, I'm going to have to try another first: separating the drum loops/parts into different tracks. The hi-hat has it's own track throughout the song, and there will be at least one (and possibly more) separate drum tracks.

After getting the tempo set with the Time Stretch, the next step is to arrange the hi-hat part. Essentially that just means put in as many hi-hat hits as the song needs. The song ended up being about 3:37, so that roughly equals out to.....carry the 3.....divide by pi.....multiply by the circumference of Sally Struthers.....well let's just say a lot of hi-hat hits. It's mainly just trial and error. I copied and pasted about 3 minutes worth of hi-hats (at this point they also act as a handy click track) and played the song over it. When the hi-hats ran out, I figured out where in the song I was, how much I had left, and added more.

So, now the hi-hat track is done, right? Wrong. I was done for the night, but there is at least two more steps to that one track. There are two separate hi-hat sounds in the Hard 90 folder. A more "closed" hat and a slightly more "open" hat. I used all closed hat to set up the track and the length. However, the chorus is more rocking, so I'm going to want to use the dynamic of the more open hat for that part. The next step will be to grab that sound file and replace the hi-hat hits that fall in the choruses. After that, I'll need to Normalize the entire track which in the simplest terms "makes everything louder". Those will be my next steps, hopefully tonight.