Author: Thomas Marvel

More experimenting with robot voices…

It comes across a bit disjointed this one but I think it’s because I had too many ideas whilst making it and trying to gel them all together didn’t work out so well. The end product is interesting but Ms. Swift can rest easy because I don’t think this one is going to knock her off the charts anytime soon.

I apologize for the indulgent guitar solo but stick with it and I do something fruity with it towards the end. Although now I’m wondering if I went too far because upon repeated listening it’s more painful than pleasurable – you’ve been warned!

What better to layer over a simple rhythm track than slam on my cacophonic guitar. I finished the song by experimenting with the limiter – how far can you push the loudness before it distorts? Click below to find out – if you dare!

Bit of a short song this week but there’s no point belaboring the point. In contradiction to the title I didn’t use a snare drum in this track…it seemed a funny joke at the time.

I went a bit more conventional on this one with a verse/chorus structure and some lyrics. I tried the less is more approach and resisted the temptation to widdle all over it with my guitar (widdle is a technical term for “slide your fingers around the guitar fret-board until you think you’re playing in the right key”). I did capitulate to a splash of synth but it’s only a tiny bit! I wrote this song whilst waiting for a van that was to pick up a washing machine – oh the rock and roll lifestyle!

There was a storm here recently which gave me the opportunity to incorporate my own sample in to a track. I tried a ‘breakdown’ section in the middle of this track which sort of adds to the anticipation for the end with it’s escalating tempo. I fiddled about with compression to optimize the loudness of the track but now I’ve come away thinking I know nothing about compression. Well, better to realize you know nothing and that you have the opportunity to learn something than to know everything and have nothing to learn… I digress, here’s today’s track:

I learned about the Haas effect for this track. I always feel the vocals are the weakest part of my songs so I try to enhance them with some sonic wizardry. What else did I do? Oh, I tried to keep the vocals simple – the majority are only three notes but I still struggled to keep in tune. Maybe I should stick to instrumentals but words are quite effective at conveying a message…

I wanted to tell a story with this one, so that’s what I did. See if you can hear a snippet from an old TV show in the mix – I would have asked for permission to use the clip but Great Uncle Bulgaria is hard to track down these days…much like the dodo.

Yes, the title sounds like an awesome Depeche Mode song but unfortunately it sounds nothing like that classic tune. It does sound like, however, I’m still trying to merge my guitar with the electronic beats. I think I’m making progress…