Listen to Contemplations
or download Contemplations.mp3 (5mb)
This song came out of a few things coming together...
- I wanted to do some palm muted guitar because I'd just started fiddling around with that technique, and I had a chord progression that I'd just come up with in the past few days, so I put them together.
- I wanted to try a bunch of VSTs (virtual instruments), using my new and beloved Novation SL37 ReMOTE controller keyboard. Amongst these were a Commodore 64 sounding bleepy bloipy thing, and some strings that I wanted to use.
- The saxophone came out of nowhere! That's a lie. My mum used to listen to a Kenny G tape on repeat in the car, for many years. I think he crept into my brain.
I recorded everything into the computer direct. No mics or amps!
I put the 606 drum machine through a Vox Amplug AC30.
Then I played in the guitar (on Blue Meanie, a Teisco SG copy), also through the amplug. The whole concept of the song was made up on the guitar, and I was using palm muting for the first time. It's got that Ratatat sound, with layered palm muted guitars.
Then I got to work with the Novation ReMOTE, just opening up various VSTs and seeing how they sound in the song, and recording those that worked best. I'm trying a whole bunch of free ones. There's some gold out there.
These are the ones I used in the song:
- DVS Saxophone for the sax.
- Basic64 for the chippy Commodore 64 sounds.
- Abakos for the big bassy sound in the choruses.
- Matnitron Strings for the background strings sounds. Nice and simple, and sounds fairly realistic.
