The Storm

A couple of weeks ago there was a storm. When I heard the first thunder, I was out in the garden, enjoying the sunshine. I set my phone to record, and sat in the shelter watching the rain.

The storm lasted just under half an hour, and I determined that I would use the recording on a tune. I’d intended to chop it into bits, and use them as intros and outros to a collection of tunes. Then I listened back to the storm, and decided instead to leave it in one piece, and just work around it with some synths.

I went through about 100 synths, playing around with notes, chords, arpeggiators, twiddly knobs, pedals, until I had about 15 that I either really liked, or thought would make interesting white noise, or that sounded like anything from Tron or Blade Runner.

I recorded random bits of melody, and odd chords, at various points throughout the storm, then gradually added bits in between. After some editing, which I found really methodical and soothing, I had something that was starting to sound coherent.

I will most likely end up adding more to it at some point, or playing about with the levels, but as a first draft, I think is ready.

I’ll warn you now though, it’s actually half an hour long, so, you know, I won’t be offended if it’s not for you.

P4

The Speed of Life

via IFTTT

P4810 - 50s Sci-Fi, 80s Mixtape

So here it is. I've been working on this for the past few months, with no clear objective in mind, other than I wanted to finish an album of original material, with the tools I had available to me. 

Everything was recorded in GarageBand, on iPhone 4S and iPhone 6, with some of the synths and beats being played in iKaossilator, which is a really good kaos pad app by Korg. All the guitars are real ones, recorded using an iRig plugged straight into the phone. Most of the guitars are done in one take, and for the most part improvised, which inevitably means there is the odd mistake here and there, but I wanted to capture the essence of the improvisational way that I play, rather than restrict myself to clearly defined parts, which I have a tendency to mess up anyway. 

The vocals were recorded (with varying success) using the mouthpiece on a set of standard iPhone headphones, and then mixed in GarageBand. The overall mix was also done in GarageBand, using the same headphones as monitors. As such, the mix may be a bit odd if you listen on speakers, but if you listen on headphones you'll probably get a better understanding of what I was going for. 

I chose not to restrict myself to any genre, and instead just recorded whatever I felt like doing at the time. Some of the electronica was driven by the fact that I find it the easiest style to do on my phone, and it's also an increasingly large percentage of what I listen to when I'm out and about, so its influence trickles inevitably in. 

I'm constantly learning with GarageBand, so I'm regularly finding new ways to do things, and new things to play with, which often influences the direction a tune will take. I think in terms of "what can I do with what I have?", rather than setting out to make something specific. So I'll start by choosing a tempo, a key, and a set of chords, and then after I've put down a basic beat as a guide, I'll play around within the parameters I've set. Once the first instrument is down, I think about what will work well with it, and will often record several completely different parts and then choose one that works better than the others. The spare tracks are then muted, and sometimes chopped down and re-used elsewhere. 

It's not a professionally produced, expertly mixed album, it's a collection of thoughts and feelings captured over time and assembled in a way that makes sense to me. I hope some of it makes you smile. 

P4