total-recoil
Well-Known Member
My absence for the last few weeks is explained by the time required to work and, as ever, taking care of my German Shepherd and so on. However, the fact is there is another reason and this is basically down to very prolonged work on my keyboard, writing music (when I'm not studying electronics in between).
I've now written 3 numbers. The first is a rocky, pop number with what I think it a catchy fuzz riff on keys and those few people who heard it tell me it sounds very eighties.
The second number is almost pure jazz and all done on black keys. Nothing special but sounds like the sort of background you'd hear in a hotel or bar and I used a running jazz bass (a bit like the old acoustics used in the fifties).
Third song I think is the sweetest. A very soft, melodic progressive jazz number which is very odd how it came about. I started with various piano riffs that sounded O.K. but somehow nothing special. I got a bit discouraged, abandoned ship for a while then went back to the keys around midnight last week. Changed the riff to jazz acoustic guitar and instead of hitting notes randomly as on piano, I split the riff to a half arpeggio with heavy sustain and that sounded spot on. Just made the base of the song. After that I fiddled around with various bass options such as slap bass, acoustic bass, synth base but finally worked out a very basic and easy-to play underlying bass. Added some soft synth chords to give the "unorthodox flavour". Today I experimented with piano inserts to buffer any later improvisation done on electric piano so the way that works is the piano insert just repeats throughout the track.
Here is where I need advice. I have no illusions as to limitations as I'm only using a casio synth which actually I consider totally sufficient but we all know it's a home piece of kit and can't compare with actual studio sound. However, the plan is to use software to record what I have onto a C.D. and glad to say my casio does have the corresponding ports. I'm pretty out of touch on softward but can only guess I need a laptop and some sort of C.D. burner so I can import tracks and save to disk. At least it will give me a very basic demo disk and maybe work up from that. No diea of cost either.
Incidentally seeing as my other hobby is tube or valve audio electronics, I may in time try to get my hands on a Moog analogue synth or maybe a Roland as am aware valve sound is still hard to beat.
Finally a word about progressive jazz. I followed it from the eighties and have always been a big Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays fan. People disagree what progressive jazz is but my take on it is that progressive jazz is usually a result of musicians who have a jazz background becoming far more experimental and liberal. It may include weird and wonderful sounds from synths combined with multiinstrumental, semi improvised composition. THis is not mainstream music but does have a huge following and needless to say the musicians involved are highly accomplished instrumentalists (unlike myself at this stage).
I've now written 3 numbers. The first is a rocky, pop number with what I think it a catchy fuzz riff on keys and those few people who heard it tell me it sounds very eighties.
The second number is almost pure jazz and all done on black keys. Nothing special but sounds like the sort of background you'd hear in a hotel or bar and I used a running jazz bass (a bit like the old acoustics used in the fifties).
Third song I think is the sweetest. A very soft, melodic progressive jazz number which is very odd how it came about. I started with various piano riffs that sounded O.K. but somehow nothing special. I got a bit discouraged, abandoned ship for a while then went back to the keys around midnight last week. Changed the riff to jazz acoustic guitar and instead of hitting notes randomly as on piano, I split the riff to a half arpeggio with heavy sustain and that sounded spot on. Just made the base of the song. After that I fiddled around with various bass options such as slap bass, acoustic bass, synth base but finally worked out a very basic and easy-to play underlying bass. Added some soft synth chords to give the "unorthodox flavour". Today I experimented with piano inserts to buffer any later improvisation done on electric piano so the way that works is the piano insert just repeats throughout the track.
Here is where I need advice. I have no illusions as to limitations as I'm only using a casio synth which actually I consider totally sufficient but we all know it's a home piece of kit and can't compare with actual studio sound. However, the plan is to use software to record what I have onto a C.D. and glad to say my casio does have the corresponding ports. I'm pretty out of touch on softward but can only guess I need a laptop and some sort of C.D. burner so I can import tracks and save to disk. At least it will give me a very basic demo disk and maybe work up from that. No diea of cost either.
Incidentally seeing as my other hobby is tube or valve audio electronics, I may in time try to get my hands on a Moog analogue synth or maybe a Roland as am aware valve sound is still hard to beat.
Finally a word about progressive jazz. I followed it from the eighties and have always been a big Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays fan. People disagree what progressive jazz is but my take on it is that progressive jazz is usually a result of musicians who have a jazz background becoming far more experimental and liberal. It may include weird and wonderful sounds from synths combined with multiinstrumental, semi improvised composition. THis is not mainstream music but does have a huge following and needless to say the musicians involved are highly accomplished instrumentalists (unlike myself at this stage).