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#239481 - 08/06/08 05:23 PM
Re: Demo-making - from the guy that does it
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Senior Member
Registered: 05/26/99
Posts: 9673
Loc: Levittown, Pa, USA
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Originally posted by The Insider:
Hi Dnj
Basically as I mentioned above a discussion takes place concerning musical direction. Once agreed I turn to my trusty PC and Cubase (either SX3 or Cubase 4) and start to compose, looking at what keys are good for what instruments. If a theme is involved then it requires coming up with a piece that can be used in several ways for different instruments - a kind of Variations on a Theme approach.
For instance the T2 Nylon guitar Demo is all about what makes the guitar sing in the way it does - E min is usually a good key. I played it remembering the limitations of the source instrument and attemted to think in a guitar-like manner. As I play (the guitar)a little bit it is slightly easier to visualise what is valid - chords and inversions - and to try to emulate the behaviour of the real thing as accurately as possible. This approach is carried forward to everything else, whether it be Accordion, PanPipe or whatever. Understanding how the source instrument is played allows me to try and recreate that. Of course it's not perfect and the limitations of Midi mean finding odd solutions sometimes.
For programming Drums or Bass I had the privelege of working with some top class UK musicians in the 80s and 90s and so I try to think like them (or rather my memory of how I thought they played) mixed in with the many influences in my life - Drummers like Gadd, Weckl, Coliauta, Omar Hakim, Bass players like Nathan East, Jaco Pastorius and Marcus Miller, Piano players from Art Tatum through Duke Ellington, Oscar, Thelonius, Horace Silver, Elton, Bruce Hornsby, Keith Jarrett, Lyle Mays etc. Each has a definitive way of playing and articulating and as I am a kind of Musical "sponge" it all gets soaked up and spat out.
I spent a few years working on the first GM midifiles for Roland SC55 and Yamaha TG100 when the standard was invented and implemented, and as a consequence learnt to deconstruct records to their base elements in order to work out how they were put together, understanding the interactions between all the elements. This was an invaluable exercise, however it forever changed how I listen to music and as a result I find it very hard not to disassemble records when I listen to them. I find minor tuning discrepancies particularly painful.
Hope I am not waffling on too much. Thanks for letting me share. Did you work with the guys I knew back then..? Eric Persing, Paul Youngblood, John Campbell, and Jim Mothersbaugh..
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