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#239480 - 08/06/08 05:17 PM Re: Demo-making - from the guy that does it
Dnj Offline
Senior Member

Registered: 09/21/00
Posts: 43703
Domenic thanx for sharing your experiences very very interesting indeed.....you certainly sound like you have it down pat now....besides Demos do you record music of your own?

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#239481 - 08/06/08 05:23 PM Re: Demo-making - from the guy that does it
Fran Carango Offline
Senior Member

Registered: 05/26/99
Posts: 9673
Loc: Levittown, Pa, USA
Quote:
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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#239482 - 08/06/08 05:26 PM Re: Demo-making - from the guy that does it
spalding Offline
Member

Registered: 09/29/04
Posts: 582
Loc: Birmingham
Which Demos on the T2 are yours and if you would be so kind please let us know how you recorded the demo's.

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#239483 - 08/06/08 05:31 PM Re: Demo-making - from the guy that does it
The Insider Offline
Member

Registered: 01/18/05
Posts: 80
Loc: Buckinghamshire,England
I had a band called "Paprika Soul" - you can find stuff for sale on Amazon - we released stuff from about 1993 to 2002. Sadly I never got paid so never mind, lesson learnt. I actually hardly have time for personal pursuits anymore as other than working looney hours I have been lucky to find true love and am also now the proud owner of a baby boy who has just discovered my leads box.

The next personal project will be for my wife - you can check out one of her songs which I produced for Sequel
http://www.sequel-music.net/see-it-hear-it.html

The song is "Broken Inside" (I also did "The Sequel" with a couple of friends who are beginning to be successful in the UK.)

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#239484 - 08/06/08 05:34 PM Re: Demo-making - from the guy that does it
miden Offline
Senior Member

Registered: 01/31/06
Posts: 3354
Loc: The World
God I love this forum!!! Where else would you get this sort of great and fascinating information, and learn something along the way, but right here!!

Dennis

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#239485 - 08/06/08 05:36 PM Re: Demo-making - from the guy that does it
The Insider Offline
Member

Registered: 01/18/05
Posts: 80
Loc: Buckinghamshire,England
Quote:
Originally posted by Fran Carango:

Did you work with the guys I knew back then..? Eric Persing, Paul Youngblood, John Campbell, and Jim Mothersbaugh..



Hi There

No my work was through Music Sales Ltd's Special Projects Division. There was a lot of collaboration between the publishers and the Manufacturers while I was consulting for this department - I concentrated more on Audio Books about the time that XG and the MU80 came out - this blossomed into the XG Project but I was not involved with Yamaha from about 1994 until 2001.

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#239486 - 08/06/08 05:44 PM Re: Demo-making - from the guy that does it
The Insider Offline
Member

Registered: 01/18/05
Posts: 80
Loc: Buckinghamshire,England
Quote:
Originally posted by spalding:
Which Demos on the T2 are yours and if you would be so kind please let us know how you recorded the demo's.


The Demos are all midifiles created with Sequencers.

The Demo process is a collaborative effort for which I wrote the melody and initial arrangement which then goes through various stages. Then all the sub level demos are based on the idea of that melody. I did not do the best demos which are Rock, Orchestral and Bigband. Those were done by an absolute genius (who continues to make me look like a complete beginner - we were both in the same band together in 1982 as our first pro gig- him on Bass, vocals and Trombone with Pitch to voltage convertor (I am not joking) and me on Rhodes, Polysix and lighting display) and a colleague in Japan who is also a fantastic musician/programmer/drummer.

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#239487 - 08/06/08 05:48 PM Re: Demo-making - from the guy that does it
The Insider Offline
Member

Registered: 01/18/05
Posts: 80
Loc: Buckinghamshire,England
Sorry forgot to mention that my friend the lunatic also did the Latin Demo - I particularly enjoyed his impersonation of Arturo Sandoval. . . .

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#239488 - 08/06/08 06:11 PM Re: Demo-making - from the guy that does it
The Insider Offline
Member

Registered: 01/18/05
Posts: 80
Loc: Buckinghamshire,England
For the XS owners out there I wrote "Return of the King"

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#239489 - 08/06/08 06:48 PM Re: Demo-making - from the guy that does it
zuki Offline
Senior Member

Registered: 09/20/02
Posts: 4724
Personally, I don't ever listen to the demos on keyboards because the artists are so talented it makes me want to quit playing! Wow, I only dream to be that good. If The Insider is ONE OF THOSE than I'd love to hear anything he plays
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