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 Back To Ampersand Index PAGE 16 - Soul Partition (Track 10) - Before I even went on the Quetico trip, the drummer in my band, Jim Benton (who did the layout for the album), wanted me to write a composition with a 12 or 16 bar form, which was not a structure I usually wrote within. After I made a few inevitable attempts to create a very bizarre version of a 12 bar blues, Jim told me to just write something that sounded like the John Moulder tune, "Time For The Blues." While in Quetico, I decided to give it a shot and wrote this kinda normal 16 bar blues. Tracking the guitar was pretty straightforward. After recording it, I decided I didn't like the three notes I used in the pickup measure, so I used the computer to raise the third one so that it is E G F#, instead of E G E. Here is the first demo I recorded of the original version of the tune, the guitar from which was used in the final version: soul_archive1.mp3 The intro contains a number of sounds underneath the guitar. These include voice recordings from The Tundra, the celesta parts from The Tundra, and some clips of an alternate guitar solo that I did for Soul Partition. Here they are with all reverb removed: soul_introsfx1.mp3 After recording the guitar, I decided that I wanted a way to outline the harmonic structure of the tune at the intro more obviously, instead of leaving the very ambiguous chord voicings that I originally played. I put this pad down underneath the guitar to move it along a little better: soul_intropad1.mp3 While there's no crazy editing done on any of the drums, Halyard and Soul Partition are the two exceptions. At 1:17 and at 4:42, I play recordings of the drums backwards. Here's a more revealing look at the effect I created for the bass sound on this track: soul_bassfx1.mp3 The guitar part that starts at 4:41 is actually looped, to give it a trance-like feel. Being done on a very cheap piano sample library and since I didn't lift the pedal up, the piano chord that rings out at 4:41 just continues ringing to the end of the song. The hiss created by the conglomeration of multiple notes being played is quite audible, although not really offensive, and I actually automated the track up and down, treating the hiss as a desired instrument. What Paul started playing for this end section, especially around 5:00, was a pretty big surprise when he did it. I remember trying really hard not to start laughing. There was a while when this section contained read text taken from Chaucer's Retraction of The Canterbury Tales, run through a vocoder as the formant signal, with the ringing piano sound as the carrier, but I took it out. The Minimoog that enters at 5:01 is the same patch used on November Frontlines. At 6:15, two tracks of the 12 note pattern from Halyard enter, offset from each other. At 6:23, the bass solo and choir from Wormwood enter. Back To Index |