What We Make - Jon's space

Another Casting Fate tune is sealed and delivered and up on our website.  I never found the time to post a blog entry and call a play by play of the process, but such is life.  Blogs are not the priority here, we're going through a lot of life changes on this side of the recording console and time is a rare commodity.  And because of those looming changes this new tune was written and recorded in record time.  I had started writing a lyric in the summer when the health care debate was just starting to kick in.  I thought the debate was extremely one sided, any opposing views were for all intents and purposes silenced with the approach of, "you're going to take it whether you like it or not," elections have their consequences, right?  And it struck me that now the collective "we" want to take one form of insurance and transform it into some kind of charity, an interesting play in itself, but the fact is we're all going to die so what kind of charity are you really getting anyway?  And what kind of insurance?  Insurance from what?  The inevitable?  So all of those ideas swirled around my mind and morphed over the months into the final song lyric.  The music was born from a pretty heavy guitar riff that also transformed in the process.  I don't know exactly how it came about but I guess I was experimenting one day and there it was, a prominent organ part, it took the song on a hard left turn and transformed it from metal into hard rock territory.  Not usually where I want Fate to go but it worked for the song and as I've said before you're often along for the ride, you go where the song takes you.  At about this point the above mentioned life changes started looming on the horizon and I realized that if we didn't finish this song in a matter of weeks it would be months before we got back to it, so Mike and I kicked it into high gear.  He cranked out what is probably the hottest solo he's done for a Fate tune, the guy is pure magic.  I stuck with some of my basic stock synths, the ones I know well so there was little time spent in sound design.  Mme. M.E. came up with the voice over ending, a brilliant play emphasizing the whole pointlessness of the health care exercise.  Listen and enjoy Deathcare.

Most of the time you can’t.  Cutting vocals is almost always a battle, getting it right technically and of course conveying the right emotion and level of intensity.  But this song was just too easy, it makes you wonder sometimes.  Yes it’s true, I’ve had this song swimming in my mind for months, I’ve gone over the phrasing extensively and have every reason to bang it out, but it never seems to work that way for me, I never have an “on” day, but for some reason, with this song, the vocals just flowed.  There are even a few “first takes” in there.  Thank goodness all went as smooth as it did, there was another battle to prepare for and I knew early on that this song would depend heavily on the leads.

I had an idea of how to split the leads up with Mike, he agreed and pounded out the amazing magic he always does.  He has a lot of patience for me and thankfully allows me to key off of his creativity and technique, he sets a pretty high bar for me to reach.  I used a slightly modified Monster Lead patch from my Korg Trinity (the original silver beast) and had at it.  I’d have to say it was as much of a technical challenge as I’ve had in a while, especially since I am not gigging regularly anymore and my practice regimen is far less than exemplary.  A battle hard fought to meet Mike’s bar, hope I made it! 

A few finishing touches and we’ll have a new Casting Fate song up on the web site in a few days.

I've always believed songs take on lives and personalities of their own during the production process.  It seems you can never know where a recording will go, what twists and turns it will take, especially in this environment where the song has never been performed before, for that matter isn't completely composed yet, the possibilities and choices can be overwhelming.  I usually start Fate songs with a strong vision and outlines for all the parts, but a new idea from Mike or J Dog, stumbling on an inspiring synth or effects patch, or any number of what I call "happy accidents" can completely redefine the way ahead.  I've often found the simple act of letting go of pre-conceived notions and allowing the song to feed off it's own momentum can be a key compositional element.  That said, last weekend I dug into the synth parts for the into/outro sections of OPM.  A cardinal rule of production is to limit stereo synth tracks to one or two per section to keep the mix from becoming too dense, it's a rule I've never been able to keep.  It's been a while since I've used my Bizarre Guitar sample disk for my Roland S-760, it's a beautiful collection for arguably one of the nicest sounding samplers ever made.  Just start loading up patches and endless possibilities lay out in front of you, overwhelming and inspiring at the same time.  So I suspect much to Mike's chagrin, I've created another dense, almost impenetrable sound space.  But Mike has a lot of patience for me, while I was building layer upon layer he wrote and recorded a beautiful Midde Eastern influenced motif for the main theme before the verse.  The two parts intertwine like a Byzantine mosaic, it's stunning!  I also spent some time mixing and building automation tracks so the overall sound is really coming together.  This weekend I'll bring in Mike's parts, next up are vocals and leads...

This weekend I cut a nice little piano track for the verses.  The original plan was to do something that was funky and offset the heavy guitar and drum parts with something lighter.  I downloaded and listened up on a bunch of old Little Feat tracks to get some bluesy Cajun licks under my fingers.  I did some early takes, very close cluster chords, and was really happy with them, but upon multiple playbacks I realized they were just too busy for the track.  So I went in and hand edited them taking out most of the busy licks, what was left was a track that followed the chord structure of the clean rhythm guitar and the rhythm of the drum track.  Nice!