yelyah - “feels like rain 20111022” electronic
Officially, we can call this one the first thing I did with Reason 6.
Unofficially, I’ve been having fun messing with the audio effects for the daily weather screencast I do. Ya know, useful stuff like noise gating out the box fan (it actually works surprisingly well) and then goofy stuff like turning my voice into a synth.
My original goal was to write some intro music for the weather screencast and on that front, I failed miserably since the thing weighs in at nearly a minute and a half. I was aiming for like 5-15 seconds.
Tech notes
My studio still runs Reason 4 / Record 1.0 (and literally 1.0 since I never installed the minor updates) so this one was actually done on the computer I program on.
I used this ancient 25 key MIDI controller made by Midiman (who you probably know as M-Audio) to play all of the parts (no loops on this one).
Everything is “stock” patches:
- Additive Pad
- Hybrid Strings - Mod Wheel Gator (serves as 3 different string parts - low, high, and the one with the rhythmic gate (controlled by the mod wheel))
- Nashville Kit
- Pool Shark Upright Bass
Music notes
The most difficult part I’d say was the drums. I ran into this weird situation where I couldn’t figure out where to start the fill that leads into the main beat.
The problem came down to that it sounded out of place depending on how much context was given…
See, I’d start the playback about 3 measures before I was going to play, and then I played it live where it felt right.
But if I started playback earlier in the song and listened to it from there (so more context), it always felt like I was coming in too early. It made it very difficult to troubleshoot because, to me, it sounded very different depending on where I started playback.
I think part of the issue was also that I was recording to the click track, but listening back without it. The theory being that the click track provided a rhythmic grid which made the fill sound like it was in the right place.
Thinking about the click vs. no click thing led me to the solution I ultimately used to “fix” the timing. Instead of going straight for this tom pattern, I play some hats a measure before hand. For me, it seems to have fixed things.
I’d still like to figure out how to write a proper intro for the weather screencast. Maybe tomorrow.
