Not a whole lot has changed since I put the song down a few weeks ago to focus on last month’s EP. But posting it again will provide a space to discuss what I have in mind going forward.
After hearing two songs by 90s Britpop group The Stone Roses, I was inspired to figure out how to record tracks that would be played in reverse in the mix. Reversing tracks is by far nothing new in recorded music with electronic composers, tape loop specialists and producers like George Martin and John Leckie having done it for at least five decades. So while I never found evidence to verify my listening, the song “Don’t Stop” on their first record seems to be an instrumental reversal of the previous song “Waterfall.”
It is also not the first time I have played around with it, but it just took me until now to learn how to do it in the software I’ve been using. Turns out, unlike the days of splicing and seamlessly assembling analog tape, in Live its pretty damned easy…embarrassingly so.
You will hear some backwards playing tracks in the background here and also some incidental guitar noise. Still lots of work on it, but here is where I left it last night.
[audio:https://hellocomein.com/soundbox/hellomusic_mike/NoReasonAtAll_v2b.mp3]UPDATE 9\25: I’ve done some more mixing and retracked some guitars that were rushed and out of sync. Still want to rethink the piano part in the middle, add some drums and vocals as well. Anyone know a good female singer with a wispy voice?
No Reason (At All) v2d
[audio:https://hellocomein.com/soundbox/hellomusic_mike/NoReasonAtAll_v2d.mp3]
UPDATE FROM GREG 9\26: Here is some work I’ve been doing on this tune… mostly just brainstorming, but maybe there are some tidbits that can be incorporated into the final track:
[audio:https://hellocomein.com/soundbox/hellomusic_greg/No_Reason_drums_v1.mp3]March Version with vocal melody and way too much ear piercing distortion- be careful!!!
[audio:https://hellocomein.com/soundbox/hellomusic_greg/No_Reason_drums_v2.mp3]Electro version.
[audio:https://hellocomein.com/soundbox/hellomusic_greg/No_Reason_Electro.mp3]
The following is an ongoing discussion about the song…
GREG: This is great!! can I add some stuff to this? Do you have a melody yet or lyrics?
MIKE: i sort of have an idea for a melody in my head… and maybe a chorus… but not really words. Please feel free to take this and contribute… im not 100% keen on the clutter but i think w\ some mixing and such it could be great… add whatever you want… vocals, drums, guitars, autoharps, incidental sounds of scraping metal and babys crying. whatever.
GREG: Awesome- I don’t want to add so much as work together…After seeing le loup, I’m keenly aware of what happens when you have too many layers! a couple thoughts:
1) There needs to be some sort of splash that follows through the peaks of the reverse part. A simple crash would work, but I think a steel string chord strum would be really cool, and a little different. Might be a nice contrast. Maybe two strum tracks panned R and L would give a cool stereo sound. Not sure without trying… but I just got new strings for my steel so I will try!
2) Personally, I’m not sold on the rhythmic eighth note piano chords- seems a little too fakey and solo Paul McCartneyish. Might just be the reverb level, though. I think we should experiment with some different staccato sounds that aren’t so close mic literal sounding.
3) The subtle guitars are awesome, and I wouldn’t touch them one bit.
MIKE: youre not so keen on the piano near the 2\3 mark? is it too cheesey? i was also thinking about pulling the main organ down a bit lower in the mix…not too much but it might be over powering things.
GREG: Yep- I think it’s a touch cheesy.
MIKE: you’re prob right…sometimes its hard to tell… i just wanted something that wasnt long chords that added some movement to the song w\o more soundeffects. any suggestions we can try?
i think if you tracked a crash or splash cymbal and we experimented w\ it both forward & reverse that might build some of those swells at the end.
And Aryn, if you want to track a heavy bass drum thump in both quarter notes and half notes over this wherever you see fit i can see where it might work.
GREG: Distorted harpsichord. Something analog. Rhythmic acoustic guitar. A real piano.
Check out my version of oxygen 1.5, near the end… there’s a reverse cymbal swell that leads to a fuller beat. Something along those lines might work.
MIKE: i like the idea of more organic string instruments. care to give it a go w\ your acoustic or autoharp… esp long raked out chords.
oh and i love that huge swell in that song… its prob my fav. part of the song. id say lets experiment w\ that type of effect on a crash or splash or cymbal w\ rivets\pennies on it… maybe a roll w\ mallets on one of those cymbals and scratch the cymbal as well with a piece of metal to coincide w\ the raked out chords.
just a thought… do whatever you think you like b\c it always is 10x better than what i can come up w\ alone.
GREG: Another thought that might be cool for this one is to reharmonize the chord progression at the peak of the song to add a surprise element- and would be a nice touch to keep the listener interested since it is a simple chord structure. I’ll experiment with this too.
MIKE: i like this idea too… perhaps it could be as simple as layering re harmonized chords on top of the existing by using enharmonic equivalents like Am instead of C or Em instead of G…. could be a thought…
GREG: That’s exactly what I was thinking…
I vote for ditching the piano entirely.
Guitars sound great!!
Without that piano line it sound pretty sparse there and almost anticlimactic. But if you have suggestions on what I should replace it with, feel free to add or tell me.
what about just continuing the eigth note guitar line?
ill see what that sounds like… i sort of wanted to have the piano originally mimic the guitar part instead of reprising it…but i think at this point the piano’s days are numbered.
I think there are things to pull from these versions you have come up with. I like the idea of the militaristic drum pattern in the later parts of the songs, but I think it needs less emphasis on the toms… seems to detract. I also think it needs to lock into a more simplistic groove in parts so that its not so syncopated. If we could combine the subtlety of the electro version with the sound and timbre of live drums I think thatd be key. What do you think?
i think i like it more than you, but that’s ok im a drummer… :)
i think the triplet of the drums contrasted with the straight eighths of the guitar adds a lot interesting tension- tried some simple typical rock beats, but it ended up just sounding like things we’ve heard a million times before. i think it catches you off guard at first, but you can pretty quickly lock into it since it’s just a one bar pattern repeated over and over. the march sound i think emphasizes the cinematic sound of it.
i like that tension… not sure i like the toms on it as much though… sounds a bit too boombastic… if you can send me a portion of that track i can try to see what i can do to it in the arrangement…see if i like it before you track the whole thing.
might be the volume too, since it’s all unmixed. anyways, I’ll send tonight for you to mix in.
btw- it’s tracked at the beginning just for demonstration, but I figured we could move around as needed.
yeah i think we wont have a problem splicing it and putting it in places we want it. imagine how much easier this would be in person. such are the challenges of interweb.