I thought folk might be interested in this as a little insight into the gribbles creative process. Received wisdom is that you shouldn't share your stuff until it's all done - finished, produced, mastered and tied up in a nice red ribbon. Meh. I'd be interested in what folk I like are doing, so I thought I'd share. :)
Normally when I write, I'll sit at my computer and fiddle away surfing the presets in the many virtual instruments I have until I stumble across something I quite like. I'll then improvise around it, grabbing or recording segments that sound OK, and s..l..o..w..l..y.. I build up a short loop (usually 8/16 bars) of something usable.
I'll then start to work around that loop. Quite often leaving it and coming back. Many times. Over time, tracks that are going to work develop, others sort of fall by the wayside.
Monday morning was different. I decided to sit down at my computer at 6:30am. Was aiming to write a sort of hauntology track. (I often do this as well. But my muse almost never goes where I'm trying to guide it. As you will hear...)
Started of well, I really liked the pad and affected voice drone. Then I added the simple bass synth. And in my head I heard it picking up. Popped in the brass part, and stumbled across the arpeggio. Hang on - this isn't staying in the slow, synth hauntology box.
I thought I'd add drums, and at that point it was game over - this track was going where it wanted to. So just shrugged and started jamming over the top with a classic 70s lead synth.
My, it was fun - always a good sign when you're just getting into playing for sheer fun of it. Thanks to the 'Capture MIDI' button in my music software, I have a load of material to cut up and get other bits of solo lines out of.
This little button is invaluable - it 'remembers' all the stuff you've just being playing and captures it. Brilliant when you've just been faffing ab out without pressing record, but have stumbled on a 'good bit'
I went back and tweaked the drums a bit, added the rising piano piece (I quite like how I've got that to sound close to the piano in early Peter Gabriel albums...)
I love to add samples - so I went to an absolutely brilliant sample library I've found recently full of clips of American preachers in various states of excitement. Man, there's some good material in there. I suspect it's going to be in a lot of future gribblytunes...
Some gribblywibbling on a synth. I'm sure there's some good bits in there somewhere...
So - contrary to the way I usually work, by 7:30am, I had the skeleton of a track. I thought I'd share, as it might be interesting to compare this with where it ends up. So here it is - pretty much as it came out - very quick arrangement (just me clicking on clips to get a simple structure), pretty much no mixing. No fancy mastering to get it to sound right. Just raw.
https://soundcloud.com/gribbles/210308-demo-version-unmixed-unmastered
There's a lot I want to do. Tweak the drums to make them more 'mine' (it's a stock loop I grabbed just to get me going). Extend the lead synth stuff. Get more of an arrangement in there - I think I want this to be a journey, - there and back again. Slow/haunting at the start, moving gradually to the upbeat middle, then coming back again. Maybe.
But it's not bad for an hour or so's work...even though I say so myself.
I make music!
Find gribblymusic & gribblystuff here --> https://flow.page/gribbles