sound

–Sound
Make it sound thick, make it fat and make it on the 1! This song is inspired by ‘Saturday’, a song by Blowbeat. The idea was to make a funk/rock song where the 1, the first count on each music measure, is highly important for funk to work.

–Composition
Well, it all starts off with some basic funk guitar, but I wanted to make a short “counting-part” that didn’t just counted in 4th’s, just before the actual beat kicks in. When it does kick in, there’s not only the low bass on the “one”, but also a Clavinet that adds to it. Remaining in the funk is one thing, but this song also lend itself to go a bit less loud after a while. Here I in particular wanted the drums to sound “reverbish”, the rimshot in particular. As you can hear: I’m not a solo guitarist, but playing tremendously “laid back” makes up for it. Then from the solo there’s the buildup to a double-time part and to finally return to the basic theme again.

–Instruments
Adding a Clavinet with auto-wah – it doesn’t get any funkier than that. Everything that machine touches makes it funky! Know what I mean? Then guitar-wise there’s the G&L Strat I own, but the distorted parts are played on the Ibanez RG550. Bass was recorded on the Sire Marcus Miller.

–Sound
‘Sound’ is one of the key elements here. If there is one band that captures the imagination and takes you away on a short voyage, it’s Zero7. The song is about ‘the sea’. The phrase ‘the sea gives and takes’ is somewhat applicable as I try to start off with a somewhat frightening synth. The acoustic guitar, slowly fading in, takes the song to a less minor path and even transitions to a more relaxing and positive vibe. Later however, the tides have turned and that dark synth is back again. Don’t go swimming now!

–Composition
The song starts off softly, but layer over layer are added to it over time. One of the key elements in such type of music is not overplaying it by added too much musical notes. Reflecting the motion of the sea, the song was meant to swell and decrease again similar to the sea tides.

–Instruments
The intro is heavily inspired by Zero7’s ‘I have seen‘ with a out-there bass line, followed by a thick synth that plays the same part. The bass is played on a fretless brand-less bass. Acoustic guitars are often used in such type of music as they always have this soothing effect in the whole song. A soft wah-wah guitar was used at the end.

–Sound
It’s easy to make music yourself! Well, fairly easy. Well perhaps it takes some practice. At least it’s easy and fun to jam and record with a friend. Jeroen, a bass player I knew from work, spend some time to record some samples. My goal was to show him the ropes on a DAW (digital audio workstation).

–Composition
Just a funky jam with fans screaming in the back. Well obviously the fans are fake. They are fake fans, although they are real people, they’re not screaming for us – unfortunately. At least I’d like to think they’re real. Couldn’t be AI now, could it??

–Instruments
The basic ingredients for all good funk pieces:

• G&L Strat (check!)
• Fender Jazz bass (check!)
• Funky keys, like Hammond and such (check!)
• Some basic drums (check!)
• A baritone sax (check!)
• A female saying something about funk (check!)

–Sound
If you wonder what music’s played in paradise, well, here’s a try. This piece was inspired by the song ‘Lovin’ you’, of which a live-performance exists on Youtube. ‘Shrine for my Love’ was basically a way to show my love for my wife: I always wanted to write her a song.

–Composition
One of the most interesting learnings was how to make the song, the sounds and the tempo more fluently, flowing like water almost. There is not a constant beat or tempo to be found, which can be quite intimidating for a drummer. Also the song doesn’t go anywhere and is therefore requires a different approach of how to compose it: it doesn’t have a chorus or couplet, there’s no bridge and so on.

–Instruments
I’ve listened to ‘Lovin’ you’ and checked what instruments would work in such a ‘paradise’-setting. Obviously no hard hits or distortion-like sounds would fit.
Also sound samples that give the idea that you’re somewhere in nature, or in some hidden rain forest add to the whole piece, not to forget the bird sounds in the background.

–Sound
A lot of songs are dedicated to people closest to me. This song has multiple reasons why it’s here, but the most significant reason was the passing away of my dad. In my mind I wanted to make him something he’d be proud of and would actually like to listen to. Although he wasn’t really-really into music, he’d always cheer up when he heard something he liked.

This song is inspired on the music of Bar Kokbha, in particular the Lucifer: Book of Angels-album. Also klezmer music in general served as an inspiration.

–Composition
My dad always liked Ravel’s Boléro. I wanted this piece to have a strong theme to it, which could be build upon along the way. A theme that would work when played small/soft/solo as well as bombastic/hard/harmonious (‘ppp’ and ‘fff’ for all the conductors out there).

–Instruments
With the exception of the acoustic and electric guitar, all instruments are virtual. Which is unfortunate, but up till now I haven’t made enough money to pay for a whole orchestra. 😉 Some day..!

I finally got my hands on some decent violin and cello VST’s! Now let’s get the most out of it! In order to get the sound just right, I’ve studied the most common ‘interpretations’ of the violin. The idea is to be as close as possible to a real violin/cello-player’s sound.

The piece starts off with an amplified (electric) volin, fully inspired by Jean-Luc’s Ponty intros for the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Electric violins, by the way, work perfectly well with your normal guitar effects as they’re in the same frequency range. From there the upright bass starts with the basic theme. The main theme is played by an oboe and then been taken over by cello. Some small solo arrangements follow by electric guitar, piano and piano again. This was my first attempt to get a proper piano solo in, one that didn’t follow the exact tempo, which I personally found very refreshing.

From there it gets more bombastic with “bigger instruments” such as a French and English horn section, upright bass, cymbals and percussions. Also the tempo is a tiny bit slower, really dragging the piece forward. In that section of the piece, several ambiance instruments pass by while we slowly fade back to the original theme again. The oboe is now suported by the bassoon, a typical instrument used in many classical pieces.

Finally the piece ends with a typical …well, ending. Enjoy!

–Sound
Electric guitar and slapping bass and some weird sounding keys. These were the ingredients for a first attempt to make some sort of jazz/fusion/rock piece.

In terms of inspiration: Screaming Headless Torsos, which are notoriously known by their somewhat manical sounding instruments, not to mention their singer.

–Composition
As a drummer I like rhythmical instruments and what better way to start a song than by some up-tempo congas! Obviously inspired on ‘A smile and a wave‘, the song starts with a rocksteady setting of percussions, drums and a slapping bass. The guitar theme and support is played and the song moves into a 7/8 time signature – giving it somewhat of a twist. There is so much you can do with odd time signatures, it’s always an exciting path to take.

–Instruments
Well, the congas obviously. But then there’s the wah-wah-infused keys section, the double-bass drumming, the slapping Ferida bass guitar and the G&L Strat. All in all a big nod to SHT’s music.

–Sound
Bla! – like there is nothing to it! However, this song was written way back. As I recall I was about 16 and my cousin owned a really cool sound card back then, the SoundBlaster AWE 32. This card had a really nice wavetable and it so comes that I had a moment to write this piece behind his desk. The piece is inspired merely on the fact that this sound card sounded so nice.

Now, 30 years later, sounds became even better, so I ran it through my current DAW.

–Composition
The whole piece was written in MIDI in the staff view, which made it a bit more difficult than when you’d play (parts of) it directly on the keyboard. As I recall, I was trying to put some typical piano-techniques in it, so it would sound like a real piano player’s performance: playing that would be doable with 2 hands and 10 fingers.

–Instruments
A bunch of trumpet players! – No, a piano, what else? I did add some foot-pedal effects, making the whole thing sound more real. Did you know there is a pedal that allows you to hit the string with the hammer at a certain spot?