This song was a production and engineering experiment for me. I had never done anything in this genre. First, the story. There's ALWAYS a story with me!

In a Google Hangouts chat with 5 other people, I made the comment that "If you give them a good beat, you can sing ANY kind of lyric you want and these kids today are so stupid they will buy it." That led to a Mary Had A Little Lamb rap freestyle complete with proper vulgarities.

So I decided to put that theory to the test. What I found was that this is harder than a "normal" song because it really requires a lot of texture and precision with samples being inserted. I got it to a point and Rog finished it.

Some of the experimentation included some industrial sounds I snagged from the internet, a metal door slam sample I did myself, a lot of automation for panning and reversing some of the sound bytes. It was actually kind of fun!

The lyrics... The song is called "Titles", because the lyrics are 90% titles of other songs woven into a narrative. It's all done in sprechstimme (speak singing) to mock the rappers. The vocals were recorded into 2 mics at once. One was a Shure 58 that was placed ball down into a 2 quart pitcher, and the other an XML condenser. The echo inside the pitcher was exactly what I wanted.

The whole idea came to me because of a guy who came through Cleveland along his career path. I can't say his name because if it got to him he would sue me, as he is very litigious. Some of the stuff he put out was really just noise to me, with banging spoons on pots and such. So I did some of the same thing!!! I will only say that if this was a band it would be called Six Inch Spikes. Draw your own inferences.

Song info:

_HVYBEAT.STY. Heavy Rap Beat w/ Synth

RD: UrbanPopEv8GoodGirl^1-a:Kck1, b:Clap :Ed (Great Oz) Clare - kept drums and shaker - augmented with drum machine
RT1936: Synth, Rhythm, EuroDance Chorus7Hit Ev16 120 cut out a section and looped
RT1825: Bass, Electric, PopModernGrooveHeld Ev16 075 - removed and replaced with live bass
M36: Fretless Elec. Bass - removed and replaced with live bass

Manual tracks:

hi hat from a drum machine
African drums from an RB loop
high shaker with small shaker eggs
kick from a drum machine
snare from a drum machine
low shaker from a larger home made shaker
chord aahs from my ESQ-1 synth
counter rhythm aahs from my ESQ-1 synth
Rog's guitar tracks, part of which were snipped, reversed, and put back in
chant aah to mimic Gregorian chant - left side
chant aah 2 to mimic Gregorians chant - right side
aah1 autopan.WAV these 2 autopan channels panned the 2 Gregorian chant tracks randomly
aah 2 autopan.WAV
drone guitar - this was a loop I did with my ebow
RT 1936 synth loop from RB
bass from Rog
booming anvil on the downbeats is a sound I sampled from the web
Screech is a metal screeching sound I sampled from the web
high anvil plays on the 2s and 4s (comes and goes) against the booming anvil

It was a fun piece and good learning experience. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but try to remember that this is a spoof and was done with my tongue as far into my cheek as it can get.

Titles

Crank it up and get your groove on!!! Phones might be a good idea because there is a LOT of panning on this one. grin




Last edited by eddie1261; 03/28/18 04:49 AM.
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1. How much did you make in 2023?
2. Send it to us.