Korg Forums

jeremykeys · Posted: Thu May 10, 2012 12:54 am Post subject:

I'm very glad that so many of you appreciate and enjoy my music. Thank you all very much!
Now on to all of the questions. I'll try my best.

For this one I started with the guitar riff that starts the song. I hadn't recorded it yet so I found a kronos drum sound and pieced the track together on my Yamaha sequencer first. I had to do it bar by bar because of the various time signature changes. I had to first create a click track to play drums to. 240 BPM was the only way I could figure out how to do it. I also was building a combi/seq at the same time and had the metronome speed set to the same speed so that I would have good synchronization.With the Kronos MIDId to the Yamaha I could then use both machines to build my song. Once I had a rough idea of what I was doing I just essentially kept putting parts together until I got to this stage although it was a lot more time consuming than it sounds.

The opening part with the double kick pattern had to have tight bass and guitar playing along with it. For bass I used my Ibanez 5 string on two audio tracks running through the stereo dyna-compressor chained to a Bass Amp Model and Cabinet. I'm using the classic setting and the US 2-15 cabinet. I recorded the bass through this set-up and also play it back through it with slightly different compression and tone settings. I was just after a certain feel and sound and this got me closest.

As for the guitar, for the heavier parts I used my Ibanez Les Paul copy through my Zoom G1XNext pedal. It has tons of effects and amp models. I also used this gear for the waw-waw slow guitar solo. I'm really very happy with the way that part turned out. When I recorded my guitar tracks I also record through some effects in the Kronos so the whole sound gets printed to the disc drive. That way if I need effects later for another parts I have some available.
For the clean chorused or phased guitars I used my Epiphone Studio Dot. It's a poor mans Gibson 335 that was modified before I bought it. Iused Fender amp sims and chorus or phase in the Zoom and delays in the Kronos once again while recording.
I used about 7 tracks altogether for guitar.

Various synthes and mellotron sounds abound throughout the song.

Since my work in progress kept on changing as I went along I con't remember exactly when it was I had decided that my drum tracks were keepers but it was fairly early along. A lot of the time I would just play bass along to the drums; recording it of course and if I liked it i would keep it and figure out what to do with it later.

My MFX1 is a stereo chorus and 2 it O-verb. TFX1 is a stereo mastering limiter. I like to use subtle amount of compression on a lot of things and sometimes I'll use the one; can't remember what it's called; that is EQ oriented. 3 or 4 bands if I recall correctly.

Once I was reasonably happy with what I had I recorded everything from the Kronos onto my Yamaha 16G digital recorder so that I could make a CD and get it onto my wife's computer and let you all hear it.
I know I've glossed over a lot of the process and I'm sorry but that is essentially how it got here.

As for vocals, yes I am heading in a Yes/Dream Theater direction but so far I haven't come up with anything that doesn't sound really stupid! It turns out that Prog Rock lyrics can get presumptuous and ridiculously "clever" very easily. At least it seems that way to me.
Although I do kind of like the lyrics that DocBambs came up with. Hah!
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If music is the food of love, play on and play loud!
Gear: Kronos 73, Triton Pro-X, Wavestation EX, Polysix, King Korg, Monotron and Monotron Duo, Minikorg, Moog Grandmother, 1 Roland U-20, Hammond M3, 4 acoustic and 6 electric guitars, 1 Ibanez 5 string bass, a bunch of microphones and other very cool toys, 1 wife and 3 cats!

GregC · Posted: Thu May 10, 2012 2:57 am Post subject:

songs with vocals need a structure, such as verse/chorus, bridge/solo, verse chorus.
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alanjpearson · Senior Member Joined: 21 Feb 2012 Posts: 283

Good stuff - sounds very Spocks Beard to me!

R
Alan

jeremykeys · Posted: Thu May 10, 2012 11:59 am Post subject:

X-Trade · Posted: Thu May 10, 2012 9:34 pm Post subject:

KevinH · Posted: Thu May 10, 2012 10:16 pm Post subject:

GregC · Posted: Thu May 10, 2012 10:51 pm Post subject:

jeremykeys · Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 12:04 pm Post subject:

GregC. No problem at all. I understand where you are coming from and the time stamps probably correlate to the parts that I mentioned.
I write a lot of lyrics but with music as complex as this, it's difficult to come up with something that meshes, sounds right and also has some sense of cohesion.
Although I've always like Jon Anderson's vocals I often found his lyrics difficult to get and with his later stuff a bit precious. I'm trying to avoid that.
I'm hoping to write some kind of story but so far it keeps getting preachy so, back to the drawing board!

Jeremykey
_________________
If music is the food of love, play on and play loud!
Gear: Kronos 73, Triton Pro-X, Wavestation EX, Polysix, King Korg, Monotron and Monotron Duo, Minikorg, Moog Grandmother, 1 Roland U-20, Hammond M3, 4 acoustic and 6 electric guitars, 1 Ibanez 5 string bass, a bunch of microphones and other very cool toys, 1 wife and 3 cats!

RonF · Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 9:10 pm Post subject:

I just got a chance to listen to this in detail, and I REALLY appreciate the detail in what you have done here. Very good mix. Very live feel. You nailed the genre. I had to listen 3 times to get all the little goodies you inserted along the way. Quite enjoyed it, and thing you did great work!
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Favorite Gear: Kronos 61, M3, Z1, Radias, KPro, KP3, Moog Voyager, Foogers, Virus TI, Jupiter 80, Integra7, GAIA, SPD-30, Kiwi 106, RE-201, MC808, RC505, MV8800, DSI P6 and OB6 and P12, Ensoniq SQ80, EMU MP-7, Eventide H7600, Eclipse, SPACE, Pitchfactor, Timefactor, Looperlative LP-1, Axe FX Ultra, Nord Modular, DSI Tetra, Tempest, PEK, JDXA, Eurorack Modular, Octatrack, MDUW, Monomachine, A4, RYTM, Waldorf Q Phoenix, MWXTk, Blofeld, TR8.

jeremykeys · Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 10:27 pm Post subject:

Thank you very much RonF! I grew up listening to as much prog as I cold once I discovered it. That and a lot of jazz/rock fusion.
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If music is the food of love, play on and play loud!
Gear: Kronos 73, Triton Pro-X, Wavestation EX, Polysix, King Korg, Monotron and Monotron Duo, Minikorg, Moog Grandmother, 1 Roland U-20, Hammond M3, 4 acoustic and 6 electric guitars, 1 Ibanez 5 string bass, a bunch of microphones and other very cool toys, 1 wife and 3 cats!

RonF · Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 12:08 am Post subject:

I am a prog junkie. Started in the early days with Rush, and then and obsession with Al Dimeola....which led me to such wonderful directions overall. Just to throw out a few greats which I LOVE and listen to constantly in my car: Pendragon's last two albums. Everon (OMG I dig this band, especially North!). Sylvan's Posthumous Silence. Anathem's latest two albums. Porc Tree (of course). Saga. And my new favorite: AirBag's latest offering is insanely good!

I could go on all day : )
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http://soundcloud.com/ronf-3/sets/ronf-music
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr1zAKpV_F226LQZrUYGPQA
Favorite Gear: Kronos 61, M3, Z1, Radias, KPro, KP3, Moog Voyager, Foogers, Virus TI, Jupiter 80, Integra7, GAIA, SPD-30, Kiwi 106, RE-201, MC808, RC505, MV8800, DSI P6 and OB6 and P12, Ensoniq SQ80, EMU MP-7, Eventide H7600, Eclipse, SPACE, Pitchfactor, Timefactor, Looperlative LP-1, Axe FX Ultra, Nord Modular, DSI Tetra, Tempest, PEK, JDXA, Eurorack Modular, Octatrack, MDUW, Monomachine, A4, RYTM, Waldorf Q Phoenix, MWXTk, Blofeld, TR8.

jeremykeys · Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 12:23 am Post subject:

I'm with you all the way. Return to Forever was another one. Nowadays I've been listening to a lot of Spock's Beard, Shadow Gallery, Derek Sherinian. The list goes on and on.
An interesting bit of trivia here. I used to go to high school and had the same piano teacher as Jim Gilmore. The keyboard player from Saga. Great player and really nice guy. My next tune isn't in a prog vein but rest assured I'll be back at it again soon!

Jeremykeys
_________________
If music is the food of love, play on and play loud!
Gear: Kronos 73, Triton Pro-X, Wavestation EX, Polysix, King Korg, Monotron and Monotron Duo, Minikorg, Moog Grandmother, 1 Roland U-20, Hammond M3, 4 acoustic and 6 electric guitars, 1 Ibanez 5 string bass, a bunch of microphones and other very cool toys, 1 wife and 3 cats!