Unicordia - first serious Micro BR recording by a newbie

[Ferryman]

Hi all,

Been reading stuff here for a while but haven't posted. I thought I would post something I've been working on over the Xmas break which makes use of one of my Xmas presents, a Kaossilator (the 21st century Stylophone, it's great!). This was all made up on the fly, inspired by a drum pattern on my Alesis SR18, just to see what the BR could do. I have to say it's an amazing piece of kit. This is rough in places, so see what you think.

Cheers,

Nigel

[mr2kewl]

welcome you to the site -

nigel - that is a seriously kickin jam you have!!

besides the Alesis SR18, did you do all of this on your Kaossilator? sounds like you have bass or some other instruments going as well. i really need to find out more about it.

can't wait for your next tune.

mark r

[Ferryman]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the feedback. The Alesis SR18 provides the drums and percussion, plus a bass synth line. This is one of the standard patterns ("Industrial" they call it). I just played the pattern live and used the drum machine to add fills and rolls straight into the BR for as long as felt good. The Kaossilator is used to provide additional synth on the intro, the synth bass in the mid part (there's slap bass going as well which I played on the bass) and the voices towards the end. It's really easy to play and provides great sounds. I bounced all of that on to two tracks and then played rhythm guitar, lead and riff guitar and bass onto four tracks which I then bounced that onto another two tracks. I played the "wacky" synth solo in the middle on the Kaossilator live while bouncing the tracks. I've never tried that before - it gives you a fifth track, although you can't adjust the track volume etc after recording.

Although I've had the BR for a while and have used it mainly to record my son's band rehearsals and various jams of my own with friends, this is the first time I have tried serious multitracking, bouncing and patching together tracks from several v-tracks. I have to say I'm amazed at what the BR can do. The quality of MP3s it can turn out is fantastic.

I'd really recommend the Kaossilator. It's dirt cheap and gives you an amazing palette of sounds to work with. It's easy to play as well.

I've been listening to some of the other examples on the site today. There's some seriously good stuff here. Work allowing, I'll try to spend some more time here.

Cheers,

Nigel

[Bigsky]

Welcome Nigel, your song was very good. I look forward to hearing more. You can find a few of my tunes at

http://www.reverbnation.com/dmanband

[jackofall]

Really professional! I thought it was brilliant. I'm going to look up what that thing is on the internet now....

[bydle]

That's a nice tune!

It reminds me Jeff Beck's album called "Who Else?". It's different but it also combines electronic sounds with guitar. Your piece is more in 80s though if it is about effects sounds. I like it. Have some more stuff like this?

Personaly I would set the lead guitar volume a little bit up.

[Ferryman]

Welcome Nigel, your song was very good. I look forward to hearing more. You can find a few of my tunes at

http://www.reverbnation.com/dmanband

Thanks Doug. I came across Reverb Nation when looking into the Kaossilator (a guy has done an album just using the Kaossilator and nothing else). I didn't realize there would be lots of other stuff hosted there - enjoyed your work, it made a nice acoustic background for my day at work (I work from home so have music on most of the time).

Cheers,

Nigel

[Ferryman]

That's a nice tune!

It reminds me Jeff Beck's album called "Who Else?". It's different but it also combines electronic sounds with guitar. Your piece is more in 80s though if it is about effects sounds. I like it. Have some more stuff like this?

Personaly I would set the lead guitar volume a little bit up.

Thanks Marcin, appreciate the feedback. Being compared to Jeff Beck can't be bad. Funny you detect a hint of the 80s - that was when I was playing most of my music, so I guess it's in my DNA and comes out when I jam 

You're right about the guitar solo. I combined the solo from a separate v-track onto the track with the "riffing" guitar but realized in the final mix that I made it a bit low. I could have gone back and changed it but this was more of an experiment in using the BR rather than a "serious" recording (although it's turned out well and I quite like it). It does show the drawback of the BR - if you use v-tracks and bouncing to combine multiple tracks, you lose control in the final mix. So a bit more preplanning (eg recording different versions of the combined guitar tracks) is a good idea.

Cheers,

Nigel

[SteveG]

Never heard of that thing before, will go google it now. nice jam mate, sounds great!

[Greeny]

This is great. So many interesting things going on.

It's definitely '80's' ... it has Heaven 17, Animotion, and several other synth-led bands in it's DNA. The slap bass takes me straight back to being a New Romantic too 

I'm surprised that OldRottenHead hasn't added any vocals yet... it's dying out for some singing!

Fantastic stuff - and what a way to announce yourself.

p.s. I don't think I'll get a Kaossilator - it seems pretty addictive, and I'd be playing with it way too much