*pause* - a musical interlude
NOTE = I’ve started a new substack specifically focused on this new music project:
Future posts on music will be (mostly) relegated to
and this stack will continue to function as an outlet for my personal musings and observations.The world can sometimes seem like a bunch of piece of shit, and a temporary exit strategy is required to recharge the metaphorical batteries of the soul. Comedy is great for that, but as a consumer, is more of a temporary band-aid. A consumable product treating the symptoms instead of the underlying cause, if you will.
Creative passions allow us to tap into something greater than our individual selves. It’s something that can make a person feel alive again; a nutrient vital for the soul. Art allows expression and immersion as an escape from the confines of this material reality.
Music, Dance, Painting, Writing, Crafting, Cooking, Sketching, Sculpting, etc. etc., … essentially it’s the cultivation of something that can have a soulful impact, both on producer and consumer (there’s probably better words to describe this) …
My first post on this SubStack touched on my relationship with Music. That’s how I view it = it’s a relationship. And quite difficult to define. But just like every art form, it requires dedication, time and effort, and the requirement to look beyond the self.
Music and I have been on a trial separation of sorts for a number of years. We’ve had the occasional meetup and check-in, but my mind and soul (& body) have not been up to being fully present for that relationship.
These past couple months, I’ve been striving to change that. A number of lingering health issues prevent me from engaging as fully as I’d like, but I’m not letting that shit stop me this time. Nuclear annihilation is on the horizon, so no better time than the present, right?
The above video is what I call a “clone jam”. I first discovered this simple technique about a decade ago, from seeing this video by the band Walk Off The Earth. Seeing this inspired me to use this as a model for making instrumental covers on my own, as well as an homage medley or two. This past summer, I set about trying this again, and while technology has fought me every step of the way, I finally have a rough setup in place to run through this process again. I realized during this ordeal that it took a lot of unnecessary reverse engineering to figure out how I did this in the first place, so I decided to document it a little this time, in case my memory takes an even greater dump in the future. (The next bunch of paragraphs might only be interesting for those involved in music and/or video production.)
There are a couple (relatively) obscure songs I’m aiming to create clone covers for in the next couple weeks, and hopefully I can get at least one captured before it gets too cold (winter is right around the corner here in Vermont, and I’m recording this in an open-flow barn). While workshopping the right formula for production, I do these extended improvs, which can be an intense exercise for honing musical chops. Especially the endangered skill of listening.
Drums are the first layer, the backbone of the structure, and consistent rhythm is a firm prerequisite, as the other instrumentation needs a solid foundation. It’s critical to count-in with at least an 8 beat count, in order to quickly sync up tracks in post-production.
Keyboards are the second layer here, and this is primarily so that the higher register can be heard easily during the overdubbing process with followup instruments. It’s easiest to identify any chord changes this way, as my biggest recurring fault might be deviation from the script, and constantly changing the melodic flow. Thus, I’ve found it best to allow the keys to have a little bit of leeway, while simultaneously tempering my desire to melodically roam.
Bass is the final layer, and recording this last reflects the mediatorial role that the bass guitar plays within a musical composition. Bass provides the melody with a tether to the root, and by allowing the fingers to ecstatically dance over the strings, rhythm and melody coalesce into a force best described as “toe-tappin”1.
If I had more modern technology in my possession, the easiest thing is to record directly from mixer into computer, overdubbing into the same session, and then it can be properly mixed in post. None of my elderly laptops are able to perform this task, so I record each take into a Zoom field recorder for quality, and then layer these different takes together afterwards. For the recording process, I use the program Audacity on a laptop to get a rough scratch track for each take, allowing me to overdub on what just previously happened, without having to worry about quality. Thus, the count-in or some sort of synchronization (like in the movies) is necessary for sake of sanity during post production.
This process I’ve fine-tuned over the last couple months allows for a very speedy production, and if a performance mentality is fostered during recording, it’s very possible to bang out all three parts, one after another, in less than a half hour. For the following full-length jam, I set the video recorder down (I just used an old smartphone here) and got all three takes captured in a 26 minute video. It’s important to not touch or move the video recorder during this whole process. I then took the single video file and snipped out the three takes, assembled them into three layers using the opensource software Shotcut, syncing them at the quick 8 beat countoff in the very beginning. For the jam below, I barely got enough of a count-off in, and because of this rushed approach, it took a little longer to get them synced. Better to use 16 or 32 beats as a count-in.
In the Shotcut software, there is a video filter called “Crop: rectangle” and this allows one to crop out a specific section of the video, and then making the remainder transparent. Doing this for the first two layers (drums and keys) will yield the clonal effect as displayed above. In this video, there’s brightness issues (the sun was setting here) and so there’s a bit of distinction between the keys and drums. This can be mitigated through a little trick called “feathering” that may or may not be available on video editing software. I haven’t discovered it yet on Shotcut, but frankly, I’m not striving for professional quality here. Controlled lighting should negate this issue.
After the cropping process, I render the whole thing into a single file, keeping the raw audio for a reference point. I then take the three audio files from the Zoom recorder and layer them into a single mix. I’ll start a new Shotcut video editing session and take the newly rendered video file and apply the “Mirror” filter, since my smartphone camera will initially record everything flipped. After the mirror effect, I’ll import in the mixed audio file, and sync it up to the video. I usually like to include a little bit of the raw audio in with the better mix, but in hindsight with this current jam video, I think I overdid it a little bit. The more I was trying to “fix” it, the worse it seemed to get. I decided not to stress too much about it, and left it as is.
Anyways, that’s about the whole process. It’s all fine-tuning the levels and trying to get the best mix possible from then on out.
In total, time spent in the “studio” was about 30 minutes, and basic editing took about another 30 minutes. I think I spent longer on this write-up then I did on the actual production part. But that’s what makes this such a potentially powerful formula for production = small doses of concentrated efforts have the capability to yield a complete product in a very short amount of time. I need to work on proper mic setup next and devote more time towards proper mixing. The end product should sound much cleaner and stronger than what I uploaded here.
Beyond that, the most important component to focus on is mentality. I’d like to be able to adopt a performance mentality for these sessions, which if properly cultivated, may allow me to feel that esoteric connection with Music more potently once again. I like to capitalize the ‘m’ there because there is a type of divinity within the realm of Music and other Art forms that is far greater than any single being on this planet.
Going into winter, I intend on exploring that relationship with Music more deeply2, and strive to articulate those esoteric connections that these various forms of Art allow us to each experience. Both written and acoustic.
there’s certainly better ways to describe it, but i really wanted to cite the D there. about as obscure a reference as one can get ;p
Groovy.
Multifaceted talent.