What is Man

[lykwydchykyn]

https://alandmoore.bandcamp.com/track/what-is-man

Kudos to anyone who gets through all 17:44 of this track, though I try to keep it interesting. This is a bit of a philosophical discourse over some 70s-style prog rock.

All done in Ardour on my aging C2D laptop. Lemme just say Ardour starts doing some weird stuff when you have a nearly 18-minute session with a couple dozen tracks on a machine that old. Also, wishing it was simpler to do compound meters in Ardour.

Plugins were mostly Calf compressor & eq, calf monosynth and synthv1 for the moog-style sounds, Calf vintage delay and (OF COURSE) dragonfly reverb for ambience. I had to stick to lighter plugins because my machine was choking on this thing, so no IR convolvers or amp sims.

Organ was my korg triton rack, Guitars and Bass were tracked through my pedal board with a Zoom b1xfour handling amp simulation.

Thanks for listening!

[Michael Willis]

Kudos to anyone who gets through all 17:44 of this track

Wow, this is quite an accomplishment! Prog rock style sounding like it came from half a decade ago, minimal approach forced by your limited hardware, and thought-provoking lyrics. I think my favorite section is Creature of Thought. And yes, I did make it through all nearly eighteen minutes.

I'm kind of envious of the Korg Triton, at one point in time when I was a poor starving college student I would dream of buying a nice synthesizer, and I occasionally went to the music store to "try them out" with no hope of actually buying one.

(OF COURSE) dragonfly reverb

YES! The "(OF COURSE)" part has me grinning from ear. Which Dragonfly plugin did you use?

[lykwydchykyn]

Thanks! I used the Room Reverb, trying to capture the sound of a room reverb like they would have used in a classic recording. Did the trick, I gotta say. As much as I like the sound of the IR reverbs, I also like having the controls on a traditional digital reverb like Dragonfly. I like the fading graphy thing you have on there as well; some people might say that's merely cosmetic, but I find it helpful when plugins have things like that to help me visualize the sound.

I bought the Triton back when I was doing pro stuff, I would never put that much into music gear now. The synth sounds are bit dated (for instance, the glide on a mono lead sounds kind of quantized), but it's still pretty trusty for meat-and-potatoes stuff like organs or pads. Pianos sound pretty crummy on it, so if I want piano I drag my rig to the living room and plug in the yamaha.

[Basslint]

All done in Ardour on my aging C2D laptop. Lemme just say Ardour starts doing some weird stuff when you have a nearly 18-minute session with a couple dozen tracks on a machine that old. Also, wishing it was simpler to do compound meters in Ardour.

First, as a fellow prog rock fan, great great job! Although I have to say (because I like it so much, not to criticize) that even if the drum programming is good, I don't like the kick and snare (stick?) sounds.

Second, why don't you share the problems you had on the Ardour bug tracker? I bet it would help a lot Paul Davis and @x42 make the program better, since not many of us have made tracks that long.

[lykwydchykyn]

All done in Ardour on my aging C2D laptop. Lemme just say Ardour starts doing some weird stuff when you have a nearly 18-minute session with a couple dozen tracks on a machine that old. Also, wishing it was simpler to do compound meters in Ardour.

First, as a fellow prog rock fan, great great job! Although I have to say (because I like it so much, not to criticize) that even if the drum programming is good, I don't like the kick and snare (stick?) sounds.

Thanks! It wasn't programmed drums, though; just me on a cajon and hihat. That's why the sound is like it is. I used to program drums but got burnt out on it, so I decided natural feel was more important than the drum tones. Would be great if I could track actual drums.

Second, why don't you share the problems you had on the Ardour bug tracker? I bet it would help a lot Paul Davis and @x42 make the program better, since not many of us have made tracks that long.

I guess most of the "bugs" were just kind of expected behavior as the processing power breaks down. For example, if I moved the playhead back a few minutes and hit play, it would sometimes take ~20 seconds before playbackstarted. And of course xruns everywhere, and lots of glitching in later tracks (lead vocals, for example).

The one that I felt could be reported was stuck midi notes, but I found out this is a known issue.

[milo]

This is quite an ambitious project! Hats off to you for pulling it off.

I like the overall meaning of the piece, and can really relate to the struggle between science and faith. I come from a family of scientists, and also grew up attending church and studying scripture. Finding a way to reconcile those two important parts of my life was hard. But worth it.

And the music is also good Thanks for sharing this piece with us!

[jonetsu]

It does keep attention. Some long prog pieces can sometimes be long-winded, this one is not.

I hear some Echolyn in there, maybe some Flower Kings. It would benefit from a much warmer mix. It could be brought to a next expressive level. Real drums, for one. The piece is nice, my fav section is IV. Listened to it in its entirety yesterday.

Cheers.


Echolyn, from Pennsylvania, their 50-minute "Mei":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYD6sm-YoZ0

[Basslint]

Thanks! It wasn't programmed drums, though; just me on a cajon and hihat. That's why the sound is like it is. I used to program drums but got burnt out on it, so I decided natural feel was more important than the drum tones. Would be great if I could track actual drums.

I totally understand you, I have the same problem and because of it I can't finish any tracks

[lykwydchykyn]

Thanks! It wasn't programmed drums, though; just me on a cajon and hihat. That's why the sound is like it is. I used to program drums but got burnt out on it, so I decided natural feel was more important than the drum tones. Would be great if I could track actual drums.

I totally understand you, I have the same problem and because of it I can't finish any tracks

What helped me a lot was going to the Cajon. I'm not great at it, and I've never considered myself competent on drums, but over time I feel like I've gotten to where I can lay down a reasonably solid beat to build a song on, and it's way less annoying than programming drums.

The hihat took it to the next level, too. I started with shakers and so forth, but my single hihat can stand in for a ride or crash acceptably, just by adjusting the gap and tension on the cymbal.

The last thing that really helped me was to stop obsessing over the grid. Rick Beato did some videos where he talked about the grid and how classic songs had natural fluctuations in tempo. I record to a click, but then I turn off the click, close my eyes, and just listen. If something feels out, I punch it or maybe do a quick snip-and-drag.

When I first started recording with the cajon, I spent hours lining up my performances to the grid; not only was it more frustrating than drum programming, but it lost all the feel as well. My tracks still felt stiff and boring to me.

My cajon sound is obviously still a work in progress, but I've come a long way. I feel like the the kick part of it is pretty solid, just need to work on getting a better snare tone. I've played with various mic and pickup setups and different signal processing options. I've tried using drum replacer plugins, but haven't found them to be reliable with the cajon as a trigger. I do own a snare drum, so I'm contemplating recording a separate track of snare; but it kind of loses the interplay between kick and snare that's so crucial. (there's also the noise issue; my wife is patient about the hihat, not sure how she would feel if I started tracking snare too!).

[lykwydchykyn]

It does keep attention. Some long prog pieces can sometimes be long-winded, this one is not.

I hear some Echolyn in there, maybe some Flower Kings. It would benefit from a much warmer mix. It could be brought to a next expressive level. Real drums, for one. The piece is nice, my fav section is IV. Listened to it in its entirety yesterday.

Cheers.


Echolyn, from Pennsylvania, their 50-minute "Mei":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYD6sm-YoZ0

Thanks! I need to check them out. I don't know as many "Modern" (not 70's) prog bands apart from Transatlantic, Spock's beard, and Iona, but I'm always looking for good inspiration. Like what I hear so far!

[GMaq]

Hi,

Great job!! Wow super cool and super ambitious!

I'm in a huge prawwg phase right now so you're hitting me at a good time, Love your voice it's perfectly suited to the material, lots of really tasty guitar work and layering. Also like the synthy organ sounds that bubble up from time to time. I hear a little Greg Lake/ELP influence here and there which gets extra points. I wasn't smitten with the drum arrangements (I understand the reasons) but that's a tough row to hoe in such a long and varied arrangement and it's a minor complaint.

All in all it's pretty mindblowing, thanks for sharing! Keep up the great work!

[lykwydchykyn]

Thanks! You guys have me thinking hard about my drum situation, tho .

[Michael Willis]

Thanks! You guys have me thinking hard about my drum situation, tho .

Don't worry too much about it. I liked the percussion!

Of course if you want a different sound to your percussion for a new project, go ahead and figure something out, but don't feel like it ruined this. After listening through twice, I feel like the cajon is part of the character of this piece.

[ufug]

It boggles my mind that a single human can put all this music together in their head and then make it so. Wow.

I don't know my prog very well, but I definitely heard some echoes of Tull in here (sans flute), especially in the vocals. I especially liked the melodic bit that emerges around 7:45 (and the excellent fuzz that emerges ~10:00). As I said in another thread, you have strong arrangement skills. I really do think arrangement trumps mixing hands down--that you put this together with just headphones and a car check is a testament to that. Everything has its place and purpose in the track. Congrats on getting this one out the door!

[lykwydchykyn]

It boggles my mind that a single human can put all this music together in their head and then make it so. Wow.

Thanks

I don't know my prog very well, but I definitely heard some echoes of Tull in here (sans flute), especially in the vocals. I especially liked the melodic bit that emerges around 7:45 (and the excellent fuzz that emerges ~10:00). As I said in another thread, you have strong arrangement skills. I really do think arrangement trumps mixing hands down--that you put this together with just headphones and a car check is a testament to that. Everything has its place and purpose in the track. Congrats on getting this one out the door!

Thanks! the fuzz is a 90's Jimi Hendrix octave fuzz going through the zoom unit. I love the way it cuts, I use it on a lot of my solos too (though I don't think I used it much on guitar in this song).