Everything Where It Should Be

Hi, Mr Bleep.

Yes, thee's a touch of Morphine in the first minute.

Thanks for listening.

Hi.

Yes, a fun jazzy intro.

"the part that brings it back at 2m"

Not quite sure what you mean. Oh, I know - you mean the return of the legato sax playing. Now it's over a fat, funky hip hop piano bassline rather than jazz.

Good to hear you found the track awesome.

Hi.

Yes, a distorted version of the cello riff that began at 1:41 comes in around the time you mention. I didn't just add distortion to the previous one (I do that kind of thing a lot) - I replayed it.

"a very cool Pink Floydish groove took over"

I'm a big PFloyd fan but I'm not exactly hearing their vibe there. Doesn't sound like one of their riffs - probably a bit heavier and funkier than what they usually go for.

I've never heard Yo-Yo Ma's playing thought I'm quite familiar with the name. I'm mostly a guitarist but as I try to learn the cello (3 months so far) I'm trying to use it where I would normally play guitar, which is going fairly well considering I'm only a beginner.

Here's another cello track containing quite a bit of beauty:

The Warm Glow Of Yesterday

http://www.looperman.com/tracks/detail/176476

Thanks again.

Thanks.

A unique vibe is what I go for every time. I'm trying to make music that no one has ever heard before and I'm also trying to make music that doesn't sound too much like my other music. Sometimes I'm not sure which is harder.

Of course it would be silly not to reuse some sounds and playing styles. I do that all the time as well as introducing new ones in every track.

Glad you enjoyed it.

Hi.

Sure, I guess this could be used in computer games. However, I'd rather people just listened to it on its own as a piece of music, rather than as background sound while they're tapping their fingers away at a controller.

"trumpet or whatever it is"

It's a saxophone.

"pink panther" game in PS1"

I know the famous soundtrack to the Pink Panther films but not that game. I don't play computer games.

Yo.

These grooves inspired me to do loads of cello playing over the top so it's good to hear that someone else was also inspired by them. I've only been playing cello for about three months.

Loads of hip hop in this, even though it's clearly not a hip hop track.

Good to hear from you.

Take care.

Groovin' Nomad

Hi.

"really crips"

That's a typo that I really enjoyed. I know you meant 'crisp'.

My drums are extremely important in every track as I make music based around strong grooves so work hard at getting the programming and sounds right.

"wouldnt have recognized it as cello if you hadnt told us"

Yes, I mostly agree and I'm really happy with it though there are undistorted cello parts at various points that don't sound like guitar. A lot more like regular cello.

If you really want to hear some badass guitar-like cello sounds, the following track's dirty cello riffage still surprises me. Most of the heavy riffage it sounds exactly like heavy guitar playing, mostly because I put it through my standard heavy setting on my guitar effects unit.

Nuance Is Futile

http://www.looperman.com/tracks/detail/176620

Thanks. I will try.

I can't promise to be successful but I will give it my best shot.

Cool and yes.

Word up, Crustapher (F**cking moron)

Are you amused to see there's a guy on here called that? You should work together, perhaps calling your little group Crustethus or Crucepher.

Sure, I enjoy a bit of whale voyeurism. I like to feed that whale so usually slip some fresh fish in there.

"Nice Dr Dre California intro."

Ha, I had to go back and listen to that total classic again. No, this piano bassline isn't similar to California. What you're thinking of is another Dre song but I can't remember which one, which is annoying. I've never before used piano as the predominant bassline. Works well, I think.

"Fascinating chords after 3:05 Bb to Dmin to Aminor. cool progression and different from your other works."

I like the lead cello in this section (which sits on top of two other cello riff layers). If you think it's different from my other stuff, that's probably cos it's a new instrument for me in a different tuning so I'm not altogether sure of which notes I'm playing. I'm bound to discover some new things that way.

Yes, I think the mostly dry sax works fine. You'd expect me to put loads of reverb on it but I've tried to be different by not doing that. Delay just comes in occasionally.

"This is a fun tune you made and you should be happy and proud."

I agree and I am.

"Ending was a little cloying but why not, it's Christmas."

Sorry - I just tried to give it a conclusive, definitive ending rather than some of my lazier, more abrupt ones from the past year.

See you later for more thoughts. Perhaps on this track but perhaps also on whales.

Staticentry

G'day, dishonourably dim dong-wearing dawg.

Great alliterative intro from you.

Some is well with me.

No fuckin' way - 2 Bass Bro reviews in 2 days for this unspecial, average Nomad. Why not go crazy with a triple review?

Trrrrrrrrraaaccckk!!!!

gets right into it cos I removed my 2 min country intro that has too different a mood. Saved for another day. Only problem is I don't make country music.

Are the "two rogue plucks" the banj fill at 0:10? I like it.

"a half-drowned contra bassoon" is a very accurate description for the legato notes at 0:22. Sax player is the only other person to ever play an instrument on one of my tracks. He's also on Way Beyond Wrong, the one with banj metal in it (this is from the same project).

Killer 1:42 riff does sound like someone is waving a huge piece of sheet-metal around. That's just the bow action and the abrupt yet careful way I stop for the last beat of the bar adds that ripping, waving feel.

2:15 I layer in the same approximate riff on top but now distorted. Then lead, distorted, delayed cello arrives so I have three nice layers of it for some thickness and balls (plus piano and no other bassline).

"cosmic guitar tones"

Add delay to slide guitar and you can get cosmic tones. Same goes for bowed cello. Alien, swooping stuff, as best heard towards end of track.

"3:23 returns to earth"

Nice to bring it back down into hip hop drums. Guitarey cello keeps sort of soloing.

4:43 did you like my plucked, delayed cello bassline?

5:28 sax maybe should have reverb but that seemed too predictable for me. May be more interesting without.

6:40-6:47 is swooping, whale call, bowing stuff followed by cool little, funky spiccato riff on 6:47.

7:44 note/tone is cool but there are others after that I prefer. I hit some real good bowing tones with this distortion + delay (plus some shit, of course). An inspiring sound to be used again very soon. I think these distorted cello tones would go well in your music. Perhaps they can via Slupergroupery.

"Quaint ending".

Is it? Cru seems to think similarly. I just tried to make something that was conclusive, for a change.

You only spent 20 mins listening? Damn, I normally spend 2-3 hours* on your tracks, trying to absorb ever morsel of sonic and emotional data.

Thanks for the details. Nuance is not always futile.

Nomad, fucking all these gun-toting hip gangster wannabes

*No, not really.

OK, cool.

But did you only listen to the first 11 seconds of the track?

The first 11 seconds have a gentle jazz groove but after that there's quite a hard, straight hip hop vibe and then rock drums.

Thanks.

I have to work hard at getting that clarity. And I'm sure there's always room for improvement. I think I've finished a track, upload it to Looperman and then find loads of small (sometimes big) ways of improving it. I'm not even talking about things that people have suggested in comments. I just notice loads of problems so I go back and fix them.

I'm not hearing many obvious problems with this one but I bet I can find some.

Good to hear you enjoyed it.

Yes, I think it feels brief, or at least that it doesn't drag too much, because I'm always introducing new elements so there's always stuff ending and starting.

Not much more I can say about your other words as you haven't given me any detail eg by mentioning instruments or particular sections of the track.

Glad you enjoyed it.

I don't listen to Tom Waits though I do love his song Heart Attack And Vine. That's brilliant.

Not sure why this makes you think of Keith Richards. Maybe it's the cello parts that sound like guitar playing?

"This is one weird piece."

Yeah, it's unusual but that's what I go for, along with melodic and grooving, epic and so on. And unique - that's always my aim. If I can't be the best or a virtuoso instrumentalist (I'm not), if I can at least make unique tracks, that means a lot.

"Superb journey into the unknown"

Yes, I think it's hard to know where the track is going.

Good to hear you enjoyed it.

Hail me, master of...poor cello technique.

And hail you, master old fart across the water.

Yes, that early pumping piano part I hear as being very hip hop. That main first note was a kick drum part (hence the insistent precision) and then the note it changes to was the snare. I have some interesting ideas that I'll have to explore some time regarding taking drum fills and copying the MIDI data to a synth so that drums and synth are playing exactly the same thing. Could be very interesting, especially when I start to slowly vary things so that they're not quite playing the same thing.

Yes, I have been doing lots of creative stuff with the cello. That's partly because I'm still rubbish at bowing and can't consistently do the kind of things on it that I can do on my other stringed instruments. But I don't just sit there practising it as I try to learn it. I record and then edit my parts very carefully to get rid of all the many errors. I do that a hell of a lot anyway with my other instruments but that's more for creativity whereas this is initially just to get rid of the crap bowing tones that I often hit. Scrapey, whingey sounds.

"enjoyed this one till the last note (which was not the more usual lazy fade most of us do)"

My endings have not been too great in the last year and I've done too many abrupt sort of endings and only a few skilful ones. I think I'm almost getting worse at endings. Must make more effort as they're important. That's how you leave the listener so it has to be a good goodbye, so to speak.

Good to hear you enjoyed all of this.

Yo.

Swanky Static here.

Yes, jazzy intro sounds a lot like one of my favourite bands ever - Morphine. The cello seems to work as a replacement for Mark Sandman's bass parts there. And then we're into my big hip hop piano bassline, which really dominates as one of the main basslines for the rest of the track.

Special secret: that piano bassline was originally a drum part! I just copied a drum part to the piano track, moved some notes about and it worked (must try that again). There are also various rapid piano fills that were originally drum fills (others are played by hand) at various points in the track.

"underlying moog sounding thing I'm hearing there at :45"

is some sort of synth bass, with me carefully controlling the cutoff frequency. This isn't much of a synth track but that part there does make a difference and meshes quite nicely with the piano (an instrument I don't use often).

" little piano twinkles amid the sax and guitar serenade"

Yes, I use a second piano sound which is much lighter (and with a longer release time) than the main (bassline) piano. It's good for the tinkles and is really a lovely sound. There's not much of a guitar serenade there. When the sax returns in that chilled, funky section, there's none. That distorted stuff is all cello.

"6:40 you go into what sounds like a whale mating call groove... are the higher pitched tones straight or enhanced"

I like watching whales getting it on so thought I should make some background music for them to do it to. The distorted cello in this (which dominates proceedings after a few mins) also has loads of delay and reverb on it. It's my main heavy guitar setting on my floor effects unit, but with the distortion turned down a bit here as this isn't a heavy track.

Doing shimmering bowing with all that delay on the cello is cool fun and those whale sounds are not due to any other effects. That's just some of what you can do with bowing and the weird tones that can be used. There is a specific, strange tonal delay effect used a little a bit later but most of those weird tones are really just generated by the bow.

At 6:48 I'm really pleased with the high, lead cello playing and melody there. I'm employing a technique called spiccato, which is a word I've known for years but without actually knowing what it was. Basically, it's using the bow to hit/bounce off the strings rather than pulling it across them. So, a lot like the thumb in slap bass playing.

Thanks for dropping by to check out my new merger of sounds and bowing progress.

Static Cellmad, celling it up.

Thanks for listening.

The piano mostly is the bass, which is something I've never done before. No bass guitar and only a bit of synth bass. Cello also covers the low end, in some places (eg the jazz intro).

I noticed that you commented on this after about 3 minutes of listening. Why not, next time, try listening to a bit more before commenting? You might even hear something that is of interest to you.