Everything Where It Should Be - StaticNomad

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.

"wouldn´t have recognized it as cello if you hadn´t 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.

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 ##### 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.

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.