Neomorpheus

Thanks!
Your gonna have to put me on to what that is

Thank you for your generous comment. My mixing skills are so rusty I am having to learn all over again. Hoping this one is better than the first one you heard. I re-uploaded the track so have another listen please.

I actually kind of had a Guns and Roses idea when I did this. I just wanted something slowed down and not too cluttered to do some lead guitars over. Was diggin the Synths so made them a little more prominent.

Thanks for the listen and feedback.

tv

Hey man, thanks for listening again, much appreciated. With a little help from my friends.... :D

Hey Neo, thanks for your comments, I read them carefully a few times and tried to adjust what you and the others mentioned. I never done such a track before, I usually move around rock, blues and a bit of rock-hop - so it was a first for me. Yes, vocals, that's a challenge, absolutely. So anyway, I tried some stuff, if you feel like it give it another listen, let me know what you think. Thanks again for your input, priceless!!

Wow thanks for the vote of confidence, the track fed me the emotion, I got lucky to put this together!

TD

Thanks for your awesome words! I totally encourage you to come back into the Electronic world. Its missed you, my friend. Haha. This track came out really nice though, and I love the support!

~GO

Greetings, Neocellobro.

"You certainly wield a wicked Cello" is a cool phrase.

You know I've been concentrating on the cello for the last 4 months or so and trying to get it to do as much as I can in each track it appears in. I'm not really big on practice on any instrument so this is my way of finding a reason to play and try out new techniques and stuff as I learn this somewhat difficult instrument.

So, so much cello in this, including a few slightly different playing techniques. As regards time signature and tempo, yes I keep the drums moving through different styles. If I hadn't done that, I'm sure the track would feel long and samey and boring and as if it hadn't really gone anywhere.

"movie score to like a Quentin Tarantino version of Lawrence of Arabia."

That's an interesting idea and I know what you mean and it could work really well. I recently rewatched Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds and I thought a lot more of it than I did on first viewing (I now really like it). I bring the film up because it had some cool, odd musical choices in it that gave things a really interesting feel. There's even a David Bowie song in it!

"harem girl sequence as 1:22 to 2:43 with some nice belly dancing nubiles"

Yes - I get that sort of feel from it as well. Sorry that section wasn't longer but I knew I had loads more sections to get to so I thought I wouldn't hang around and just get right on with the next one (which has some really powerful cello riffage).

"Love the effects on the cello, sounds like some overdrive/distortion in spots."

I was pretty sure that I hadn't used any overdrive on the cello in this but there might be in some of the darker swing jazz sections in the middle. Otherwise the effects are just delay, reverb and chorus plus some amp modelling from my guitar floor effects unit.

"you would have been a God to the hippies with this if you were around in the late 60's early 70's man"

Quite possibly. Maybe I can still be a god to them 40/50 years later (and beyond).

"You need to find a time machine!"

That may well be possible:

"The DeLorean Motor Company has announced its intention to manufacture the iconic DMC-12 sports car again..."

http://www.dezeen.com/2016/02/01/delorean-reproduce-dmc-12-car-back-to-the-future-gull-wing-doors/

Thanks for the thoughts and good to hear you're still firmly stuck in the Nomad groove.

Thanks Neo. Quite a few relaxed ones I've done now and I'm discovering .... fast and furious and you can get away with more mistakes but slow and gentle not so much so.
Lot more attention to detail needed.
Thanks for listening mate.

Thank you Neomorpheus, I greatly do appreciate it tremendously. I will be posting new tracks soon..

Thanks For That Man. I'll Send You The Link Personally When I Post The Official Song.

- Billion

Thanks for listening ! I am stoked you got a psychedelic rock vibe, cause i am really pushing for a stoner rock kinda thing :) yes i have heard "hurdy gurdy man" I like the song too !
I am trying to take a lot of inspiration from the vocalists and poets of the 60's and 70's .
thanks once again for listening and the kind words. YOU ROCK !

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.

Very kind words from you my friend! I have just been forcing myself to move into new experimentations, and it is so pleasing that people are still enjoying the results! I appreciate you always being there with support!

Hey I forgot to mention that's not too bad a joke.

I get it but also don't get it.

It seems it would make more sense if it were banjo players or accordionists as those are maligned instruments. But I'm not at all aware of the cello having any such status.

Here's my favourite banjo joke, from one of my absolute favourite musicans in the world, Harry Manx, who I've met twice at his gigs. He tells it on stage before playing banjo. Something like:

"I did a gig the other night and left one of my banjos in my car. I came back to the car to find it had been broken into. My banjo hadn't been taken and there were six others alongside it."

You've really gotta check this guy out as he's excellent on guitar, banjo, mohan veena (a very special slide instrument), harmonica and vocals.

Nice guy as well.

Harry Manx plays "Can't Be Satisfied"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO73Fczq9IM

Harry Manx - Spoonful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn17wun1FEc

Yo yo yo.

I too am damn surprised that this all this riffage comes from a cello. What I have learnt over the years is that if you put pretty much anything through some fat (guitar) distortion, you'll mostly be hearing the distortion. Sure, you get the pitch changes (ie the notes) but the timbre of the instrument is very much overpowered by the distortion. But you can still take advantage of some of the weird tones you can get from bowing. The kind that I hit unintentionally because I don't yet know what I'm doing and have poor control.

"take that bow to your guitar ala Jimmy Page."

I don't think so. You can't bow individual strings because of the flat neck and you'll get the rosin that you put on the bow on the guitar strings. I've not really seen Page do it but I'll bet he only does pretty simple stuff.

"what in the world prompted you to want to learn to play the cello?"

I have meant for a good few years now to start playing another instrument. Actually, I got a banjo for Christmas in 2011 and, as you know, have put that in quite a few tracks. But it is kind of a limited instrument/sound. I need to keep expanding my musical repertoire and the main way I do that is with new synth sounds. But playing an actual new physical instrument seems like an even better idea, though much more challenging (and expensive).

I've probably wanted to play cello since about 16 and I am very much a stringed instruments musician so I thought I should get on with it. I'd like to play (or at least get the sound of) various Indian instruments but I'm not sure which would suit me. I've had a sitar since 1998 but it's a ##### on the hands and I don't know anything about the tuning. I never play it (partly because I don't want to lacerate my fingers).

I quite like your Progello term and will see what my cello teacher thinks of it. It also sounds like it might be some sort of medical product (a gel). But don't you like 'cellometallo'? Makes me think of Nutella.

"you maintained the structure and didn't go off on a 3 or 4 minute jam"

Yes. I'm really happy with the structure and length. The track is actually quite minimal (especially for me), with instruments only introduced when they need to be and not much layering going on. As always, there are loads of little details and fills (the nuances) to look out for but there aren't as many things to listen to at once as in most of my stuff.

Yes, I really like the synth work. I perhaps could have got some high lead cello work in there but I find it hard. However, in the few weeks since I made this, I've improved a bit so there's ##### of lead high cello in my latest track (Everything Where it Should Be), which is nearly ready to upload.

"you certainly are blazing a new trail here"

Yes. Do not hold your breath waiting for anyone else to upload a cellometallo track to Looperman.

Thanks for the interesting thoughts.

It's cool I'm glad you like this tracks.

wow thank you , I have known Mike Tramp for a long time. He also lives in Dallas.I have a few pictures with Vito. Amazing guitar player.I will download a song I cc-wrote with Steve Stevens he even played on the track. It's had to miss the Ray Gun....lol Singing is not my choice I am a bass player first.I would rather someone else handle vocals.I am humbled by your kind words,it makes me want to write even more songs. I have about 75 songs now and I'm not quite done building my home studio here in Garland Tx Dragon Fly Studio coming soon...

Thanks, appreciate your comments.You should try doing something Hiphopy, I saw on your profile that you do a wide range of songs and styles, should be interesting to see!