Create a Track with the New Songbirds Lyric Library at MixterPlus
skip

How I Did It

Monuments
by Admiral Bob
Recommends (17)
Sun, Feb 10, 2019 @ 2:15 PM

Uses samples from:

 

Tools I Used

Gibson Les Paul, Yamaha piano, Akai LPD8 drum pad, Fender P-Bass

Samples I Used

Mr. Yesterday's "monuments"

Original Samples

a keyboard track, a guitar track, a bass track, a drum track.

Process

So I deliberately did not listen to the instruments Mr. Yesterday had - I wanted to see if I could do the Michaelangelo thing and "see it in the rock."

Listening to the vocal I could hear it was a swing. So I put the vocal to a generic swing track at the prescribed BPM, and then played a Rhodes to it. A simple 1/7/6/5 pattern seemed to fit it.

The generic drums I had on it were too busy, and I knew I wanted to make it quiet. So I played something on the Akai drum pad that would be more ambient and cranked the reverb on it.

I added a bass part. I knew I wanted real feel on this, so I didn't do the lazy keyboard bass - got industrious, went down to the music room and grabbed a real bass.

At this point, it was still too busy. The Rhodes had set a nice mood, but I wanted to transition to something even more open. So at the 1:15 mark, I switched to the organ - mostly one handed, but with the other hand doing quick offbeats, and with the percussion turned on.

Then I added the guitar last, playing through a jazz amp setting. That was the easiest part.

Other Notes

I love doing jazz, and to find that one of the hidden gems we were featuring was a swing vocal was a real delight. Thank you Mr_Yesterday for a wonderful vocal!