RISE OF THE ROBOTS/SP ALBUM UPDATE
Now, this may not be the best post you've ever read from me, and if the metrix are any indication most people who visit this site don't stay very long at all (but I'm happy they come nonetheless)…
But if I'm going to be honest and august about my sharing, then this is worth sharing too. Which is how I and The Shredder spent most of our afternoon and evening yesterday; so let's begin.
Oh, but before I mention that we did add a taster of a string line to THE SPANIARDS, and abandoned the thought that I'd play some epic lead where the vocal wasn't.
"Are you ready to start our new album?" I asked Jeff and Nikola sarcastically; Nikola having first appeared as an SP/BC-related engineer going back to CHICAGOKID and THEFUTUREEMBRACE. But luckily for him, he'd escaped for awhile; and on MTAE was Herr WIlling's right hand man.
And it was true, my sarcasm, for at that moment we we're officially (unofficially?) starting the process that will undoubtably rob me of what's left of my…
Wait, I've used this analogy before…
Yes, how about: the album that will destroy whatever's left of good 'ol SP? And the beautiful thing is that most don't care. Whether through acts of artistic deforestation or hubris or arrogance or just being silly, what's left is a name; a symbol; a cypher. But that's not to say it means any less to me. In fact, I've never loved SP more. For it puts bread in the basket, pep in my step, and makes me get into a darkened room with my buddy Jeff so that we might scheme and laugh and attack-attack-attack with the one weapon that never fails (that the guitar for you turtles…we're lovers, not fighters)
So more on that sarcasm. Because after a brief discussion on strategies involving how to best proceed, we decided it was best to remake the analog drum machine archive (last accomplished in 2004). For to make something different we've got to take an asymmetric approach: and that means machines-machines-machines.
I'll let you in on a little secret. Probably 85 or 90 plus percent of drum rhythms you hear on modern records (you like) are made using samples. And if this is shocking to you, don't blame me! 'Cause I was surprised when I found this out in 1993! When Alan Moulder pulled out his Forat machine and started laying metal pipe noises under JC's snare drum. Color me innocent, shade me blasé, but notice how the velocity of that snare on that new song on the radio never changes? Yeah, that would be a machine somewhere cranking out what human can't do. And add this to the use of a grid to lock a beat into perfect 'time' and you have all this kind of deal; which I realize a) most don't give two shits about or b) will still convince themselves that the bands they like don't go for this sort of stuff.
And here's that swamp land in Glendale Heights I've got for sale…
I jest because, like I said, this won't be much of a post. For how much do you want to know about how we ran all my old drum makers through a Helios pre and, after much mucky-muck about signal paths and volume we created a new sample library from about 12-14 units; the Oberheim Stretch DX being one of 'em. Think WHEN DOVES CRY or early rap or DEPECHE MODE '84 and you start to get the picture.
Now, a word of caution: we are out to make a record unlike any other, and this includes mine. So don't assume that by our use of technology that it'll sound like ADORE (not a bad thing), or FUTURE EMBRACE (even better!). And I ask, nay beg that by my discussing how I use electronics openly that you'll not tar DAY FOR NIGHT with the same brush as used in the past. I've seen it enough, and some how it ends up with a faith in the populace (at least whoever's left given the record business' dreary numbers) that the record will not be loud (it will), or epic (it shall), or mighty (it's the e-n-d, what else would you expect from a dramaQueen?)
Think more LOVELESS, or SIAMESE DREAM of THE FUTURE, and you'll get the picture. And if you don't, well there's always everyone else making that same music that everybody seems to not be buying.
W.P.C.
