Secrets In Your Sleep

[vomitHatSteve]

My latest major audio gear purchase was an electronic drum kit. So I'm trying my hand at using it to sequence my conventional drums. I like the result, but I probably over-complicated things. When the drums get really thin and toy-sounding, that's sequenced on the kit. The rest of the time is EZ-D finger-drummed and then tweaked. I'd probably be better off just picking one and switching tones as needs be since it's all MIDI anyway...

Anyway, I got really grungy in the guitar tones on this one. I hope it isn't too muddy.
During the last verse, the way the drums are over-busy is a programming error that I may or may not track down any time soon...

Mix 1

SecretsInYourSleep.mp3

Mix 2

SecretsInYourSleep2.mp3

Mix 3

SecretsInYourSleep3.mp3

[Mr Clean]

Sounds pretty good here. The grungy guitar is maybe fighting with the bass at times but it's not too bad. Drums might go crazy at the end but it kind of works. It's different and different is good, unconventional or not.

Good tune, I really like it.

[vomitHatSteve]

Mixes 2 and 3 in the OP. (Feel free to skip 2, it's mostly for completeness)

Major changes include:
Extra noises and risers throughout
Vocal automation to lift out a few buried words
Significant vocal re-balancing on the bridge to create more contrast from the chorus
I spent some time trying different distortions on the lead guitar, but none of the other options felt as good as the original.

One interesting thing about these mixes is that you can really hear the things the random number generator does. There's a randomized hi-hat in the verses that gives a pretty distinct feel to each version

[rayc]

This is a cooooool song. I've half a mind to tell you to just track normal sounding things and be done with it but I like the swamp as well.

[vomitHatSteve]

Ha ha!

Tracking normal things is what I have other bands for!

[paulman]

More cool and wacky sounds from VHS! I love it! That squishy sound is awesome, as is the grungy guitar.

I'm confused on your drum situation, not understanding what you mean by using an e-kit to sequence drums. In my mind, the e-kit is what I use to play (and therefore avoid sequencing) drums.

[vomitHatSteve]

Considering how heavily I quantized the results, it feels dishonest to say that I was "playing" the drums.

I also did the Def Leppard one pass of shells/one of cymbals (except it was core beat in pass 1 and fills in pass 2) trick, so it feels even less like playing. The finger drumming was probably closer to real playing than what I did on the kit!

[Mr Clean]

I really like No3. Sounds very modern and radio friendly. Good tune and production.

[vomitHatSteve]

I really like No3. Sounds very modern and radio friendly. Good tune and production.

Excellent! That's the one I sent out to patreon backers. Thank you.

[Armistice]

I really like No3. Sounds very modern and radio friendly. Good tune and production.

Excellent! That's the one I sent out to patreon backers. Thank you.

What version do your Only Fans subscribers get?

[vomitHatSteve]

Excellent! That's the one I sent out to patreon backers. Thank you.

What version do your Only Fans subscribers get?

They get the version where all the lyrics are replaced with descriptions of my sphincter.

[paulman]

Considering how heavily I quantized the results, it feels dishonest to say that I was "playing" the drums.

I also did the Def Leppard one pass of shells/one of cymbals (except it was core beat in pass 1 and fills in pass 2) trick, so it feels even less like playing. The finger drumming was probably closer to real playing than what I did on the kit!

Ah ok, got it. Yeah, I remember the days of finger drumming on my keyboard before I got my first e-kit. I would quantize it of course, but I didn’t really take it any further than that because I hate programming notes on any instrument. So there were no fills or anything, only whatever beat I was able to play with my fingers. I don’t miss those days.

[vomitHatSteve]

Considering how heavily I quantized the results, it feels dishonest to say that I was "playing" the drums.

I also did the Def Leppard one pass of shells/one of cymbals (except it was core beat in pass 1 and fills in pass 2) trick, so it feels even less like playing. The finger drumming was probably closer to real playing than what I did on the kit!

Ah ok, got it. Yeah, I remember the days of finger drumming on my keyboard before I got my first e-kit. I would quantize it of course, but I didn’t really take it any further than that because I hate programming notes on any instrument. So there were no fills or anything, only whatever beat I was able to play with my fingers. I don’t miss those days.

I've increasingly taken to being lazy and literally programming the parts I don't want to do. So I map all my cymbals to a single pad and have it randomly pick one whenever it comes up. Same with the toms. I figure as long as the rhythm works, people don't really care what pitches the toms hit, right?

[paulman]

Ah ok, got it. Yeah, I remember the days of finger drumming on my keyboard before I got my first e-kit. I would quantize it of course, but I didn’t really take it any further than that because I hate programming notes on any instrument. So there were no fills or anything, only whatever beat I was able to play with my fingers. I don’t miss those days.

I've increasingly taken to being lazy and literally programming the parts I don't want to do. So I map all my cymbals to a single pad and have it randomly pick one whenever it comes up. Same with the toms. I figure as long as the rhythm works, people don't really care what pitches the toms hit, right?

That's funny. You consider yourself lazy for programming, I consider myself lazy for not wanting to program. Why think when I can just play? Never mind that I could get it done a lot faster by editing one take rather than playing a bunch of takes. So I guess on my part it's more stupidity than laziness.

[vomitHatSteve]

Lol! It comes from the old programming adage "a good programmer is lazy". If there's a tedious task that you do frequently, a programmer will tend to prefer to spend an inordinate amount of time building a tool to do it once and then never touch it again.

[TheTestingYak]

good choon brav