Ok Finally a Small Sample!

Well, I've finally arrived at a point were I am pretty much satisfied with the arrangement of this piece. I'll mostly be spending time adding a little embellishments and texture (maybe) and then do a final mix. But here is a 35 second sample of it.

To sample click the image or here.

So a little behind it all. When I began this months ago, I had been thinking about how heavily influenced many artists had been by tribal drumming and indigenous peoples music. Personally, I was always excited about Peter Gabriel's work along this vein. The largest obstacle to date has been the inclusion of drumming and rhythms. Of course I have no drums, nor anyone to record and I had to rely on some loops (which I dislike) as well as create layers of drum tracks using Logic's Ultrabeat drum machine audio unit. I learned much about this in the process. There is still work to be done with some of the drumming on this piece, as I need to make it less static (thus, only a sample for now). Any looping I've used is minimal and relegated to the background to lend some fill and a sense of more drumming then there actually is. Layering, layering layering! This is primarily how I approach things anyway. I layer and layer and layer.

Droning instruments such as the Indian, tanpura as well as Scottish bagpipes are what I was aiming for regarding the evolving pads in the background. I have no interest in recreating those instruments, only the sense of what those instruments lend to a piece. This is what I love about synths - creating or editing sounds to bring them in line with exists in the real world, but not exactly replicating them.

Lately, I've been very attracted to how early analog synths were used in popular music. By todays standards their arrangements might be considered very simple and primitive. However, I really apprecate the lead sounds used by ELP, or Tony Banks (Genesis) and of course Pink Floyd's, Dark Side of the Moon. There is a bit of those elements within this piece regarding the lead parts.

That is it for now regarding the concepts. I hope you like the sample. Please let me know what you feel.