Forensic Sequencing
Jan. 19th, 2009 08:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nyykiI've had exactly one file go bad on me in the two decades I've been working with computer based sequencing. Something corrupted in it, and it'd lock up the computer.
So, I had to recreate the song. It's a tune called The Chief, and it's one of my flute jazz pieces. It corrupted sometime before the backup I took in 1994, so I didn't have a copy of the correct file in my archives. I worked on it in 2006 to get a passable version, with slightly different instrumentation.
The good thing is that I had a tape copy of it that was a fairly good version, so I knew how it was supposed to go. That version has a long synthesizer solo in it that is very arabic in characcter, using Egyptian Minor scales for it. But this song is on the first album I'm trying to release, so I decided pretty quickly that I needed to finish cleaning it up. So I got to work.
The original concepts for the song date from 1985, when I was working selling encyclopedias door to door. One of the field managers claimed to be the son of an African tribal chief, and I got the original idea working with him, so I named it after him. However, the name also can reference the trains with Chief in their name from days past, as it has that constant rhythm going in it as well.
I had to cobble together several things to get it to come together the way I wanted it, and there's still part of the conga track that I need to pull from the original, but other than that it's done, and I'm happy with it. This is a very up-tempo track for a smooth jazz album, so it'll be a bit different from your common Kenny G fare people expect in that genre.
The piece also has a lot of history in it. The organ sound is a sample from my first Hammond, a F-100, and it keeps that character very well.
Since it has so much brass in it, I'm going to have to balance levels carefully when it's recorded, but with careful mixing it should come off rather well. I'm looking forward to getting moving on the album soon so I can get this first one out the door.
The second one, the Renaissance and Medieval dance tunes, will take some work, but I have time to get that done. The hard part will be deciding on just which tunes I want on it. I have about 44 tunes in that directory, so there's a lot there to deal with.
So, I had to recreate the song. It's a tune called The Chief, and it's one of my flute jazz pieces. It corrupted sometime before the backup I took in 1994, so I didn't have a copy of the correct file in my archives. I worked on it in 2006 to get a passable version, with slightly different instrumentation.
The good thing is that I had a tape copy of it that was a fairly good version, so I knew how it was supposed to go. That version has a long synthesizer solo in it that is very arabic in characcter, using Egyptian Minor scales for it. But this song is on the first album I'm trying to release, so I decided pretty quickly that I needed to finish cleaning it up. So I got to work.
The original concepts for the song date from 1985, when I was working selling encyclopedias door to door. One of the field managers claimed to be the son of an African tribal chief, and I got the original idea working with him, so I named it after him. However, the name also can reference the trains with Chief in their name from days past, as it has that constant rhythm going in it as well.
I had to cobble together several things to get it to come together the way I wanted it, and there's still part of the conga track that I need to pull from the original, but other than that it's done, and I'm happy with it. This is a very up-tempo track for a smooth jazz album, so it'll be a bit different from your common Kenny G fare people expect in that genre.
The piece also has a lot of history in it. The organ sound is a sample from my first Hammond, a F-100, and it keeps that character very well.
Since it has so much brass in it, I'm going to have to balance levels carefully when it's recorded, but with careful mixing it should come off rather well. I'm looking forward to getting moving on the album soon so I can get this first one out the door.
The second one, the Renaissance and Medieval dance tunes, will take some work, but I have time to get that done. The hard part will be deciding on just which tunes I want on it. I have about 44 tunes in that directory, so there's a lot there to deal with.
