I’ll get the vocals laid down in early/mid-March, but for now, here is the backing as I have it so far.

On this track, I’ve used the following instruments –

Real Guitar 3 for the acoustic guitars
Real LPC 3 for the electric guitar (with Guitar Rig 5)
Scarbee MM bass for the bass
Superior 2.0 for the drums
Damage for the big percussion
LA Scoring Strings for the strings
Bolder Sounds Harmonica

The song was written really just as a simple demo for my MIDI skills, but its sparked something a little more involved.  In this song, I wrote the basic form and tune and presented this to Justin for him to write lyrics.  I gave him a pretty open canvas, requiring only that it be a fairly uplifting song.  After Justin finished the lyrics, I crafted the music around them, and did a scratch vocal with Adena.  We made a few adjustments to the arrangement and lyrics, and got Adena back to record the final lyrics that you hear on this version. 

I would still like some backing vocals on this one for at least the last three choruses, and have someone in mind for this…  more on this later! 

Next, read up on the second song from me and Justin – No Man’s Land.

Using expression controllers to their best requires an understanding of the programming of the virtual instrument you’re using, the understanding how the real instrument would work, and your understanding of the style and period of music you’re writing, as well as the instruments you’re using. A soprano doesn’t use the same style of vibrato as a classical trumpet player, and a classical trumpet player doesn’t use the same stlye of vibrato as a jazz solo trumpet player. So in order to use cc1 properly, you need to understand what a real player, performing the same music would do as well as interpreting that through instructions to your virtual instrument.

Here’s an example of how expressive controllers make a big difference - its the same example used in my demonstration of a virtual instrument called The Trumpet. In this first sample, I’m using some band instruments from the Kontakt 4 sample library – a grand piano and a trumpet.

I’ve used no expressive data in this performance. Each note has the same note on velocity value throughout. A pretty horrendous performance, I’m sure you’ll agree.

I can improve this significantly, by changing to higher quality samples. The Kontakt 4 ones came bundled with Kontakt 4… there are lots of them, so its not surprising the quality isn’t really up to much. I’ll change to better sample libraries now – NI’s Akoustic Piano and Sample Modeling’s The Trumpet. Still no performance controllers are used (except sustain pedal on the piano, and a starting expression value on the trumpet which it requires to make a sound).

Wow, what a difference eh? But still this is a very static performance, despite the fact that there was no quantizing involved in it – it was simply a live performance in two takes – one for piano, one for trumpet.

If I now restore the original dynamic performance of the instruments (note on velocity), and add expression data to the trumpet (cc11) as well as vibrato (cc1 – modulation) based on my knowledge of this ballad style of jazz improvisation and based on how I know the VI responds to controller data, we get something much closer to a real performance…

Sad to Miles – Open

Sad To Miles – with harmon mute

Wayward and Upward is ten tracks of electronic instrumental music in a number of tempos and sub-genres within the electronic realm released under the artist name Spinoza Gambit.  The process of developing the right patches, atmosphere, and groove has been an eye opener for me.  And this is the first time I’ve mastered for mass production.  This took way too long, but it was worth getting right, and I think that’s exactly what we’ve done.

You can hear the whole album at http://radio3.cbc.ca/#/bands/Spinoza-Gambit

I receive an audio file taken from a Korg keyboard, and also a MIDI file of the same. I can tempo lock these in my sequencer. In this case, I got the tracks the same day as we were recording a temp lead vocal guide, so this was also the track our vocalist sung to.

01 – the first draft

There was just a little time before we were recording a small choir for backing vocals, and they worked from this one… a little more developed but still pretty rough.

02 – the second draft

Still very much unfinished, but with more finesse in the arrangement/sequence, this is a lot closer to how I expect the final product to be delivered.

03 – the third draft

Southside Underscore. Starts out as an underscore, then kicks into high gear… 2’52″

Southside Underscore

Skippy. This may be well over tempo, but was an idea for end credits that kind of fitted a scenario I was given for the end of the film. It works at a much slower tempo too. 2’02″

Skippy/Credits

Wake Up! This was an initial uptempo idea, possibly for part of the trailer. 2’02″

Wake Up!/Trailer

A couple of short Scene Change type stings… just a few seconds each.

Scene Change 1

Scene Change 2