Second solo album incoming...

[Bloody_Inferno]

@Bloody_Inferno
Having to rewrite a track from scratch is rough tho. I struggle to rewrite a riff let alone a bunch of slick lead lines and melodies! That kinda melodic playing is something I strive to develop, though sadly I am too disorganized to properly practice.

It wasn't too bad. When you've reached a routine of writing a lot, you get used to discarding music as much as writing them. You'll soon get used to assessing the quality control of your own stuff too.

The big hurdle for this track was the bassline. At some point early in pre-production, I didn't want to play bass on this album and went through another person before getting a definite player. Unfortunately, circumstances forced to split the album bass duties between us (he had to go to Qatar doing resident gigs and then had to hold any music actives during Ramadan). It was a shame since the guy could clearly out play me under the table, and I really wanted him to play on the entire album (especially difficult songs like this one). But deadlines were looming, so I had to put my foot down.

In your case, one thing you could do is to dedicate a set time and start a routine of writing one riff and/or melody a day, no more no less. Then document it with some diary or notes and stick to it for a while until it becomes second nature. Then expand upon your productivity without expanding your time spent.

 

[Alberto7]

That's actually not a bad exercise! Hadn't thought of that. Will give it a shot, thanks for the suggestion

 

[Bloody_Inferno]

Today is now Friday 22/3 in most parts of the world, so third single is out now.



This will he the last single before full album drops on April 5th.

 

[Concerto412]

Sounds great, I really like the main melody line in this one.
Looking forward to the full drop, this is probably my favourite of the released singles so far

 

[Bloody_Inferno]

Sounds great, I really like the main melody line in this one.
Looking forward to the full drop, this is probably my favourite of the released singles so far

Thanks again! Glad you like this one, that melody is a favorite of mine as well. It was one of the last songs written but it came naturally.

Unfortunately it's also another song that circumstances had prevented me to have my bassist record on, so I had to play this ridiculous part myself. Even harder knowing I wanted it to sound like a real band jamming in a room, so after letting the drummer cut loose, I really had to pay attention to what we were both playing to keep up with him. Both the bass and the guitar solo were painfully difficult but it was worth it in the end.

 

[Alberto7]

I really love this one! Bring on the shred not surprised to hear this gave you a hard time, that's a tooonn of sick lines you came up with there. The melody is super sweet and catchy. I've said it before and I'll say it again, but your sense of melody is amazing. I don't have the exact technical language to describe how or why, but I love the way it fits with everything else and the chord progressions you choose. Also, good job on that bass. That was the first thing that caught my attention shortly after the song started.

I want the full albuuummmmm!

 

[Bloody_Inferno]

I really love this one! Bring on the shred not surprised to hear this gave you a hard time, that's a tooonn of sick lines you came up with there. The melody is super sweet and catchy. I've said it before and I'll say it again, but your sense of melody is amazing. I don't have the exact technical language to describe how or why, but I love the way it fits with everything else and the chord progressions you choose. Also, good job on that bass. That was the first thing that caught my attention shortly after the song started.

I want the full albuuummmmm!

Can you wait a couple of weeks?

Thanks for the compliments on the melody, really appreciate it. It was something that I'm trying to be as conscious as possible about, especially when going down the instrumental path. Without a singer or lyrics to tell a story, I had to lean hard on the melody/harmony aspect, basically taking a page from the Satriani method. And also helped that I was always surrounded with melodic music at a young age (NES games, Sound of Music, etc) it's probably set and stuck in my DNA. Gaming especially, since the non-diegetic music had to carry a lot of the atmosphere. It's funny since I did a guest guitar solo for a studio client's rap album. When he heard the result, he joked that it was right out of Final Fantasy, but then said, it's perfect and kept it.

Also, just to go back on the discarding music topic, I remembered, Here We Stand off the first album was my original example. I actually wrote a very different song using the same title many years prior, but after revisiting it I ended up resenting it. I was in a weird situation emotionally and thought the original was so happy and triumphant sounding, so it had to go, so it went to the creative bin. I still wanted to keep the title and started from scratch, but went with a more melancholy, bittersweet tone that became what it is on the album.

 

[Bloody_Inferno]

Today is Friday in California. Full album is out now. Bon Appetit.

 

[M3CHK1LLA]

Congrats on the release...been enjoying what I've heard so far

 

[Bloody_Inferno]

I suppose now is a good time to give some backstory to the album.

This was a massive pain to make, over the course of 7 years. Funny enough, all the songs were written quickly, since I've already had them planned out conceptually for a while. So, it was written within a year, whilst I was recording and producing one of my other prog bands at the time. The plan was then booking the musicians, which led to all sorts of scheduling conflicts, usual life stuff and even a few personal setbacks on my end. So, I spent that doing an album recording session with my co-producer for another client, which while we ended up completing and even releasing, it went southward. But those were important sessions since I used my share of the payment to help fund the album. I also wanted to have someone else play bass instead rather than me doing almost everything. My first choice had to pull out but I got an offer from the guy who eventually ended up playing on the album. So onward to the next year. That was 2020, and we all knew where that went.

Though the lockdowns were a blessing in disguise for me. I just bought a new mac, and a proper interface, so my productivity from home went through the roof. So, the first thing I did whilst writing a ton of new random stuff, was to re-record all the album demos. Basically, I did the pre-production process twice, not recommended, but it did work wonders for my work ethic and better understanding of mixing songs. It also gave me better confidence to rely on recording guitars direct, since I can just send them to the studio for re-amping with my Kemper or whatever amps we had. Two years later, and 2 studios booked for recording.

Got the drums recorded in 2 days. Turns out that every time I do a solo album, I make a drummer work harder than their usual gig. This guy was one of the best drummers I knew and even he wanted to kill me. But it's always worth it in the end, since it brings the best performance out of him. But the bassist's schedules and constant travelling threw another wrench in the works, so we both recorded our parts remotely over the drummer's recordings. I got to record taiko drummers, gang chants, a bunch of acoustic and world instruments, percussion, and even a gospel choir from Nigeria through Fiverr. They were recommended to me by another friend who was also making an album at the time. More delays happened when the bassist was doing a residency in Qatar, and a lot of his dry stems were having voltage issues and was prevented to work during Ramadan. Ultimately, I decided to put my foot down and finished off the rest of the bass parts. Then finally got my co-producer to do vocals, and because I'm picky with my 3 part harmonies, I broke him too. But by the next session, he knocked it out of the park. All of that was happening while we were getting his home studio plans running, recorded a country rock album together, whilst he was also recording another band. Thankfully the mixing sessions were much faster than my last album. Hell, I was even taking notes and approving mixes during my trip to the Middle East. Needless to say, a lot of stuff happened during the making of this album, hence why I take so long making them.

TL/DR: It's probably easier to just listen to the album than reading all that.

 

[ToneLab]

Congrats on getting it out JP! I will check it out.

 

[Alberto7]

I want to give the album a couple more listens, but VERY good impressions on a first listen! Finally found some time to listen to it back to back while working yesterday. The singles fit really well. Not sure what it is yet, but I get a good sense of story telling, thematically speaking. The song titles help a lot with that, which is nice! Town of Angels (both) I remember as being particularly good. It has been a minute since I last listened to the first album in full, but The Heretic was a super sweet throwback to the title track in the first album, which is kinda where I had the thought that you probably have a whole story to tell here with these albums. Maybe I'm just overthinking it but it makes me think more about the music and makes me want to listen to everything again to see what else I think I find.

Good job on this one man! And congratulations on finally releasing

I suppose now is a good time to give some backstory to the album.

This was a massive pain to make, over the course of 7 years. Funny enough, all the songs were written quickly, since I've already had them planned out conceptually for a while. So, it was written within a year, whilst I was recording and producing one of my other prog bands at the time. The plan was then booking the musicians, which led to all sorts of scheduling conflicts, usual life stuff and even a few personal setbacks on my end. So, I spent that doing an album recording session with my co-producer for another client, which while we ended up completing and even releasing, it went southward. But those were important sessions since I used my share of the payment to help fund the album. I also wanted to have someone else play bass instead rather than me doing almost everything. My first choice had to pull out but I got an offer from the guy who eventually ended up playing on the album. So onward to the next year. That was 2020, and we all knew where that went.

Though the lockdowns were a blessing in disguise for me. I just bought a new mac, and a proper interface, so my productivity from home went through the roof. So, the first thing I did whilst writing a ton of new random stuff, was to re-record all the album demos. Basically, I did the pre-production process twice, not recommended, but it did work wonders for my work ethic and better understanding of mixing songs. It also gave me better confidence to rely on recording guitars direct, since I can just send them to the studio for re-amping with my Kemper or whatever amps we had. Two years later, and 2 studios booked for recording.

Got the drums recorded in 2 days. Turns out that every time I do a solo album, I make a drummer work harder than their usual gig. This guy was one of the best drummers I knew and even he wanted to kill me. But it's always worth it in the end, since it brings the best performance out of him. But the bassist's schedules and constant travelling threw another wrench in the works, so we both recorded our parts remotely over the drummer's recordings. I got to record taiko drummers, gang chants, a bunch of acoustic and world instruments, percussion, and even a gospel choir from Nigeria through Fiverr. They were recommended to me by another friend who was also making an album at the time. More delays happened when the bassist was doing a residency in Qatar, and a lot of his dry stems were having voltage issues and was prevented to work during Ramadan. Ultimately, I decided to put my foot down and finished off the rest of the bass parts. Then finally got my co-producer to do vocals, and because I'm picky with my 3 part harmonies, I broke him too. But by the next session, he knocked it out of the park. All of that was happening while we were getting his home studio plans running, recorded a country rock album together, whilst he was also recording another band. Thankfully the mixing sessions were much faster than my last album. Hell, I was even taking notes and approving mixes during my trip to the Middle East. Needless to say, a lot of stuff happened during the making of this album, hence why I take so long making them.

TL/DR: It's probably easier to just listen to the album than reading all that.

And thank you for this! It's always super cool to take sneak peeks into the minds of people that do the things I like.

 

[Bloody_Inferno]

Congrats on the release...been enjoying what I've heard so far

Congrats on getting it out JP! I will check it out.

gents. I should add a disclaimer; this album is rather long and dense, so it'll take some time to properly digest because...

I want to give the album a couple more listens, but VERY good impressions on a first listen! Finally found some time to listen to it back to back while working yesterday. The singles fit really well. Not sure what it is yet, but I get a good sense of story telling, thematically speaking. The song titles help a lot with that, which is nice! Town of Angels (both) I remember as being particularly good. It has been a minute since I last listened to the first album in full, but The Heretic was a super sweet throwback to the title track in the first album, which is kinda where I had the thought that you probably have a whole story to tell here with these albums. Maybe I'm just overthinking it but it makes me think more about the music and makes me want to listen to everything again to see what else I think I find.

Good job on this one man! And congratulations on finally releasing

You're not overthinking it, because you're more or less right on. I don't want to give too much away, since the album has only been out a week , but let's just say every compositional decision made was indeed deliberate. That said, I was also conscious to make sure that the songs can at least stand on their own without being bogged down to a loose concept, so I tried to make the songs as strong as possible. Hopefully I'm at least successful to some degree.

Also, for the record, the songs I played bass on are tracks 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13 and 15. Well, 8 is technically a Bass VI, and 15 actually has 2 bass parts played by both of us.

 

[Bloody_Inferno]

So, I'm being asked to spill the beans on the production from some of my composer friends I met at a Discord server. I'll probably do a live session with them, but thought I'd note them down here too.

Like my first album, I scored everything except lead melodies and solos on Sibelius, then convert the midi to Logic Pro and record the guitars over them. So yes, painstakingly notating every drum pattern/fill, bass line, guitar riffs, string arrangements, all the like. Again, why I take so damn long when making demos, but at least it speeds up the part of pre-production when I'm teaching other musicians, since I have sheet music and tabs ready when needed. Most of the time I tell them to try to stay on script, but certain things like drum fills or other embellishments are free for them to interpret. Especially drums, when something is altered, the rest of us can adjust accordingly.

A good chunk of the world instruments used are real and played by me, and perhaps the odd VST samples. I'd say, 80/20 real to VST ratio. Some instruments used were an Irish Bouzouki (track 1), a Sanshin/Okinawan banjo (tracks 4 and 10), Guqin/Chinese Zither played like a lap steel and a Danelectro Sitar (both on track 7), Tabla drums (track 7 and 14), a Pipa/Chinese Lute and an Erhu (both on track 14). Those were the ones I had to learn and play, while the Taikos are on tracks 10 and 14.

One of the two taiko players played on my first album as well. She's had so much fun that she wants to be in every album I make, so expect to hear more from her whenever I release something. We multi tracked the 2 players for track 10 until we had 24 taikos playing. Then I aux fed them through obscene amounts of reverb into seperate tracks, so it makes 48 taikos total. I gave each of them a section where they get to play solo as well. The gang chants were the three of us along with whoever part of the studio staff was present at the time.

For the tabla parts, I initially just wanted any percussion like a conga or djembe, but one of the managers from my regular studio owned one and lent them to me. I practiced for a week and tracked the parts.

I practically lost count on how many guitars I used on the album. I'm pretty sure it was passed the 30 mark. One of them is a fretless RG I used on track 1 and 12, the latter fed through a Boss SY300 synth pedal. Acoustics on the other hand, I used a flamenco nylon string, and 2 steel string acoustics: both Matons, one owned by my best friend and the other by my co-producer. My teacher lent me an old Roland GR300 synth guitar and that's on track 9. Speaking of which...

Pedals... way too many. The Free The Tone stuff are the main players, namely the Gigs Boson and Crunchy Chime, which was used on the majority of the album, with the Red Jasper and String Slinger on the mellower stuff. Usual whammy pedal antics on track 9, as well as a Third Man Plasma on a fretless bass solo on same track. That solo was a surprise from the bassist, and I wanted to make it sound less like a bass and more like Jormungandr surrounding the earth. My co producer and I listened to a bunch of komodo dragon and python sounds and tried to replicate it. Similar deal to the lead bass on track 10. That was the Unknown Decompose pedal my friend built for me. I also used a Boss Vocoder and a Korg Miku Stomp for track 4, surprisingly not the first time I recorded with the latter.

Some of the songs were gear driven. For track 3, I enforced a strict no humbucker rule for the sounds, so all the guitars used on it are equipped with single coils. For track 13, I had the idea of getting one of those paddle guitars with a keytar attached to it, Phillip Bynoe style, and shred a guitar solo, then a keytar solo in tandem then eventually play both at the same time. So yes, there's plenty of goofy stuff all over this album. Track 13 is bar none the most difficult song to perform, and the drummer certainly attests to that. The improvised keytar solo was one of the few things I lifted from the demo (sound and all) since clock was ticking and I just wasn't able to play a better one.

The drums on track 12 was recorded in one take, with me 'conducting' him from the mixing room. I yelled 'beast mode' on the second half of the drum line and he killed it.

The only guitar part I didn't play was the first solo of track 10, which was the guitarist in one of my old prog bands. He gave me 3 takes, then I used all 3 of them and drenched them with weird effects.

As far as amps go, everything was reamped. The Kemper did the heavy lifting, with my occasional 2 5153 heads on a few songs. I had a full spreadsheet of what I wanted for each song, and I just got my co producer to reamp them while I did something else.

I also learned how to throat sing for tracks 7 and 10. Got inspired by Mick Gordon and wanted a piece of that pie. Funny enough I'm better at it now than when I tracked the parts.

The violinist who played on track 14 was someone I met during my country sessions. We recorded and did a few gigs together and I wanted her on this album. Prior to the lockdowns, I took some violin lessons (not from her, but another friend), largely to learn how to write with the instrument. Turns out I wrote parts beyond the register but the violinist just happens to own a viola so that worked out. She also didn't like that I was planning to use midi for the strings and retracked all the string parts herself with a few minor adjustments. So all the strings on track 14 are real violins/violas. One of the best sessions I've ever conducted and shows that it really helps when you know some cool people.

The Nigerian gospel choir on track 1 was even easier. All I did was tell them what I want, sent a guide track and sheet music and they were done within a week with one take. Pricey but worth it.

Conversely, the piano parts in tracks 12 and 14 were meant to be outsourced, first to my cousin then a friend, both who could play better than I could. Both were unable to commit. I ended up buying a Roland 88 weighted keyboard and tracked the parts myself at 2 am after a certain emotional escapade. Sometimes you just have to do things yourself.

My co producer sang the vocals on track 15. The first session was a disaster, since he thought he could have done it in a day, but didn't realise the song has 5 different key changes with no repetition. Even after teaching him, even giving some theory, we were going nowhere and eventually pulled the plug. Though the week after, he used my guide vocals and nailed it all on his own. Even added some ad libs.

Guitar solo wise, it was mostly a mix of mapped out concept with some room for improvising on top. Track 6 has the longest solo on the album and that tipped towards improvising and reacting to what the bassist (me) and the drummer was doing. The outro solo was from the demos, entirely improvised, and then fed through a ton of pedals and other effects to the point of barely sounding like a guitar anymore. The last solo I tracked was track 1, where I decided late in the mixing stages I wasn't happy about it. During my trip to the Middle East, I did the Mt Sinai climb, which was tough but got inspired to redo the solo, then tracked it when I came back.

Compared to my first album, which took 9 months to mix, the post production sessions here were a breeze. I knew absolutely nothing about mixing, but now, my co-producer and I were much more armed and prepared after releasing at least one project a year since. So the 3 months were a breeze.

TL/DR: Yeah, that's a lot of stuff done.