First, a giveaway!
Before we start with the “Crash” update, one quick announcement:
Everyone who has made a purchase at the RomHeadTech Bandcamp store by 5pm Central on July 18th will receive a free Carbon Protocol remix. It’s a remixed and edited version of this:
“Crash, Burn, and Drown” updates
Subscribers who have been here for a little while may recall the “Crash, Burn, and Drown” demo from 2003 (available on www.RomHead.com). Part of what I promised was peeks at the re-creation of the track using modern resources. The preview above is part of that sneak peek process, and there will be more to come.
After consulting with someone with very extensive music business experience, I decided to keep two main loops from the original demo: the organ (the sound you hear from the very beginning) and the big beat drums. My efforts to recreate these have been futile at best. Apparently they were lightning in a bottle.
However, all the rest of the instruments are in the process of being recreated. For now, I have created a 1-for-1 re-creation of the original track structure using the two loops as the foundation. The instruments I have re-created so far are audible in this exclusive preview (up above).
What’s different?
All the sounds you hear aside from the organ loop and the drum loop are newly created. I played them live with my “fast and cheap” gear. One of the instruments used is the free ZebraCM virtual synth created by u-He. It’s so free it doesn’t even require you to give up your email address. It doesn’t get any free-er than that. See “Fast and Cheap - Getting Started”, conveniently linked for you here, for more details on getting started fast and cheap.
Fast and Cheap - Getting Started
I hesitated to get into making my own music for literally decades because I assumed it was too expensive. My barrier to entry was a lack of up-front money and the inaccurate assumption that quality music could not be produced on a reasonable budget. I was assuming that the only way to really make music was to have thousands or tens of thousands of dolla…
I also used Arturia’s Acid V synth to create a new version of the old 303 loop I was using. I do still have that loop, but this was a great excuse to bust out the Acid V. And since I originally composed the song in AcidExpress (now owned by Magix and… well I use Ableton now), it’s only fitting that I use an instrument called the Acid V to create the new version.
What’s left?
Quite a bit, actually. One does not simply crank out a track he has been wrestling with for two decades in a session or two.
You’ll notice in this preview the conspicuous absense of the bass drop that occurs throughout the song. Re-creating that has been a major challenge, and the original loop is long gone. I lost it in a hard drive crash 20 years ago. I have an instrument for re-creating the sound, and I’ve just about dialed it in. Next will be creating the Ableton automation lanes to trigger it as needed.
I’ve recreated the acid synth sound, and it’s audible in the beginning third of the track. I’ll get it spread out where it’s supposed to go for the next preview.
There’s still the oscillating pad sound that needs to be re-created. That’s probably coming next even though it’s #3 on this list.
I intend to change some things up. I’m quite proud of the extended breakdown from around 3:27 til about 5:08. Using that as a springboard, I intend to create some fills between the “verses” and the “choruses” which will ultimately push the song to be closer to around 8 minutes long. If you’ve been reading recently, you may recall that I love a good long sprawling track. I hope you think the finished version of this track is worthy of its 8-ish minutes.
Probably way more than these four items, but I won’t know until the ideas hit me.
Keeping in mind that this is a rough demo let me know what you think!
