Would-Have-Beens
Notes On "Would-Have-Beens"
Or you can listen and view the notation on YouTube.
CONCEPT & MOTIF: Scritti Politti Feels
(TM writes:)
In our discussion on the next concept or motif TI told me something exhilarating would be great. That reminded me of the British band Scritti Politti, especially their “Cupid & Psyche ‘85” album.
I love that album and TI often says there are only a few people who admire Scritti Politti today. We think the album is absolutely superb.
I just wanted to make a FURICO track with a lot of Scritti Politti feels… I mean, such features as the sound components being splattered around and used like percussions, a lot of reverb works like gate reverb, pop music with complicated chords, funk and reggae rhythms, etc with a lot of love and respect to them.
Here is the original motif I made.
It should sound simple and pops, but chords are something like G sus4 / D sus4 7 / C sus4 M7 / F sus2&4 6 / B sus4 9 / EM7 add4 / Bb sus4 9 / Eb sus4 6, leaving the tonality ambiguous. (The blue note in bar 3 has no meaning.) This gives a feeling like "very harmonious, but something strange," doesn't it?
But this time, we did not intend to eliminate tonality 100%.
By the way, while I listen to Scritti Politti when driving my car, very very often I encounter long queues. I wonder why :)
For this track, TI and I thought and did various things. But as TI wrote down a excellently detailed description as below, I leave them :)
COMPOSITION: Multiple Tonalities
(TI writes:)
For this track, the proposal of "the feeling of CUPID & PSYCHE '85 of Scritti Politti" was the start.
I like music that is "established by chord progression" as well as music in which "multiple tonalities are established at the same time in the music (in some cases, different chords sound separately at the same time)."
Therefore, I interpreted it as "a familiar song but with a twist."
As for the process of creation, I made a simple chord progression of B part for the motif (A part) of the opening part created by TM. We created the counterparts and obligatos each other, completed a Musescore, transferred the data to StudioOne as usual, and created the sound and mixed it.
In the creation procedure of the part, I first created a chord progression (unlike the previous FURICO track), but after an approximate chord progression was achieved, in particular, the secondary chords and internal modulations are repeated by playing completely different chords on brass counterparts and guitar and piano instruments, so that the tonality can not be heard.
And the tonality is distorted by moving back and forth between major and minor in places (especially the last part of the part).
The drums parts were created almost entirely by TM, and the bass part was studded with sixteenth notes by sewing its gap.
The chorus part that feels strange is created by TM.
(TM adds:) The chorus is in part samlings of a real soprano chorus from San Francisco Girls Chorus, which is definitely fabulous, and in part a synthesizer. I intended to make the melody ambiguous and make the motif above something like “it’s like a melody, but might not be” by adding the soprano choir.
MIXING: Challenging Reverbs
I usually don't use much reverb with FURICO's tracks.
The reason why I don't use much reverb is that FURICO's music has a lot of sounds, and using reverb makes it even more difficult to hear each part, and the volume quickly peaks out.
At that time (mid 80's), even the latest studio had around 24 to 36 analog tracks, and the number of sounds was small. So even if using many reverbs, the sounds were harder to saturate than before. Also, sampling machines were starting to appear and the sound quality was poor, and it was difficult to hear just by sounding as it was, so they probably used a lot of reverbs and effectors.
Therefore, if I do the same thing now, I will not be able to control the sound, and it will be rather difficult to hear. However, since reverb is an indispensable part of the concept of this song production, I use it daringly.
So, at first, it was difficult to adjust the volume, to organize the band.
The solution is to check the effect (including reverb) sound on each sound one by one, and remove the extra interference bands. Not only is the track unit but also the volume control finely done for each place.
In addition, the setting and control of the release is extremely important in reverb. In the end I also cut the audio waveform by hand.
I think it would have been cleaner by physically cutting the place, which can not be cut just by adjusting the release and the gate of the original sound source and plug-in.
However, as this also became too bland if you cut too much after the sound and the band, it was necessary to adjust the place to be cut and the place to be left uncut.
I think that the point was to “cut out the extra band and release while leaving a lot of reverb components”.
Similarly, "Gated Reverb" would be important, but it was difficult to set up because the atmosphere did not change in one way, and there was no intended effect.
The preset “Gated Reverb” in the reverb plug-in does not give the desired effect, so I set up a reverb, compressor, gate, and EQ in a unique way.
Which plug-in to choose? It was a lot of fun experimenting what kind of effect can be obtained by adjusting the settings of each plug-in. (To do this in a real recording studio you will need a lot of budget, time and skilled staff. Now I can experiment as many as I like with my home PC and monitor speakers).
On Music in the 80's
There is no intention to "reproduce the music of that time" for this track (there is some nostalgia).
However, even though there was a movement like revival in the 80's, it stayed only until imitating the sound quality.
In fact, not only the mix but also the creation of the music itself was very difficult. Though ideas and inspiration are important, they can not be created by themselves, and they have created these mostly live music and hardware.
(TM adds:)
The title "Would-Have-Beens" was a sort of parody of Scritti Politti's "Wood Beez."