|
I started to simply make riddims. Drum, bass,
other instruments. When I was more or less
satisfied with a riddim, I mixed a DUB from it.
This helped me to get an idea from the vibes, and to actually create a set up that I
could use for the final mixes.
For you must have variety in an album, but also
consistency. The tunes must together form a story,
and so there have to be elements in the music that
you can find back throughout the entire album. And
it's not just the instruments that make this
consistency. Effects are crucial, too. And not
just in the DUB mix!
Throughout the year, a final set up was
distilled.
I decided to use two different Drum
kits, one Bass Guitar, one "Skank
Section" (organ, piano, guitar" and one
Horn Section (Trombone, Sax and Trumpet). I also
programmed several effects to enhance the sound.
Especially the reverb is very important.
So I had more or less formed a "band"
with a particular sound and particular line
up.
But I needed variation too, and not
just in the music. The instruments themselves are
at least as important as the riddims they play.
The variation, in my case, is in the percussion
and accompanying instruments.
I used violins, synthesizer strings, beeps and
bleeps, clavinets, and other instruments. And for
percussion, I used everything from guiro's to
conga's, from bongo's to cowbells, from TR808
style Snare Drums to Hand Claps.
It "simply" takes a long time, to
figure out all these things. Creating a few tunes
is definitely not enough to find a certain sound
which can last well over an hour. It took me well
over 6 months to come to this.
After creating all these tunes, and the set up,
it was time for the next step: voicing the
riddims.
As I mentioned in one of my
updates, the vocals in themselves were quite a
story too. But in the context of this article, I
won't really go into that aspect very much. But in
short: I rode each riddim with either singing or
toasting/chanting style, and sometimes in a combi.
In the meantime, there was a group of people
who listened to most of the DUBS I did before
voicing them. Throughout the year, I myself
listened a lot too, and so the riddims kind of
grew on me too. I selected 15 tracks and put them
on a Net Album, which I released for free.
Feedback about specific riddims helped me to find
people's preferences.
I created more DUBS, this time with the voice.
The same story: I released them as a free MP3/WAV
album and watched closely what the feedback
said.
|
