Big Bang Dub

(aka "Deeper Meditation")

This is the first track on the demo CD, the one that has all the vocal tracks and guitar tracks. I combed through the guitar tracks and got a whole bunch of great 4-bar segments, some picking and some skanking, with dubby variations.

After importing them to the NN-XT sampler, I looked through the arrangement again and came up with some good ideas about where to use the picking, and where to break into the backbeats. The dub sections turned out great, and at the end I've combined both guitar parts; makes for a real nice build!

So now we've got the guitar parts arranged below the original sequenced tracks, and things are sounding good. After processing and tweaking the guitar sounds using Reason's FX plug-ins, I started thinking how cool it would be to have the same treatments on the vocals.

ADX recorded a main vocal chorus, with two backing voices, and sang it over 3 different choruses. I broke up the choruses into 8-bar phrases and exported the loops into another NN-XT sampler. (The verses are not included on this cut.)

Then, I assigned each of the three voices to the same note, so that with one trigger, the three part choruses would start together. It worked even better than I expected. Editing the parts into the sequence was a breeze (see below), and I was even able to bus the main voice out to another channel. I boosted its level and added an extra layer of delay, but removed some reverb to distinguish it from the backing vox.

I had already automated a couple of delay feedback tracks on the original demo sequence, so it was no problem to add the same treatment to the guitars and vocals. For this cut, I had routed the Space Echo return to its own track, and then automated various feeds of that delay return into other FX, and even back into itself!

I also used quick cuts of the delay on vocals and skanks to catch the end of a phrase, or fill an invitingly empty space in the arrangement. You can see the control lanes for the mixer automation below.

©2004 Dub Train Records