Bags of color

110807 Practice Notes

Involved

Tom Ray

Found some drum, bass and other various loops at ccmixter.org and used them to build a song from.

Part 1, added a pulse guitar part using the rhodes through Rakarack dist-wah-wah-1 effect

Chords are - dm, cmaj, gmaj, fmaj

Did a solo lead in on the rhodes too on two tracks doubling the parts with a high and low octave with the Rakarack helicopter effect

Audio

110807 song idea 1

For this part Tom used these loops from ccmixter

20101015_millo-drums_v.1_v1

18_RUSTY_mb_94

110807 song idea 2

For this part Tom used these loops from ccmixter

Exorcist_-_drum_loop_006_(95_BPM)

ceg_tertian_harmony

Audio

This is the outcome of that night's session - tentatively called "Bags of color"

original audio: http://www.archive.org/details/110822LorenzoPractice

Video

While trying to come up with a vocal melody Mark played an idea on the piano. Recorded it to remember what it was.

150701 Practice Notes

involved

Tom Ray

Cliff Hammer

Rob Gugel

Trying to add what is really the 3rd part at the end into the song in the other 2 parts. Best way to describe is like the song "I think I love you" by David Cassidy.

Also thinking of a way to have those chords as an into part to spike the opening.

Audio

Video

150708 Practice Notes

Involved

Tom Ray

Rob Gugel

Cliff Hammer

Working on reworkkng the song some more

Rob and tom trying to remember the lead line of the 2nd part

e, oct e, d, f, d, c, f, d, c, low e, f, g, f

possible Korg synth sounds to use

In prog mode

22, 29, 45, 74,

Had Rob drop out for the 2nd part and just have Tom and Cliff play and then Rob comes back with a different groove.

Part 3 tom plays ecg, d bflat g, caf, for the rhythm.

Cliff discussed playing the 3rd part in the same rhythm as the 2nd part to interject it into the second part like Tom was wanting to do. After testing it the keyboard part could stay the same through the whole thing when the bass switches creating a whole new dynamic to the part. The bass is the only thing that changes introducing a new part.

Audio

150715 Practice Notes

Involved

Mark Whitcomb

Tom Ray

Rob Gugel

Showing Mark the Keyboard lines to play them on the guitar

Photos

Part 1 Chords

Video

Mark playing part 1

Mark playing part 2

151008 Practice Notes

Involved

Rob Gugel

Trey Gugel

Mark Whitcomb

Bryan Elliott

Eric Brusewitz

Trying out a take with trey adding some stuff from his laptop.

With eric covering the main guitar chord part on keys we decided that mark can play a lead that he popped into at anytime and go in and out of the rhythm now.

Mark started a melody that would compliment the horn lead. Played higher so it wouldn't be the same tone as the sax. (around 13 min on the take _0783).

Mark then did a take just hitting the main chords ringing out (17min about on _0783)

Gonna start with that and then do the part that is normally the intro with the lead horn line instead of going into the chorus. (trying again at 22:44 on take _0783)

Eric did more of a dissident line on the chorus and we started to wonder if we should keep it the same way or go in that direction (around 32:00 on take _0783)

mark brought out the gibson to power it up.

Trey played a sample line we riffed on (beginning of take _0784)

chorus low D high A lead start

Trey used a sample called "budada" something?

tried a run at 11 min take _0784

Trey fond a loop in the sample to use (Another take at 20:23 take _0784)

151029 Practice Notes

Involved

Whole band

Eric playing rhythm and mark soloing right at the beginning (of the audio on _0822)

Cliff say drop the bass at some point in the song cuz of the way it sounded on that audio take.

Now that cliff is actually here to try the new way we don't know if it's the way to go (around 9min on take _0822 oops read wrong time dont know when it is)

Gonna try the original way to compare (24min on take _0822)

we stasrted to incorperate a lot of the new and old in that take

going to try the first verse into the solo before chorus (36:45min on take _0822)

verse into chorus (41:20 on take _0822)

solo full stop (43:46 on take _0822)

decided to double out the solo after the verse ditched the dropdown after solo since the solo adds the separation already (50:40 on take _0822) - strongest take so far

do the solo for 8, mark has a lick that he will play on the last one,

Eric to play lower on the chorus than mark on guitar hitting on the want of lyric, call and response with mark (eric now doing keys on verse and guit on chorus)

Tom says the take was too low for eric on the chorus and eric tries the higher d minor (1:01 on take _0822)

Tom and cliff thought it made it sound too subdued with the call and response and suggested ditching it went back to both ripping into the high note on the chorus (1:07 on take _0822)

bryan try more of a low line on the chorus to match the guitar (1:11:20 on take _0822)

out of the chorus mark will spike the main part that eric plays on verse 1:15

coming out of chorus marks says extend a fill - like in the beginning and drop to f too 1:18

full take (1:30 on take _0822)

Decided that we would keep the echo vocal stop from original version after the second verse and go into chorus.

151230 Practice Notes

Involved

Tom Ray

Cliff Hammer

Rob Gugel

Tape 151230-STE-30

Going over the song structure, listening to the last session trying to figure it out. See previous for notes.

Remember the drop note part at 1:18 (78min)

Tried the drop part out of chorus 0:20min

Tom at 00:22min worked on matching the dropdownline out of the chorus and wanted to match the bend last note to E

00:31;56 try take

00:33:55 verse

37min second verse to breakdown

Tape 151230-STE-031

0:03min full take

160106 Practice Notes

Involved

Mark Whitcomb

Cliff Hammer

Rob Gugel

Eric Brusewitz

Tom Ray

Tape - 160106-STE-000

3:35 first take

Mark wants to start with him and Eric introing 4:00

Tom Comes in with bass

Make sure everyone stops after first solo guitar verse going into chorus

730 for these

After verse 2 1 line breakdown horn plays lead part alone

wait 8 count with quick stop after first chorus hold and everyone comes in no horn solo 14:00

Eric is going to play breakdown line with horn

Eric has been adding low note on keys when mark drops out on his solo

verse 2 breakdown 30:00 min

double chorus to end 33:50

Mark wails on chorus like Eric's part 36 min

46:00 full take

51:20 min full take 2

thinking we should extent the breakdown part 4 times now, feels too short

verse two extended breakdown 56:30

don't play that extra note on the last line, seems too resolved hang on the f

1:00:00 hour limelight discussion

1:03:00 recording bags process notes

Audio

Last version of the song we did that night.

160113 Practice Notes

Involved

Tom Ray

Rob Gugel

Cliff Hammer

Thinking with the breakdown needing to be longer we take the lyrics we stole from this part to use as the chorus and overlap them back in this part like it used to be sung.

cliff and Rob discuss working on breakdown part. TOM and Rob suggest trying same bass notes so we don't run in to changing the tone of the song but playing a different rythmn to accent the down beat with the lead line. Rob plays his keyboard line.

Tape 2 - 0:00 trying it out

Rob tells cliff to try a line but it doesn't work

Tape 3 (a minute or so in) Tom suggests just saying in the first 3 notes for the bass and doing it in a clock like fashion.

Rob the thinks we should try out some different root notes. Rob also messes around with different sounds on the korg

8 min we start to think we're going down the road of altering the bass line again where it doesn't need it. Maybe just keep the idea of the vocals singing the chorus.

12:20 try with vocals thinking the bass will drop out here now.

Tape 4. Discussion about if we should have mark play keys and guitar like Eric does? Or have more of a synth sound to give it the layered sound the demo version had?

160120 Practice Notes

Involved

Rob Gugel

Cliff Hammer

Eric Brusewitz

Bryan Elliott

Tom Ray

44min ran through song

Tom mentioned that we have the horn carry the lead line by itself coming out of the chous then the guitar spikes come in like the take called bag of color from 110822

58: min tried it with chorus to horn lead to verse 2

maybe kkep the hold out of the chouse usuale length

tried again 1:07

whole take again 1:16

one more take at 1:28

160127 Practice notes

Involved

Tom Ray

Rob Gugel

Cliff Hammer

Decided the hold after the first chorus was now going to just be a 4 count.

18 min (about?) they started jamming on the chorus, rob played more on the tom's and Bryan did more of a staccato version of the horn line. Liked it.

Trying it with the chorus 23min

So Bryan is going to do more of a half original half bounce on the chorus. Think it will fit better with the slide guitar. An worked more with the vocal.

Full take at 40:20

160203 Practice Notes

Involved

Eric

Tom

Cliff

Rob

Tom suggests eric play a rhythmn guitar part in his head that is more of a snare accent with a slide on the end rather than doubling the keyboard part

Eric does rythmn on the snare beats

best version is around 10min on ste-000 file

played - f based chord of the sencond strind but just the top four strings, d on down, and playing boxy stuff (this is what eric said)

Eric suggests Tom try to play keys with the song again for this.

21min take

Tom sang old vocal take cuz of guitar part try again

23min take

Did it again tom was putting in pauses that aren't there anymore

Take 26:50min

next file ste-001 tried syncopated idea think maybe horn should do it.

160210 Practice Notes

Involved

Tom

Rob

Mark

Bryan

Cliff

Had Bryan play staccato, mark and Tom liked it, say he should bring out the effect thing that he has to give it a delay like the original

take 12min

Take 2 - 17 min

Mark is going to try to play his solo over the breakdown rather than coming out of the first chorus, gonna let Bryan just play his part there.

Gonna loose the end part outro

Try end without it at 29min

by nature we wanted to tag it at the end so maybe we do need to do that?

Take at the end 41 min

Tom tinking that the vocal he does on the breakdown before the alst chorus should continue in the background as the main vocals sing

160217 Practice Notes

Involved

Tom Ray

Eric Brusewitz

Cliff Hammer

Mark Whitcomb

Rob Gugel

Bryan Elliott

Ending should be the chorus vocals over everything they are playing when mark finished his solo

Bryan brought his effects pedal for sax to get flutter effect

Found out the main piano line will work over chorus, think we should dub that in there on recording

26 min take 2 midi card

Make sure hard stop happens before first chorus

Mark deciding between vox amp and marshall half

Tom says to make sure the hold after the first chrous shouldn't blled after 4 count

6min take on 160217-ste-001

22:45 min on 160217-ste-001 rob trying out open hihat just on the ones

Mark switched guitars to to the les paul

29min take - Tom really like the way it ended and the last note was a mistake but was really cool

Mark decideds in the les paul... for now. But we do agree it blended with the sound better

Talked about how we switched the lead line mark plays in the begining on 160217-STE-002 at 4min

Adding the pause before the breakdown again like the original

Take at 8:35 160217-ste-002

coming out of the last chorus eric should go right into the breakdown horn line while the horn plays its syncopated part

gonna shorten the hold after the second verse to 4

Take 14:19 160217-ste-002

Try endiong with guitars stop and come back with chorus lead and then everyone stops except horn and bass

try out take at 22min 160217-ste-002

take 2 of that at 28:21 160217-ste-002

Byan will kick in effect on end notes

34min one more take

38min eric tags ending horn line with bass and sax part

Whole song take at 44:47 160217-ste-002

after nsecond verse bryan will play over the echo pause by himself, figured that out when he accidentally did that

Whole song take 2 at 49:31

160511 Practice Notes

Involved

Tom Ray

Mark Whitcomb

Cliff Hammer

Rob Gugel

Eric Brusewitz

Laying down the bed tracks for the studio. Finding the groove that we didn't have when we recorded the last time. We've changed some parts to give it more feel too.

Started tempo at 89 BPM to find a groove

Too slow wanted to speed up as we played

1:04:00 talked about Eric not holding the last note on the verse since keys ring out it sounds abrupt

Mark thought he should change what he does to make the dynamic different on that part after the verse.

1:08:00 tried again

1:14:00 talked about Eric going back to the part he plays on the first verse. The power sound thing instead of continuing the horn part together

1:18:00 tried again with those changes

1:22:00 Tom thinks that Eric changing right when the guitar comes in before the second part is weird bit when the horn is there to continue the part it may be OK. Plus when Eric switched for the that part he did like this crazy video game star fire effect accidentally that turned out to sound kinda cool.

On the end solo mark came back to the chorus part as a fallback when he was done which tied it up nicely before the stop.

Audio in drive folder

160706 Practice Notes

Involved

Tom Ray

Cliff Hammer

Rob Gugel

Mark Whitcomb

Decided to try and track in the back warehouse on the protools set up we have.

Ran through it a few times and Mark is going to play the chorus as a chord rhythm instead of the bend we originally did. Tried a few octaves first and we went with the lower one. It had more of a mood.

Going to try mic-ing up the vocals in the pa speaker to give that a try.

8min - first recording of the night is on robs zoom, second is on Toms tascam

cliffs amp was buzzing, had to try a DI to get rid of it

still buzzing after DI was used

Seems we were on different circuits plugging in.

Thinking of just micing his cabinet

seemed rushed when we first recorded, tried playing the high hat as quarter notes instead. Seemed slow.

But then, decided to try out the guitar and bass riding behind the groove of the high hat, we liked that better, gave it a new sort of rolling groove

Going to keep the chorus dead on as it was so it kicks in.

Guitar stays staccato on the verse to ride is, short also hears the slap back

verse darker guitar sound brighter on chorus

At the very end of the session mark dropped the verse guitar to an even lower octave, to try and find an easier way to ride behind the hi hat groove.

Was different but kinda cool

In the beginning cliff stayed on the low first part of his line trying in a hammer on part and we liked how it alternated, thinking of having him do the line where he goes up every other time.

Audio

On the drive - 160706_0988.mp3

160929 Practice Notes

Involved

Tom Ray

Cliff Hammer

Mark Whitcomb

Eric Brusewitz

Spent some time working on the groove of the song

Set up the studio with our amps facing us on the other side of the room. Mark was set up on the right by the door then eric kind of in the middle and cliff over to the left. Kind of like a stereo spread.

video

170111 Practice Notes

Involved

Tom Ray

Mark Whitcomb

Cliff Hammer

Rob Gugel

Brian Daley came to practice to help us with the song. He had been listening to some of the recordings we had done in the past month and had some insight on what we could do with it for the recording we were working up to.

After talking we had some ideas to run with.

Cliff had added a slight change to the bass rhythm and played the strings up towards the neck of his guitar to make the instrument sound more defined when he played.

Rob had changed up the bass drum a bit on every fourth to match the bass.

Then while they were practicing that cliff dropped out a note so the snare would hit on it's own without the bass.

Brian told mark to play his part like a "stoner guitar" on the chorus which was more like a Fugazi waiting room sound when he did it.

And Mark is also going to go back to playing the spikes on the verses, all thought it sounded better that way. And think that Eric will hold out the chorus change notes instead no like he had been doing on the guitar.

Audio

Audio files in the bags of color folder in google drive.

170111_0022.mp3

170111_0023.mp3

170111_0024.mp3

170111_0025.mp3