{"id":133,"date":"2006-10-25T15:10:08","date_gmt":"2006-10-25T20:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/music\/tunes\/"},"modified":"2021-04-12T23:17:53","modified_gmt":"2021-04-13T04:17:53","slug":"tunes","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/music\/tunes\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Music"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m not much of a musician, but I enjoy what I do.\u00a0 I mainly play electric bass.\u00a0 I took some lessons for a year or so at a local music school during my university days.\u00a0 I never really practiced enough.\u00a0 I still don&#8217;t.\u00a0 My brother Matt got all the musical talent in my immediate family.<\/p>\n<p>This page features selections from some music recorded in my basement.\u00a0 All music is improvised and recorded live, except for a handful of tracks based on other peoples&#8217; tunes.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h4 id=\"Craigmatron\">Craigmatron<\/h4>\n<p>Some of the earliest basement recordings were done with Craig Thornton, an intern from RIM, on guitar.\u00a0 He plays with a very light, jazzy feel.\u00a0 These jams were a lot of fun.\u00a0 Sadly, all the masters were lost, all I have left is a CD of mixes.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s the best one:<\/p>\n<h5>Hunka Burnin&#8217; Love <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/09-Hunka-Burnin-Love.mp3\">[MP3]<\/a><\/h5>\n<!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-133-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/09-Hunka-Burnin-Love.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/09-Hunka-Burnin-Love.mp3\">http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/09-Hunka-Burnin-Love.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<ul>\n<li>Matt: drums, keyboards<\/li>\n<li>Ron: bass, keyboards<\/li>\n<li>Craig: guitar<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The last jam of a long night.\u00a0 I started a weird thing on bass.\u00a0 It took Craig a while to find a guitar part that worked with it, but it got very cool when he did.\u00a0 I even attempt a couple bass solos near the end.\u00a0 Keyboard parts were overdubbed later.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h4 id=\"Markmatron\">Markmatron<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Matt: drums<\/li>\n<li>Ron: bass, keyboard<\/li>\n<li>Mark: guitar<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Recorded in 2003, on a Sunday.\u00a0 In November, I believe.<\/p>\n<p>Mark is a fantastic guitarist, able to play in many styles, and constantly inventing new sounds and textures.\u00a0 These tunes are much more extended, spacey and weird.\u00a0 More in the progressive-rock vein.  On a few tracks, we stretched out into some strange time signatures, a hallmark of prog-rock.<\/p>\n<p>I played keyboard on a few tracks here.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve had no training in keyboard playing, and it shows.\u00a0 My parts are either simplistic, or riddled with mistakes.\u00a0 Sometimes both.<\/p>\n<p>We intended to record the keyboard parts as MIDI, using VST virtual instruments (Hammond B3 organ and Prophet synth emulators from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.native-instruments.com\/\">Native Instruments<\/a>)\u00a0 But for some reason, that configuration was crashing Cubase.\u00a0 Something in the MIDI driver, I think, because the moment a MIDI even came in, it locked up.\u00a0 So instead the keyboard is recorded as live audio, using the JX-8P&#8217;s own sounds through a digital delay, wah-pedal and guitar amplifier.\u00a0 The wah-pedal allowed me to make the synth parts interesting, without overtaxing my extremely limited keyboard technique.<\/p>\n<p>A much better job of recording the drums than I did on the Craigmatron session.\u00a0 My new kick-drum mike is amazing.\u00a0 It picks up almost nothing else but the kick drum.\u00a0 Five tracks devoted to the drums (PZM microphone under the snare, kick mike, left and right overhead mikes, and a mike above the snare.)<\/p>\n<p>Guitar is recorded on three tracks.\u00a0 Guitar was played through a Boss VF-1 effects box (thanks Robert!), and the Ampeg V-4B bass amp.\u00a0 Two tracks are the stereo digital output from the VF-1 effects box, and one track is a microphone on the amp.<\/p>\n<p>Many tracks pick up after they&#8217;ve already started.\u00a0 The guys were too impatient to wait for me to start recording.<\/p>\n<h5>Jam 2<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/02-Track-02.mp3\">Part 1<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/03-Track-03.mp3\">Part 2<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/04-Track-04.mp3\">Part 3<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-133-2\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/02-Track-02.mp3?_=2\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/02-Track-02.mp3\">http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/02-Track-02.mp3<\/a><\/audio><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-133-3\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/03-Track-03.mp3?_=3\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/03-Track-03.mp3\">http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/03-Track-03.mp3<\/a><\/audio><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-133-4\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/04-Track-04.mp3?_=4\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/04-Track-04.mp3\">http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/04-Track-04.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Drums: Matt<\/li>\n<li>Guitar: Mark<\/li>\n<li>Almost Tolerable Synth: Ron<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This extended two-chord jam reminds me very much of the long chemically-enhanced free-form jams typical of space-rock bands like Amon Duul II.\u00a0 One long jam, broken (rather arbitrarily) into three pieces.\u00a0 The third part (Track 4) is the best.<\/p>\n<h5>Jam 6 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/08-Track-08.mp3\">[MP3]<\/a><\/h5>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-133-5\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/08-Track-08.mp3?_=5\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/08-Track-08.mp3\">http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/08-Track-08.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<ul>\n<li>Drums: Matt<\/li>\n<li>Funkenstein Guitar and guitar overdubs: Mark<\/li>\n<li>Synth: Ron<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Mark plays a really cool strange riff on guitar, through the VF-1 Funkenstein effect.\u00a0 I like the way the riff keeps turning upside down.\u00a0 And the way the drums pick up with a high-hat at about 2:10, after a brief rest.\u00a0 And my synth part is not too terrible.\u00a0 A few simple notes, bent around with the delay and wah pedal.\u00a0 This is the one that sticks in my head.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h4 id=\"Rusmarkmatron\">Rusmarkmatron<\/h4>\n<p>Now we&#8217;re getting really spacey.\u00a0 I played a lot more organ in this session.\u00a0 I&#8217;m still terrible at it, but somehow getting better, despite a complete lack of training or practice.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d really like to go over some these tunes and fix up some mistakes, and maybe overdub some new synth tracks.\u00a0 But it won&#8217;t be easy to fix anything.\u00a0 We had so much crosstalk between the instruments, mistakes appear on every track.\u00a0 Especially my own all-too-common mistakes on the bass.\u00a0 The hazards of recording live jams in a crappy basement studio with no isolation.<\/p>\n<h5>Jam 1 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/01-Track-01.mp3\">[MP3]<\/a><\/h5>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-133-6\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/01-Track-01.mp3?_=6\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/01-Track-01.mp3\">http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/01-Track-01.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<ul>\n<li>Mark: Guitar<\/li>\n<li>Matt: Guitar<\/li>\n<li>Ron: Pro-53 Synth<\/li>\n<li>Russ: Drums<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A really mellow two-chord thing.\u00a0 My synth starts out really rough, but gets better.<\/p>\n<h5>Jam 2 part 1 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/02-Track-02-1.mp3\">[MP3]<\/a><\/h5>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-133-7\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/02-Track-02-1.mp3?_=7\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/02-Track-02-1.mp3\">http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/02-Track-02-1.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<ul>\n<li>Mark: Guitar<\/li>\n<li>Matt: Guitar<\/li>\n<li>Ron: Bass<\/li>\n<li>Russ: Drums<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Starts with a cool riff on guitar by Matt, doubled by me on bass, while Mark does a long sustained solo.<\/p>\n<p>A cool change at 4:45.\u00a0 Mark&#8217;s guitar becomes very mellow with lots of reverb, and the bass pattern changes.\u00a0 At 7:30, the bass starts modulating the key (very roughly at first, but settles into a nice simple progression.)<\/p>\n<p>Winds down at around 10 minutes.\u00a0 A quiet passage leads us into&#8230;<\/p>\n<h5>Jam 2 part 2 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/03-Track-03-1.mp3\">[MP3]<\/a><\/h5>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-133-8\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/03-Track-03-1.mp3?_=8\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/03-Track-03-1.mp3\">http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/03-Track-03-1.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<ul>\n<li>Mark: Guitar<\/li>\n<li>Matt: Guitar, Synth<\/li>\n<li>Ron: Bass<\/li>\n<li>Russ: Drums<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Bass continues the same key changes, but quietly now.\u00a0 Energy builds, noisy guitar in the background.\u00a0 Faster, faster, until we wind down at 5:00.\u00a0 First false ending at 5:25 or so, Mark starts playing a tasty little figure that he repeats for a long time.\u00a0 At about 7:10, Matt starts doubling Mark&#8217;s tasty guitar bit.\u00a0 Very majestic!<\/p>\n<p>Energy builds briefly again, and everything suddenly goes quiet and mellow again at 9:55, another false ending.\u00a0 A new tasty guitar figure from Mark, that fits wonderfully with the bass.\u00a0 Matt moves to synth, very rough at first.\u00a0 11:15, guitar figure thins out, with lots of slides, sustain and tasty barely-restrained feedback.\u00a0 The synth tries to figure something out, kinda spoiling the moment.<\/p>\n<p>Guitar figure dissolves and fades out at 13:10, leaving only the bass and drums.\u00a0 Mark returns shortly with lots of reverb and tremolo.<\/p>\n<p>14:50, guitar and bass fall silent, except for a slow strangely Ennio Morricone sort of Good, Bad and Ugly thing, while the drums go all jungle on us.\u00a0 But what&#8217;s this now?\u00a0 Matt on the synth is doing some really weird techno thing.\u00a0 But it sounds cool!\u00a0 Spaghetti-western vs techno.\u00a0 Who will emerge victorious?\u00a0 The drums don&#8217;t seem to be choosing sides, they&#8217;re off on safari.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone falls silent, except for the weird techno sound.\u00a0 Which leads us into&#8230;<\/p>\n<h5>Jam 2 part 3 &#8220;I like that shit, man!&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/04-Track-04-1.mp3\">[MP3]<\/a><\/h5>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-133-9\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/04-Track-04-1.mp3?_=9\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/04-Track-04-1.mp3\">http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/04-Track-04-1.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<ul>\n<li>Matt: Synth<\/li>\n<li>Russ: Drums<\/li>\n<li>Ron: Bass<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The drums fall into line with the cool techno synth thing, with some rimshots.\u00a0 It gels for a moment.\u00a0 Very cool.\u00a0 Finding our way&#8230; what shall we do with this?\u00a0 Bass tries to find a place in the scheme.\u00a0 But it never quite comes together, and we stop.\u00a0 Tracks 2, 3, 4 and 5, all one continuous take.\u00a0 It&#8217;s been a long one.<\/p>\n<h5>Jam 3 <a href=\"http:\/\/piper.dnsalias.org\/Music\/Rusmarkmatron_05_Jam_3.wma\">[WMA]<\/a><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>Ron: Organ (Native Instruments &#8220;B4&#8221; software Hammond emulator)<\/li>\n<li>Matt: Drums<\/li>\n<li>Mark: Guitar<\/li>\n<li>Russ: Bass<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;m not a keyboard player, and it shows.\u00a0 But the organ playing here almost works.\u00a0 There are moments in my playing I&#8217;m quite proud of.\u00a0 And other moments that blow.\u00a0 I like the bass playing, too.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h4 id=\"Hellephant\">Hellephant<\/h4>\n<p>Hellephant is my brother and his friend Jari (from the band Warsaw Pack).\u00a0 They occasionally do shows around the Hamilton area of live improvised jams.\u00a0 Matt plays drums, Jari usually plays bass.\u00a0 When they come to my house to record, I usually play something as well.<\/p>\n<p>Over the last year, we have recorded various things in my basement studio.\u00a0 There have been some very nice moments captured, which I will include here.<\/p>\n<h5>Accelerando Jam (7:10) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/03-Accelerando-Jam.mp3\">Accelerando Jam<\/a><\/h5>\n<p><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-133-10\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/03-Accelerando-Jam.mp3?_=10\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/03-Accelerando-Jam.mp3\">http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/03-Accelerando-Jam.mp3<\/a><\/audio><br \/>\nJune 5, 2004<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Matt: Drums<\/li>\n<li>Jari: Bass<\/li>\n<li>?: Guitar<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I did not play on this one, wasn&#8217;t even home at the time, I don&#8217;t think.\u00a0 But I really like it.\u00a0 It&#8217;s the end of a very much longer jam.\u00a0 To me, the only part that&#8217;s really good.\u00a0 This is some great Jari-style bass playing.\u00a0 Continually inventive, but with a relentless and irresistible groove.<\/p>\n<p>The guitar part was parachuted in from an entirely different jam.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not sure who played it (not me), but it&#8217;s done with E-Bow and slide, and loads of digital delay.\u00a0 It works really well, adding some cool spacey sounds to complement the throbbing rhythm.<\/p>\n<h5>Plant Food<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/01-Plant-Food-phase-I.mp3\">Phase 1 (3:50)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/06-Plant-Food-phase-II.mp3\">Phase 2 (7:51)<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-133-11\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/01-Plant-Food-phase-I.mp3?_=11\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/01-Plant-Food-phase-I.mp3\">http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/01-Plant-Food-phase-I.mp3<\/a><\/audio><br \/>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-133-12\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/06-Plant-Food-phase-II.mp3?_=12\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/06-Plant-Food-phase-II.mp3\">http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/06-Plant-Food-phase-II.mp3<\/a><\/audio><br \/>\nAugust 5, 2004<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Matt: Drums<\/li>\n<li>Jari: Keyboards<\/li>\n<li>Ron: Guitar<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Plant Food jams were actually a single extremely long recording, which went through many phases, with aimless noodling dividing sections of collective inspiration.\u00a0 It was fairly easy to isolate some nice, fairly self-containted pieces out of the chaos.\u00a0 The sound is quite Floydian, very mellow and spacey.\u00a0 Long gliding electronic sounds are actually guitar, played with E-Bow and slide, and lots of digital delay.<\/p>\n<p>The name comes from the organic farm near Hamilton where Matt volunteers in the summers.\u00a0 They would play these jams in the fields while they worked.\u00a0 Apparently they make good environmentally-friendly fertilizer.<\/p>\n<h5>El Gusano\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/07-El-Gusano.mp3\">[MP3]<\/a><\/h5>\n<p><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-133-13\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/07-El-Gusano.mp3?_=13\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/07-El-Gusano.mp3\">http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/07-El-Gusano.mp3<\/a><\/audio><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 0px solid; width: 80px; height: 140px;\" src=\"\/images\/tequila_bottle_with_worm_md_wht.gif\" alt=\"Mezcal bottle with worm\" align=\"right\" \/><br \/>\nSeptember 8, 2004<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Matt: Drums<\/li>\n<li>Jari: Keyboards<\/li>\n<li>Ron: Bass<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>One of my favourite recordings.\u00a0 A cool sound, lots of interesting development, building to a climax that just crushes everything in its path.\u00a0 Play it loud, and imagine the strobe lights and fog machine pumping, what a blast!<\/p>\n<p>El Gusano is Spanish for &#8220;the worm&#8221;.\u00a0 This piece is named after the inhabitant of a bottle of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mezcal\">mezcal<\/a> that Jari and I had shots from just before recording this.\u00a0 You can really hear the worm in it.<\/p>\n<p>The keyboards have an interesting sound here.\u00a0 We piped the keyboard MIDI simultaneously to the B4 Hammond emulator, and to a grand piano sampler.\u00a0 On short notes, the piano sound dominates.\u00a0 Hold the notes longer, and the organ sound dominates, with a piano-like attack.\u00a0 It&#8217;s an interesting effect, I like the sound of it.<\/p>\n<h5>Hellephantom <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/04-Hellephantom.mp3\">[MP3]<\/a><\/h5>\n<p><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-133-14\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/04-Hellephantom.mp3?_=14\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/04-Hellephantom.mp3\">http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/04-Hellephantom.mp3<\/a><\/audio><br \/>\nRecorded Dec. 29, 2004<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Matt: Drums<\/li>\n<li>Ron: Bass<\/li>\n<li>Jari: Keyboards<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is my attempt to play a bass part in Jari&#8217;s style.\u00a0 I don&#8217;t think I quite got it, but it&#8217;s still a pretty cool bass-line, burbling along down there.<\/p>\n<h5>Hancock Knot <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/05-Hancock-Knot.mp3\">[MP3]<\/a><\/h5>\n<p><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-133-15\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/05-Hancock-Knot.mp3?_=15\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/05-Hancock-Knot.mp3\">http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/05-Hancock-Knot.mp3<\/a><\/audio><br \/>\nRecorded April 7-9, 2005<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Matt: Drums, rhythm guitar<\/li>\n<li>Ron: Bass<\/li>\n<li>Chad: Keyboards<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is our deconstructed cover version of Herbie Hancock&#8217;s <em>Chameleon<\/em>.\u00a0 It bears no resemblance to the original whatsoever.\u00a0 It&#8217;s also the least improvised track we&#8217;ve done.\u00a0 It&#8217;s been constructed very carefully in layers.<\/p>\n<p>We started with a MIDI file of Chameleon from the Internet.\u00a0 We put the drum track from the MIDI into Matt&#8217;s headphones, turned up the tempo, and Matt recorded a drum line using the original as a click-track.\u00a0 I played bass simultaneously, hearing only Matt&#8217;s drums and nothing of the original.\u00a0 Rhythm guitar parts were overdubbed later with new changes.\u00a0 I recorded a new bass line, based on the changes in the rhythm part.\u00a0 Some editing and mixing, and we had a backing track that rocked pretty hard.\u00a0 But it needed some melody.<\/p>\n<p>I called on my friend Chad Faragher to come by on short notice to record us some keyboard parts.\u00a0 He gave us a Hammond rhythm part that fills the spaces in the guitar part.\u00a0 And a screaming crazy organ solo after the crunchy break in the middle of the song.\u00a0 And he made up a melody part, played on synth in the first half, and organ in the second half.\u00a0 It took a while for me to edit the various takes together into a single performance.<\/p>\n<p>Because of the click-track basis of the song, it has turned out to be extremely editable.\u00a0 No tempo mismatches, changes occur nicely at measure lines.\u00a0 So, we may keep working on this one.\u00a0 I think it&#8217;s a little too long (though it is one of the shortest things we&#8217;ve done.)\u00a0 And I&#8217;m particularly unconvinced by the weak-sounding Casio-esque synth patch I mastered it with.\u00a0 And a guitar solo might work nicely, too.\u00a0 We can do better, I&#8217;m sure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m not much of a musician, but I enjoy what I do.\u00a0 I mainly play electric bass.\u00a0 I took some lessons for a year or so at a local music school during my university days.\u00a0 I never really practiced enough.\u00a0 I still don&#8217;t.\u00a0 My brother Matt got all the musical talent in my immediate family. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":130,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-133","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/133"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":729,"href":"https:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/133\/revisions\/729"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}