bayoubill
but I'm not selling anything or impressing anyone.

Omg me either!

I try not to work on projects more than necessary. I don't like becoming tempo locked. By this, I am talking about always practicing a piece at a single machined tempo. So, I record pieces I'm practicing freshly every couple of weeks to get fresh attacks and I always shift the tempo by a few.

I love midi drum tracks for stretching my rhythmic chops. That said, once I have a rhythm audio track, the likelihood if me dropping the original drum track leaps.

I try not to practice hard on a take where I drop a beat, but I'm not overly strict here.

http://stabilitynetwork.b...g-tunes/BlueBossa4.mp3

bayoubill
but I'm not selling anything or impressing anyone.

 
Everything's MIDI with me and I don't plan anything. What I come up with depends on my mood at the time.

For traditional songs, ie not ambient, I listen to RealGuitar strum a chord progression that I inserted in PRV. I'll improvise a melody on top of that with a midi keyboard or just plunk the notes in with the mouse. After that I can spend hours trying out different sounds, chords and accompaniments. The end result doesn't sound anything like what I started with.

For ambient songs, I'll pick an arp patch then insert a really long note in PRV. As that plays I'll improvise something with a lead instrument. And then spend many hours trying out different things until it sounds like it's finished.  




 

Thanks everyone! This is so very interesting. I listen to more music on the forums than I do the radio and I have to tell you I like forum music much better. To me it's the fun of the process and just enjoying it.
 
Geoff - Great tune! I recorded my version of a  Miles Davis a while back. It was Autumn Leaves and I love the way he arranged the song. The tempo used fits  the song feel better to me
 AUTMN Leaves
 
 

Speaking of tempos and tempo lock some of the most fun I've had is so very slightly extending or shortening the down beat in a phrase as a feel thing. Just enough not to be a mistake but enough to influence the feel. Some suggest I fire my drummers but the drummer was me being me. It makes the music more interesting and have it's own personality. Not sound like everything else ... like the radio music now.  I Am sounding my Grandfather  

I tend to get a rhythm, bass line, and melody lines in my head more or less all at once. Elapsed time= two minutes.
 
When I can get to the computer, I will plink up a working version of the parts, just slam things in, not too careful about editing or perfection. Then I'll make an mp3 of that. Time elapsed = about 45 minutes.
 
Then I will listen to that mp3 about 1,000 times. Not an exaggeration. I will add other parts in my head, and probably here come the lyrics as well. Time elapsed = 6 months.
 
Finally, I redo the computer tracks, make several iterations with improvements. "Improvements."  I'll take version 1.0 up to version 17.0 or so. Time elapsed = several years.
 
At this rate I can put up maybe two songs a year on the Songs forum! Yea!!! But hey life happens and that's why there are those burners on the back.
 
I've got a killer song about George W Bush that is only 12 years old at the moment. Boy, wait until that one drops! Most likely, I will first.
 
cheers,
-Tom
 
 

emeraldsoul
 
I've got a killer song about George W Bush that is only 12 years old at the moment. 
 
cheers,
-Tom
 

Marcus Clinus will not like that one on lyric principle alone.

@bayoubill
 
I was totally expecting that recording to be you (your youtube link). I listened to it to the end though. I love Miles too.
 
Another thing I do sometimes is video record myself doing a take, like this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMd0zif9RFE
 
It gives the solo at home thing a performance like feel when you're doing it. I'm really only doing this to submit my takes to a class I take through http://ArtistWorks.com, but that's cool. It's still kinda helpful.
 
Interestingly, this video has the audio a little ahead of the video. I think I faded the the clip before exporting. That's the only reason I can think of... Maybe Sonar just cut the faded part, shortening the audio and moving it earlier? Idk. I've seen stuff like this with video exports from Sonar before. 

oh, ok well here's a link to my version of Autumn Leaves which is my version of the Miles' version 
 
 
 

Oops double post
 
click the play button on the link above to play my version of miles' version of Autumn Leaves

The DAW is my "canvas" and practically all of my instruments are virtual.
 
John B