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After Yesterday (Instrumental)

Noel posted a kind response my last instrumental, which reminded me it was time to do something new. Since I'm continuing to be fallow on the lyric front, I decided to make another instrumental, and - unlike my usual process - try to get it out the door quickly.

So I fired up BIAB and went through the various styles. I liked what I heard in the _RISING.STY demo, so I loaded it up, and altered a bunch of the chords so it wasn't a complete copy.

I then added electric piano, acoustic piano and fiddle, and exported the audio tracks to Reaper.

After listening to the fiddle part, I decided not to use it, but pilfer some of the ideas to help work out a melody, as well as keep some of the idiomatic fiddle feel when playing the violin part. I played the violin part on my EWI, and ended up pitching it up to a higher register.

The cello was also played in with the EWI. It's a fairly simple part, basically following the bass with some stepwise motion between roots. There's not really any interplay between the cello and melody, mostly because I was hurrying to get things done.

To make it more interesting, I decided to give the middle to the guitar. The steel string wasn't working, so I ended up using a nylon string.

In contrast with the melody, I wanted the guitar part to have space - basically arpeggios and a bit of linear movement. I ended up reworked it quite a bit. I'm not entirely happy with it, but it'll do.

I like to have variety in instrumentation, so I ended up giving the initial part to the flute. That led to reworking the dynamics of the initial section so it could stand out better. I ended choosing a single measure that wasn't too busy from the original drum part, and looped that. To add a bit more texture, I added some percussion loops.

In the intro, there was an irritating "thump" from one of the instruments. While soloing the parts to track it down, I decided that I really liked the sparse sound, so that's why the intro comes in as quietly as it does.

I didn't do that much finessing of the sound. I used EZMix and Izotope Neutron on some of the instruments, and the Lurrson Console for mastering. There's also a stereo widener.

I didn't mix on headphones, so it's quite likely I'll revisit the mix to fix some things there. For example, the fingerpicked guitar is panned a bit, but feels odd when it starts off. I may center it for the intro, and then shift it once the song's started.

I usually try to get a bit of interplay between instruments on the melody line, but there's not space in the melody line for that. Sticking with my goal of getting this done quickly, I left it as-is. But I may go back and rework the ending so there's some exchange between the violin and another instrument.

As always, comments of all sorts welcome!


Instruments
~2474:Bass, Acoustic, Held Ev 085
~2505:Piano, Electric, HeldChords 085
2914:Guitar, Acoustic, Fingerpicking Folky16thsBrent Ev16 085
~2503:Piano, Acoustic, HeldChords 085
RealDrums PopPromiseEv16
Cello, Violin, Flute: Audio Modeling SWAM instruments
Nylon Guitar: Indiginus Renaxxance

David,

You do put a lot of thought into these things!! If I thought that much...I'd never get anything done!

The percussion is tasty. The opening flute is nicely played. It has "feeling".

The violin (starting at :53) has a bit of a "harsh" sound (on my monitors) - not the silkiness that I would expect...(particularly in comparison to the flute). It's a bit loud, too, compared to the rest of the mix. (The rest of the mix is really nice)

The nylon guitar section sounds GREAT! And plays some really nice stuff.

If the fingerpick guitar is one of the stereo RTs, an effective "trick" is to center the track and add a stereo widener (in Studio One it is called a biaural pan - which I set to 100% - spread as wide as it will go). It has a tendency to still let it "lean" a little to one side (usually right), but give a nice full sound across the stereo spectrum.

Too many thought, I know...

This is an enjoyable piece.

fj

Such a soothing composition...
I really like the melodies...
Especially the violin part...
Nice touch!...
Now my question...
Since your goal was "getting this done quickly"...
Do you actually know how long you spent completing all steps you described in your post...
I think it would take me a loooooooooong time

Yeah, over-analysis kills too many of my ideas. That's why I tried pushing this out quickly.


Thanks, I'll have another listen. I let Izotope have the final say on this, but I'll have my son help me out on the EQ tonight. I wanted a more "fiddle" sound, but shrill is never good.


Yes, it's an RT. I've intentionally panned it a bit manually, but after paring down the intro, it sticks out too much.

I'm using a stereo widener on the final buss, but I'll see what happens if I put it on the fingerpicked guitar.

I really like this guitar RT - it was the reason I picked the style in the first place. The A ⭢ C♯m move is lovely, and there's a really pretty E7 lick that didn't end up in this take.


No, this is the stuff I find most useful.

Thanks for the useful feedback, and the nice words!

I think it was about 3 or 4 hours. I saw Noel's post, and decided that I wasn't going to respond to it until I had posted another instrumental. I set midnight as my deadline, and decided that it would be OK if the mix was "good enough", especially since I wanted some feedback on this.

Thanks for listening!

David,

This is an excellent composition. You have a great arrangement and great mix. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Bob

I always really enjoy hearing about the process people use when creating things. Thanks for taking the extra time to share that with us.

Really nice, no surprise I thought the flute sounded best, but the others were good as well. Guitar was terrific, I'll have to look that RT up. Came together nicely.

I really enjoyed this. The melody line is "simple" but very well grounded and isn't afraid to repeat a phrase. It felt right quickly which is kinda the point with a good melody even as it continues to surprise. The instruments sound good and work well together to give this a very "pub-like" feel. Nicely done.

I really enjoyed this. The melody line is "simple" but very well grounded and isn't afraid to repeat a phrase. It felt right quickly which is kinda the point with a good melody even as it continues to surprise. The instruments sound good and work well together to give this a very "pub-like" feel. Nicely done.

Totally agree with Floyd this has plenty of feeling.
catches attention and keeps you listen.
This is a really great production. Rob

hi david great job I like the nylon guitar sounds awesome on this the tone is awesome eric

At the risk of redundancy that is a GREAT instrumental.

It held our attention as well as any instrumental posted in quite a well.

It nailed, IMO, the melody - certainly melodic enough to be rich and interesting but not so much that one gets lost or distracted in complexity.

Both of us found the production backstory fascinating...so beyond the little ditties we mostly come up with.

The RT's and your fine touch on the rest of the tracks add up to a great listen.

J&B

PS If you have Neutron 2 there is a preset that we like for fiddles of all genres named "Solo Violin" and is located under the orchestral section. We use it as is only adding a little verb.
PPS floyd mentioned the stereo expander...we use one also (the Imager from Ozone 8 adv). And as he mentioned it works very nicely guitars and for us also on pianos.

A lovely flowing melody embellished by the nylon guitar and flute in particular so well.
Really enjoyable music!

Robert

Wow - this is stunning! Very lush, and fantastically well textured. Everything about is pleasant to the ears. I was originally waiting for a singer to come in - but truthfully, it doesn't need it. It holds plenty of weight as an instrument.

Thanks for sharing

Very, very nice, David! Well mixed, well arranged. Very easy to listen to. Nice changes, and great job with the instruments!

Steve

Thanks, Bob!

I've always enjoyed your songs, so I'm glad I could return the favor!

Thanks, Ember. I appreciate you taking the time to listen.

I'm also a fan of backstory - it's nice to be able to pick up a tip, or just get some motivation.

Thanks!

When I first got the SWAM flute, I was pretty disappointed with it. But after tweaking the various parameters - mostly adding more vibrato and harmonics - I'm pretty pleased with the sound.

I appreciate you listening!

Thanks, Tangmo.

Simplicity is something that I constantly have to work at. There's a temptation to make stuff more complex than it needs, and I sometimes forget that people don't want to work that hard listening to music.

Fortunately, one of the factors for this song was that I had to be able to play it on the EWI, so that helped.