Remember

With «Remember», I tried to put different classical (music) styles against modern vigorous styles, and push it pretty far.
The instrumentation is totally acoustic, with the exception of clean electric guitars. For instance, the aim was to get the arrangement to build up to an intensity level you’ll normally find with a hardcore band, and a symphonic orchestra, without using any distrortion or bowed instruments. This was just one of the goals with the song though.

The instrumentation can be divided into three sections. To clarify their roles I’ve uploaded some audio files, with these sections isolated.  

1 Voices: 

2 Stringed instruments: Grand Pianos, Guitars (acoustic and electric) & Upright Bass

These instruments play in a 4-beat, (which means half as many beats then what you hear on the record) I used various echoes to make the 8 pattern thats all over the song. I did it this way, in order to make it sound less frenetic, and to create a feeling of space and continuity.

(In an attempt to not repeat myself too much, feel free to read more about delay stuff in the blog:  All Ends Here).

3 Percussion: Timpanis, Bass drums, Toms, African drums, Snares, Shakers, Tambourines and much more 

All reverb comes from the recordings themselves, nothing was added, and no edits were made on these instruments, so youll truly find «the human element» here. 

The Timpanis were particularly time consuming to record on this track, because of two things: there is a timpani beat on every note in the song, and I needed about; one and a half octaves of tuned timpanis, and they were recorded twice. Which means i needed 36 timpanis!

However, I only had three, so I had to tune them to 3 notes at a time, and play those notes through the whole arrangement (where those particular notes were). Then I had to retune them to three new notes, and do it over and over (and over) again. 

Timpanis need special attention while tuning, and you need to tune them according to how hard you're going to hit them, and also according to their overtones. Because of these overtones, you also need to tune them to every chord or interval in the song. High notes require a small timpani and darker notes requires the opposite, so you need to tune random notes for the three drums. I also recorded them two times, because I wanted the sound of them, both in the hall, and in a drier studio environment. It took me about two weeks to complete them. 

I also used seven microphones on each trio of timpanis, which summed up to 84 tracks. The rest of the drums (in these kind of productions) got the same treatment of course, and had, typically 5 microphones  per instrument, so we’re talking about hundreds of tracks with percussion. In fact, all instruments got the same treatment, even the vocals. And on top of that, I had to play all instruments myself. 

The sessions went pretty smooth though, and this was, by no means a particularly "big" session, in terms of track count or sum of instruments. Pretty common really. 

Godsped

I started on this song when I was pretty young, and I remember it very well. I had just bought my first two guitar pedals. A distortion and an echo pedal. Both dirt cheap, and I don’t even remember the brand.

It didn’t take long before I got bored with them though, which I easily get with effects. They become so predictable if overused, and ironically, they often make everyone that is using them sounding alike. 

On another note, I’m not particularly fond of cakes either. I can go months, if not years before I feel any urge for something sweet. But when I actually do, I don’t hold back, I really go for it! Pretty much like with the guitar effects: when I actually use them, I really go crazy!

The song evolved over time, like songs often do, but the guitar arrangement, made with my first delay pedal, is exactly the same as it was back then. 

Funnily enough, I grew up in a time and environment that made me absolutely loathe 80’s music. And that delay thing made me question the song (the 80’s was soaked in delay guitars, amongst other things). I tried really hard to not make it sound like that, at the time.  And the song went on the backburner for awhile.

I'm more forgiving with 80’s music these days though, there are far worse decades…

Recording parts for Godsped

All Ends Here

Some of you have asked for more technical details around the writing and production process. 
The technical stuff is mostly boring by itself (I think), even though 98% of the time, a production is very detail oriented. It requires  "microscopic vision", "telescopic vision" and several "ground maps". 

Sometimes you're just painting with broad strokes and different shades, other times it’s pure improvisation. But most of the time, I have it all ready before I start recording.

When I started with music, there weren't that many tools to help me out (at least that I could afford), but I quickly realized that my mind could imagine things much easier than any instrument or recording equipment. 

I’m going to focus on a few parts of the arrangement that hopefully illustrates some of this. 

The song tempo accelerates (probably more than some of you are comfortable with). Here is a picture of the tempo graph from Pro Tools (the recording software that I tend to use) that shows the increase:

View fullsize

Before the tempo (or accelerato) is decided up on, the song is recorded many times (without metronome). Every bar gets analyzed manually, and plotted into the recording software (I do this on most productions). After this, further adjustment of the tempo is usually required, and done before I continue the arrangement. The tempo is often linked to certain keys (in my head) so if you change the tempo, it might require a different key, and arrangement all together. 

If I’m not satisfied with the production and it doesn't communicate my vision, I start everything all over again from scratch: re-record all instruments and map the tempos. This easily takes weeks. 
«All Ends Here» was recorded 3 times, and so I have 3 versions of it. 

When I’m happy with the feel, colour and direction of the song, in its basic form, I continue with the arrangement and production. 

Many things happen here, so I’ll give you some examples of different elements in the mix playing together.
The first example is part of the string section, together with the main vocal:

One vision I had for this particular arrangement (and from the very beginning of the composing stage) was to use echo for rhythm in an «invisible way», or in a way that didn’t draw too much attention. And you'll find several delays on the key instruments in the song Most of them are not made to sound like delays though, more like the original instrument, but not quite. If that makes sense.

The reason for this is that, echoes can suggest a different tempo or even time signature. When delays are playing 16 notes, it can make it feel more like 8 notes, for instance. You can do this with instrumensts too, but the result is pretty different. Delays are more related to ambience, and therefore easier to manipulate, without sounding artificial or frenetic (but you can do that too).

Here’s one example of a sequence where the main vocal uses 4 different delay times, which is turned up or down on different frases, to make a rhytmical choir.  It’s prety subtle in the mix.

The third example is some of the drums along with 3 of the basses. The basses were recorded with an electric bass through different synth processors, and manipulated in real time during recording:

You don't need fancy equipment to do this though, all echoes and arrangement ideas was made long before I had any equipment to realize it with (yes it is an old song). The guitar delays was done in real time with a guitar pedal for instance, and I had to tap the increasing tempo and adjusting the note resolution with my feet, while playing. When it became too difficult, I just punched in that section. But I like the wobbly delay artifacts coming from changing tempo, and therefore needed to do as much as possible in real time. Since everything was planned, the echoes for the vocals and guitar (etc) took me around 15 minutes combined in studio time.

So again, I always prefer composing/arranging and even producing (other artists as well) in my head before I start. That way, I don’t get tied to a computer mouse, keyboard, drums, a guitar, or scores for that matter.  They all get their moment in the sun in good time. 

(Speaking of keyboards,  one of the recordings I meant to post here,  was done on piano, and has a completely different expression. I'll try to update this post with a clip, when I have more time).

For Once

This song was a regular for 6-7 years with my band Woo at rehearsals. However, it was rarely played at live shows, because I felt that it was too punk or hardcore, our repertoire was pretty hard hitting as it was at the time, and it didnt need more of this type of energy. 

The main theme was created long before this, and I originally envisioned the song to be less hard, distorted and slower, but songs evolve over the years. 
I even have an acoustic flamenco arrangement that was considered for the release.
But since this is a 5-year long musical biography, it had to be this version, which is closest to, how it was played for so many years.
The acoustic version might be released at a later stage though. 

On the session with me

Geir Arne Ose: Acoustic drums
 

Exciter

Exciter was a fun song to play! Not so fun to record, mostly because I’m such a whiner when it comes to acoustic sounds, especially guitar. 
As usual, I recorded it with several guitars, rooms, enviroments, strings, microphones, and moods. It is an all acoustic production.

Often, when a song is simple, fun, and "just works"from a playing point of view, the devil crawls out from the details. 

As in the Norwegian blog, I’ll list up the ingredients that made it to the recording:

1 Acoustic guitar
1 Voice
1-3 "Spiccato" Cellos
2 sets of Congas (4 drums)
1 shaker (don’t remember excactly what kind) 
16 tracks with hand claps (old classic, rarely used by me)
1 Bass drum, not damped, only by hand, along to the arrangement.
1 Wooden block
1 Double bass playing unison with electric bass (another old classic, rarely used)
Last but not least:
1 Plywood table (my studio desk) and 1 spice box, recorded together and distorted after the fact.

Behind Bars

On Behind Bars, I went for a pretty  minimalistic approach.

The scarce instrumentation can sometimes make a song harder to manage, since every nuance of the instruments (and voice) is so exposed. Another thing is that the limited dynamics of an acoustic guitar, often crashes with my "unlimited dynamic" approach (in my composing). But this is a constant battle deliberately taken in my music, and something that I find interesting

All songs are challenging to the point of maddening, anyways. Actually «Behind Bars» went pretty well. It only took 7 months to finish, which is very fast indeed. 

In the middle section, there is a vocal improvisation, where I'm (ever so slightly) referring to; two other songs I've composed earlier. One of them will be a part of this project, so watch this space (but not before 2017 ;)

As usual, I tried several acoustic guitars, rooms and occasions. Also several tempos (the tempo is seldom fixed to a beat) it floats from sequence to sequence. Which I put quite some time and effort into getting right. I also tried several key signatures.

The artwork is a painting by the brilliant artist Tom Kosmo. He’s currently having an exhibition at Gallery Langegården, here in Bergen. I highly recommend it.

Des Guise In The Skies

This song was composed around the same time as "A Million Ways To Put You Down" and a bunch of other songs. 
The Pro Tools (mix) session contains 175 recorded tracks, with different arrangements and instruments. 
This is not unusual at all, but the main section ended up with only 3 tracks: guitar, vocal and electric bass, (which is not that unusual either..)
The middle section is a different story though, it has two drumkits, 8 tracks of percussion and three saxophones.

There are several versions of this song, and one of them is included in the "Des Guise" package. But for the heck of it, I'll show it to you here!

It did take me some days to decide on the arrangement for the middle section (especially the saxophones), and I had many elements to choose from, but I'm not trying to win over radio, so I just had to go for the saxophones!

I also wanted the song to have a minimalistic feel, and a 60's vibe to it.

I recorded loads of guitars with different amplifiers to experiment with the sound, but this is a rare occasion were I ended up with the demo recording for the guitar, bass and most of the vocals. 
So it's a song with 172 tracks muted most of the time. 

A big "thank you" to Geir Arne Ose who contributed to the session at an earlier stage. 
Some of the drums are still present on the recording.