Ascent - Ascension (Video)
Here is the first video from the upcoming Ascent CD! The song is called Ascension. We made a deliberate choice to wait until the video was done before releasing the song to the world. This has allowed sufficient time to ensure that the mix and mastering are as good as they can be. I really feel like this is another big step in my musical evolution. I have spent so much time and effort on the recording, mixing, mastering, and the video, that I could write a book about the experience.
About writing the music:
This song started, like so many do lately, as a looping experiment, just one of the many ideas that I stumble upon while practicing guitar. It was a chord progression and a melody over a 7/8 drum pattern. The melody was in 7/4 over the 7/8 pattern. I liked the melody and tried many variations until I came up with something that I thought would work. When I started to write words to go with the melody, I realized that it would work better if it were in 4/4. The funny thing is that I just couldn't get that 7 pattern out of my head, and I found myself playing parts of it in 7 no matter what I did. This is why some sections of the final song are in 4 and some are in 7. Also, because I'm fascinated about the idea of concealing numbers and information in music, there are actually many things that happen seven times in the song. See if you can spot them!
The funny thing is that the original melody on the verse was eventually replaced because it didn't suit Christina's voice. I created the new melody to be deliberately simpler and funkier. And then Christina added those bluesy elements that brought it to life .
The song also originally had a different chorus, a big half-time chorus with spacey keyboards and different words. After we tried playing the song a few times, it was clear that the chorus was the weakest link. I conceived of the new chorus, melody and lyrics, while walking our dog, Berkeley, through a little patch of wilderness on a series of high hills near our house. It was right at dusk, and I was actually imagining that comet streaming across the sky. Looking down at all the little houses turning their lights on, I knew that they would never see it, but the crows would. In my head, it sounded almost like disco....
About writing the lyrics:
The lyrics of the song are basically an exploration of my own relationship with information - religion, science, and the natural world. It's not an attempt to say that anyone is wrong or right, but rather a series of unanswered questions. I'm amazed at how much there is to know and learn by just looking around us and reading a few history books. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's easy to miss the forest for the trees...
About the recording:
To give you a general sense of the layers and parts are in this song, here's a screenshot of the song in Sonar...
To start with, I wanted to do something with a repeated synth loop that I could also use when we play live. I originally imagined that this would be some kind of a bass line, but as you can hear I ended up somewhere different. I created these loops using Cakewalk's Rapture synth. The two synth loops, in the first and second half of the song, are the only programmed bits of the recording. I played all of the other synth and parts, including a few layers of keyboards on some sections.
I played the drums using the Roland HandSonic (plus kick pedal) as a MIDI controller, using Session Drummer 3 to play acoustic drum samples. I've used the HandSonic as a drum kit so many times now that it feels natural to me, and I think my brain does exactly the same thing it does when I play acoustic drums (I end up playing many of the same patterns. The shots of me playing air drums in the video demonstrate this well). Because I want to retain my own recognizable drum sound, I actually multisampled my brass Yamaha snare drum - four samples at each of five different velocities. As some of you may know, I play drums HARD which produces a different sound than many of the much tamer sounds on offer. The kick drum and the toms are Steven Slate multisamples (Old Zep kit) which I tweaked and modified. I was going for a big arena-rock sound. Other than the snare, it's a similar kit to what I used for "Vertical Bird."
Why did I decide to use the HandSonic rather than my acoustic drum kit? For one, I'm using the HandSonic when we play live. Also, it's great fun to use MIDI to record drums, because I can punch in and replay parts as many times as I want, without worrying about whether the audio will sound right. Rather than to cheat and "fix" anything, I just replayed until I got it right. And then I can endlessly change the sounds after the part is recorded, and it still has the feel of my live playing.
The guitar and bass parts, as usual, were played using Guitar Rig 4 as the amp. I wanted the guitar sounds to be "present" and in-your-face without going overboard. I tried many, many parts that were later discarded.
Christina's vocals are what make this song exceptional, and so as the engineer/producer, I focused a huge amount of energy on making sure the recording was just right. This means that she sang the song about a dozen times. Through trial and error, I added just enough compression and echo to the recording make it fit right in the mix without being too harsh.
About Mastering:
My huge realization of the past few years has been how critical good mastering is. I have only just started to get it. I have learned to rely not only on my ears, but on visual tools (Voxengo SPAN is awesome) that let me figure out which frequencies are too dominant or too subdued in the mix. I spent a (painful) week of remastering this song every night, and then Christina and I would each listen to the song in our own listening environment to determine if it sounded right. It was tough to get through, but worth it in the end.
About the Video:
I don't really know anything about making videos, but I put all of my creative energy for a few weeks into making this one. I used Adobe Premier Elements, and nothing but my Canon PowerShot camera for all of the filming! Our co-star is our pet dove, Peaceful. There are a few images in the video that I found on the Internet, primarily all of the TVs, the satellite dishes, the maps, and the space shots (thanks to NASA for those). I'll be adding the credit for the images I used, wherever possible. The ocean and picture frame shots, Legos, lightbulb, and the slow demolition of the Shakepeare head are all mine. You should have seen the funny looks I got while filming empty picture frames in the morning surf at Laguna Beach. It made sense somehow. There are a few of Christina's art pictures in here - the chess board, the crows, and the old car. The spotlight effect was created using a flashlight against a sheet of plastic.
Nothing personal against the Bard, by the way - we had that bust in our house, and it happened to get broken, so we decided to put it in the video. Christina didn't like the video of her holding the head in an "Alas, poor Yorick" kind of way, or else you'd see that in here too. To me, his head in the video represents history, knowledge, and truth, all of which are subjective! And then all of that gets broken.
Anyway, if you like this video and song half as much as we do, then you will love it! We would really like to hear your comments.
About writing the music:
This song started, like so many do lately, as a looping experiment, just one of the many ideas that I stumble upon while practicing guitar. It was a chord progression and a melody over a 7/8 drum pattern. The melody was in 7/4 over the 7/8 pattern. I liked the melody and tried many variations until I came up with something that I thought would work. When I started to write words to go with the melody, I realized that it would work better if it were in 4/4. The funny thing is that I just couldn't get that 7 pattern out of my head, and I found myself playing parts of it in 7 no matter what I did. This is why some sections of the final song are in 4 and some are in 7. Also, because I'm fascinated about the idea of concealing numbers and information in music, there are actually many things that happen seven times in the song. See if you can spot them!
The funny thing is that the original melody on the verse was eventually replaced because it didn't suit Christina's voice. I created the new melody to be deliberately simpler and funkier. And then Christina added those bluesy elements that brought it to life .
The song also originally had a different chorus, a big half-time chorus with spacey keyboards and different words. After we tried playing the song a few times, it was clear that the chorus was the weakest link. I conceived of the new chorus, melody and lyrics, while walking our dog, Berkeley, through a little patch of wilderness on a series of high hills near our house. It was right at dusk, and I was actually imagining that comet streaming across the sky. Looking down at all the little houses turning their lights on, I knew that they would never see it, but the crows would. In my head, it sounded almost like disco....
About writing the lyrics:
The lyrics of the song are basically an exploration of my own relationship with information - religion, science, and the natural world. It's not an attempt to say that anyone is wrong or right, but rather a series of unanswered questions. I'm amazed at how much there is to know and learn by just looking around us and reading a few history books. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's easy to miss the forest for the trees...
About the recording:
To give you a general sense of the layers and parts are in this song, here's a screenshot of the song in Sonar...
To start with, I wanted to do something with a repeated synth loop that I could also use when we play live. I originally imagined that this would be some kind of a bass line, but as you can hear I ended up somewhere different. I created these loops using Cakewalk's Rapture synth. The two synth loops, in the first and second half of the song, are the only programmed bits of the recording. I played all of the other synth and parts, including a few layers of keyboards on some sections.
I played the drums using the Roland HandSonic (plus kick pedal) as a MIDI controller, using Session Drummer 3 to play acoustic drum samples. I've used the HandSonic as a drum kit so many times now that it feels natural to me, and I think my brain does exactly the same thing it does when I play acoustic drums (I end up playing many of the same patterns. The shots of me playing air drums in the video demonstrate this well). Because I want to retain my own recognizable drum sound, I actually multisampled my brass Yamaha snare drum - four samples at each of five different velocities. As some of you may know, I play drums HARD which produces a different sound than many of the much tamer sounds on offer. The kick drum and the toms are Steven Slate multisamples (Old Zep kit) which I tweaked and modified. I was going for a big arena-rock sound. Other than the snare, it's a similar kit to what I used for "Vertical Bird."
Why did I decide to use the HandSonic rather than my acoustic drum kit? For one, I'm using the HandSonic when we play live. Also, it's great fun to use MIDI to record drums, because I can punch in and replay parts as many times as I want, without worrying about whether the audio will sound right. Rather than to cheat and "fix" anything, I just replayed until I got it right. And then I can endlessly change the sounds after the part is recorded, and it still has the feel of my live playing.
The guitar and bass parts, as usual, were played using Guitar Rig 4 as the amp. I wanted the guitar sounds to be "present" and in-your-face without going overboard. I tried many, many parts that were later discarded.
Christina's vocals are what make this song exceptional, and so as the engineer/producer, I focused a huge amount of energy on making sure the recording was just right. This means that she sang the song about a dozen times. Through trial and error, I added just enough compression and echo to the recording make it fit right in the mix without being too harsh.
About Mastering:
My huge realization of the past few years has been how critical good mastering is. I have only just started to get it. I have learned to rely not only on my ears, but on visual tools (Voxengo SPAN is awesome) that let me figure out which frequencies are too dominant or too subdued in the mix. I spent a (painful) week of remastering this song every night, and then Christina and I would each listen to the song in our own listening environment to determine if it sounded right. It was tough to get through, but worth it in the end.
About the Video:
I don't really know anything about making videos, but I put all of my creative energy for a few weeks into making this one. I used Adobe Premier Elements, and nothing but my Canon PowerShot camera for all of the filming! Our co-star is our pet dove, Peaceful. There are a few images in the video that I found on the Internet, primarily all of the TVs, the satellite dishes, the maps, and the space shots (thanks to NASA for those). I'll be adding the credit for the images I used, wherever possible. The ocean and picture frame shots, Legos, lightbulb, and the slow demolition of the Shakepeare head are all mine. You should have seen the funny looks I got while filming empty picture frames in the morning surf at Laguna Beach. It made sense somehow. There are a few of Christina's art pictures in here - the chess board, the crows, and the old car. The spotlight effect was created using a flashlight against a sheet of plastic.
Nothing personal against the Bard, by the way - we had that bust in our house, and it happened to get broken, so we decided to put it in the video. Christina didn't like the video of her holding the head in an "Alas, poor Yorick" kind of way, or else you'd see that in here too. To me, his head in the video represents history, knowledge, and truth, all of which are subjective! And then all of that gets broken.
Anyway, if you like this video and song half as much as we do, then you will love it! We would really like to hear your comments.
WoW! Can you say WOW? Ascent's new release Ascension is a great art in action. I really like the great music with Christina's great singing. WOW! Maybe you might say GREAT too. Keep it coming!
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Baldwin's many remarks are well said - "It's not an attempt to say that anyone is wrong or right, but rather a series of unanswered questions. I'm amazed at how much there is to know and learn by just looking around us and reading a few history books. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's easy to miss the forest for the trees.."
Baldwin's expression of his many thoughts while working on Ascension. I really think Ascent is getting on its game as it evolves with the production the new video and song.
Don't miss this rising star!
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Thanks so much for your comments! Kevin, it's great to know you're still out there listening.
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Is this the genesis of the raving symphonic aardvark? Against all odds, certainly not. At face value, one must admit this is no duke's end; rather a land of confusion in which tonight, in my home by the pool and despite no reply to my call, no... no reply at all, I turned on the computer again to peruse the music blog and found the invisible touch. Not of the man on the corner: he's been incarcerated. Rather, and to prevent misunderstanding, I specify "touched" in an intangible way.
Rather than throwing it all away as so many do, I see Ascent continuing to produce work with depth; meaning behind the lines, as it were. In your own special way, you avoid stagnation. Not just a job to do for you; the entangled ripples tell me why you are in too deep to squonk. I know what I like: that's all.
Very nicely done, sir.
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Thank you, sir. I think you're taking it all too hard. I'm glad you know what you like, but stay out of my wardrobe!
But seriously, I hadn't really thought the song had that much of a Genesis influence, but I suppose I can see what you're hearing.
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