banner

Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

frustrated... it isn't jelling

Collapse
X
Collapse
 
  • Page of 1
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
Previous template Next
  • #1

    frustrated... it isn't jelling

    I am amazed at the quality of some clips posted here... and at the same time frustrated with myself when I try to come up with something on my own.
    I recently bought an EMU card, which I feel like I haven't made good use of yet. I've got a bass, a few guitars, and an Alesis SR-16 drum machine... often I come up with somewhat cool parts, riffs, or progressions... but putting them together into something coherent generally evades me. I'm thinking that I need to be more disciplined when I go down to the basement (music room), so that I can try to create something, rather than playing 2 minutes of this, 2 minutes of that (anyone else do that???)...

    To be honest, I've never really been able to create a good pattern on the SR-16, so I use the presets (of which I've grown tired over the years).
    Also, when I record the bass (Peavey foundation w/ active pickups), direct, it seems somewhat noisy (almost like a buzzing sound along with the note).
    I've been playing for too many years (about 17) to not be better at this...

    any ideas/sugggestions/comments?

    Thanks for letting me vent!
    Tags: None
  • #2
    Re: frustrated... it isn't jelling

    Just an idea, but what I've found is that although I love to have tons of stuff at my disposal, I'm most creative when I break it down to one instrument. I will write my songs and come up with my riffs on guitar first. My drummer is pretty good, so I just play a few bars of what I've been playing around with, and he comes up with somthing on the spot to fit the song. Whenever we get a bassist I just tell him the chords and stuff and he'll usually drop in some arpeggios or simple riddims that keep everything flowing. The key is to have someone elses input when you're creating a new song . . . it can be frustrating if you're trying to master drumming, bass playing, guitar playing, arranging, mixing, and mastering. Not saying that you can't do it, but what are the odds that one person is going to have inspiration in all those areas . . . with other musicians you can bounce ideas off of them and kinda build songs up . . .but that's just my 2 cents. (Going to lots of jam sessions also usually inspires me)
    Join me in the fight against muscular atrophy!

    Originally posted by Douglas Adams
    This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

    Comment

    • #3
      Re: frustrated... it isn't jelling

      I appreciate your input... very sensible... it would work much better with a 2nd or 3rd person involved...

      Comment

      Previous template Next
      Working...
      X