http://keyboardguy.com/blog.html Damon Fibraio: Blog Jannis' PHPRss class - http://www.jannis.to/ Mon, 10 Jan 2011 09:00:37 -0800 http://keyboardguy.com/blog.html/preparing_for_the_show
Preparing for a show with Visions is always an interesting affair. What you will see if you attend the Gin Mill show on January 29, 2011 or any other show is only the tip of the iceberg. From the keyboard department, anyway, it is more than just learning the songs and putting a set list together. Travel with me as I take you through the preparation process.

Before every gig, we determine how much time we have to play, then we estimate how many songs we'll need and we start assembling the list. We try to balance between songs we like to play and songs you want to hear. Once the list is assembled, it is not in its final order yet, generally. wE start to learn the arrangements. For me, this is more than learning notes and chords and figuring out who is taking what solos and what backing vocals, if any, are needed. I have to listen to the song, figure out keyboard parts, and sometimes guitar parts. I have to assemble sounds to fit each section of the song. Sometimes, I get olucky and I only need one sound. sometimes, I need two or more. I may have to split sounds across zones of the keyboard. I may have to run guitar sounds through my line6 pod x3 live to make them sound more guitar like. If one keyboard can't fill this role, I may need two.

Beyond this point, I may also have to steal snippets of the song. For instance, Cult of personality, I will sample the spoken word parts. This is done for any spoken word parts or any sections I can't reproduce live, say a sound effect of some sort. I will map this sample to a low key on my keyboard and trigger it during the song, usually at the intro or ending, but sometimes in the middle.

If a sound does not exist for a certain song, I will either have to make it myself or din it in a third party library for my keyboard. This can be time consuming, especially if you have to tweak an existing sound or m,ake it from scratch.

Once the set list is arranged, which undergoes several changes due to flow or if a song is now working out or the time limits change or whatever, I take all the sounds and setups and arrange them in order in my keyboard so that to go from section to section or song to song, all I have to do is press the increment button or if I am really busy, step on a pedal on the floor.

At this moment, I am trying to put together the entire Gin Mill set using one keyboard, a Yamaha Motif xs7. I am also using a Line6 pod x3 live that I route most of my guitar tones through. I may also be carrying my Roland ax1 keytar to the show to play most of those guitar sounds from the remote keyboard, mostly for fun and effect and becuase it annoys most guitar players. Since we hopefully finalized the set list last night, I will go to work assembling sounds and samples and putting it all in order before next practice so we can do a run through. However, if more gear is needed, I may incorporate other things, such as organ modules, analog synths or another keyboard entirely. Time will tell.

That's just a brief run though of what I have to do to prepare for any show, whether it is a Days Before tomorrow show or Visions. With Days before tomorrow, it is a little more intresting as with the exception of tracks for the first CD, I wrote the parts for these songs, so I get the fun of trying to reproduce what we recorded live as best as I can. But, that's a story for another time.

Hope you found this interesting and feel free to leave a comment. See you on January 29 at the Gin Mill, if you're attending.]]> http://keyboardguy.com/blog.html/preparing_for_the_show Mon, 10 Jan 2011 09:00:37 -0800 The Keyboard Guy Official Home Page - Damon Fibraio - Blog http://keyboardguy.com/blog.html/behind_the_original
This song started life in 2002. I still have the rough demo of it which is even longer than the 7 minutes and 23 seconds it is now. It did not have a bridge section that you hear after the second chorus in its demo stage. It only had one guitar track as opposed to two and it was much lighter of astyle, mainly because I didn't like my guitar sounds. And of course, I wasn't playing to a click, so the rhythm is off badly.

I took this song and thought of lyrics. The lyrics alone took a long time, as I don't fancy myself a real lyricist. I went through a few tens of drafts before settling on the ones you hear and even then, a few modifications were in order, adding a line shifting words, etc.

Christmas day, I began laying the tracks. It is the first project I used Toontrack's superior drummer 2.0 on, as I finally got JAWS hot spots that make the program usable by the blind. The drums have been modified several times, different snares, different toms, louder, softer, etc. But they sound really good and have a nice punch to them, although I still feel like the toms need a little something more.

I continued with the basic tracks, actually started with the first sound you hear, the clean guitar, which runs through the whole song. from there, I put down the rest, like the bass, distorted guitar drums piano in the first quiet verse, synth and then started to get creative. IN the original demo, the drums run through the second verse, but Iopted to use aloop as I figured it may make the song more modern sounding. I also used an arpeggiator pattern from my Motif in the second verse and onward. And because I love filling up songs, I put a huge bass synth sweeping sound in spots strategically.

Then came the worst part, my crappy singing. It took several takes just to get a lead and then I wanted to double it. I have to thank John Pine for soe suggestions on how to alter the melody to better suit my range, but for weeks I worked out vocals, cut and recut, then worked out harmonies. I still feel that there may be a spot or two that could be touched up, though, but I am not going to beat it to death as I want the emotion to be left intact.

The mix down went through about 15 different mixes before settling on what I have. At first, there was no harmonies on the word home that ends the chorus, but there was a delay, but I stripped that out and put harmonies there. At the end, I tried different effects on the vocals before settling on what I liked. Folks from a mailing list I am on called MidiMag were instrumental in helping me fix what I couldn't hear, as after a while I lost my objectivity.

And here it is. And that's just one song. Imagine doing awhole album? I shutter at the thought.]]> http://keyboardguy.com/blog.html/behind_the_original Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:30:23 -0800 The Keyboard Guy Official Home Page - Damon Fibraio - Blog