Supernatural Anaesthetist: October 2008

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Quick Update

I have to thank everybody for the honest feedback on this tune. This is a very, very difficult song to recreate in MIDI and I agree that this thing still needs work. So, I have started the reworking of the MIDI performances and mixing of this song. I want to get the 12 string electric mix and EQ closer to the original and just do a bunch of clean up and corrections to some of the parts.

I also want to find a better drum kit to use inside of Ocean Way Drums in that the drum kit I have been using sounds GREAT on its own, but it is not that close to the classic Phil kit used on The Lamb.

I have some work to do and will get this song sounding better. After the work done on Lilywhite Lilith, this song sounds LAME to me as well.

Jim

Supernatural Aneasthetist

This was a completely new, from scratch MIDI file, created exclusively for the Lamb Laid Down on MIDI project. As such, it took quite a long time to create through to the finished MP3 file. The real challenge of this MIDI is that it is almost exclusively guitars and drums which typically does not translate well into MIDI.

Mike's 12 string electric part was the key to getting this MIDI to sound realistic. I used a MIDI guitar pickup (mounted to an old EXPLORER guitar - a carry over to my clubbing days) to track the strumming and chords that were needed. Some of these chord fingerings are very unique and helped create the sound and feel of this important part of the song. The fast, light strumming at the end was very difficult to translate to MIDI.

Here are some MIDI file and MP3 examples of Mike's 12 string electric part:

When I figure out how to get some guitar fretboard diagrams up on the site, I will show the fingerings of these chords for some of the tune. When you see how Mike played these chords, you will see the real genius of his playing.

The track completed before this song was "Riding the Scree". Most of the feedback from that song was positive and the most constructive feedback I recieved was the drum tracks seemed a bit artificial and mechanical. Alas, part of the problem with MIDI drum tracks. To help improve how the drums sound on this project, I made a major purchase for new drum samples. This product is called, "Ocean Way Drums", and from my point of view, created much more realistic drum tracks. However, in order to get more dynamics and feel to these drum tracks, I decided to go with a proprietary MIDI mapping called, IMAP, developed by Sonic Reality just for this purpose, so, the MIDI mapping for the drum parts do NOT follow the General Midi (GM) standard and therefore, will not playback on soundcards. I digress but eventually, these MIDI files will be made available to download and after much thought, I decided that I will create a MIDI track for each drum note in the IMAP tracks and label them appropriately in case someone would want to transpose these tracks back to the GM standard (if you have a sequencer editor).

So, now I have better drum samples and a better drum sound but recreating Phil's playing in MIDI is probably the hardest challenge in the project. Below, listen to a sample of the isolated drum track, notice how the entire kit sounds as if it was recorded in a real room, all at once, hence the real power of OWD.

Often forgot about but definitely an important part of Supernatural is Mike's bass part. This is another example of how Mike didn't play bass but rather bass lead guitar. It is mixed a bit low on the original track, but in recreating the part, I realized just how much thought went into this track. Below find a MIDI and MP3 example of a section of the bass playing.

Now, the most amazing thing about this bass part is how Phil and Mike interacted with the rhythm of the track, to truly create a tight rhythm section. This is the type of discovery that makes this project so enjoyable to me.

Steve's guitar solo in this tune is probably the "weakest link" in both the playing of the part and recreating the sound he used. My software emulations aren't quite getting the right feel for the sound of this guitar part but I think the transcription of the notes makes up for the lack of the right sound. Midi guitar solos are probably the biggest challenge to MIDI file recreations for obvious reasons, and it shows in this tune.

I guess my second favorite part of this song is the again, the creative percussion playing by Phil. In this tune, we have castanets, maraccas and tamborine. The first time I heard the maraccas was in 2008 and I couldn't believe that I have listened to this album for that many years without ever hearing them before. It makes me wonder what other treasures still might await me as I travel down this journey.

Lastly, and many may disagree with me but until the mellotron comes in during the end passage, Tony plays a total of 10 notes on the keyboards, a 5 note phrase double tracked on the Arp Prosoloist using the COMIC WOW and the TUBA presets, each panned hard left and right for separation.

Below, find the MP3 examples of the entire track mixed down with and without the short vocal part in the beginning of the song. Oh, and by the way, the SHA LA LA parts were very hard to simulate, as was the WHOA WHOA stretched vocals parts. The SHA LA LA was created by isolating a "LA" from the track and sampling it into GIGASTUDIO. The "LA" was a sampled "A" note, but the second half has a harmony part, that I had to stretch the sample to create the other notes. It doesn't sound as strong as the original recording but in order to get something that filled the voids and sounded somewhat correct, I felt this was the best approach. The "WHOA" vocal parts were created using a "off the shelf" sample of a Human Voice spread out on a keyboard making it sound like an organ. I know, close but no cigar, however it is such an important part, the song would have sounded empty without it.

Mp3 File of MIDI - Supernatural Anaesthetist

Anyway, enjoy and participate in the survey to let me and others know what you think about this recreation of "Supernatural Anaesthetist".

Supernatural Anaesthetist

Sunday, October 19, 2008

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Supernatural Aneasthetist