Cinematic Texture-scape : "My Life as a Paramecium" [MP3]

[Corey]

I've been trying to expand the depth in my mixes lately, so I did this tune "My Life as a Paramecium" as an excercise tonight. Kind of a pleasant piece. I did a poem to go with it, starts like this:

My life as a paramecium
So cosmopolitan it stings
Wee hours spent waxing Nietzschian
But I haven't learned a thing

http://www.hallucinati.com/my_life.mp3

Out of the frying pan and onto the edge of the frying pan!

[JimS]

I like it, it’s real catchy rhythm. I think it could be my favorite of the songs you’ve done. I like the background arpeggios, the mouth harp, and the glass pads? at about the 2min mark. I like the way you layered the sounds. Nice texture.

Mmmmm, fried paramecium.

[Corey]

The Dijeridoo sounding stuff, etc. was done using "Albino", a synth... Dijeridoo your basement?

[JimS]

Are you using Native Instruments?
Good stuff! Keep on cranking them out.

[Corey]

Yeah, that's NI's B4 in the background. NI's stuff is awesome, I can hardly wait to see Kontakt 2.

[JimS]

I stopped by for another listen. I have to say that it has a bit of Tangerine Dream flavor to it. I’m not thinking of any particular song by them, just a similar feel to some of their stuff. Two of my favorite works by them are the soundtracks to the movies Thief, and the Sorcerer (the movie Sorcerer has nothing to do with magic). If you ever get the chance, give them a listen.

[Corey]

Will do definitely. I have a voracious appetite for new music lately, just can't get enough for some reason. Thanks for the tip.

[gbrown]

Sweet...

I still keep hearing a solo brass or sax line on top of this. What key we talking about on this chunk? Heh... I think I'll cut it to an audio CD and try some t'bone noodling to it.

[Corey]

By all means, I'd love to hear it. I think it was C blues (Eb)...

[Corey]

Well I just listened to Soilwork "Distortion Sleep" through the new Event TR8 monitors. The bass is almost laxative.

Great rock tune BTW, everyone should hear it. "Feeling like a guttersnipe standing in line, deciding his lifetime by rolling the dice..." Catchy tune. Soilwork is OK, lots of hammond in there too which is always nifty.

I'm currently listening to Dreadlock Holiday by 10CC, and I can't believe how clear each part is, there's a zillion tiny little percussion sounds in this tune. There's certainly nothing "musical" about these monitors though, they're super accurate but they do nothing to "humanize" the sound. I have to get used to them.

Anyhow huge bass, perhaps too much. But better too much than not enough. One thing about these monitors, which is why I chose to buy them, they have a super side frequency response. So a lot of stuff shows up which you would never hear on any normal stereo system. Certainly though for $500 USD these can't be beat. I listened to about 12 different pair today from all the different manufacturers and they ranged from terrible to not bad, but these were the only ones which actually sounded anywhere near studio grade. Anyhow I ramble...

Dreadlock Holiday went well, I'm off to test them out on Tokyo by Bruce Cockburn, that's a real killer test tune, because it's a great track with a very specific low end energy you can anchor to and lots of room to hear the sounds decay. Also Sugar Darling by Gregory Isaacs and Yellowman, the bass in that tune is enough to loosen your innards. Still one of my all time favorite reggae recordings!