Resolving patch vs. idea conflicts

[Tusker]

I've been noodling the same musical idea for months and wanted to arrange it in a DAW. It has various sections (ABABC, etc) which means it's clear where the idea wants to go. It's not fully written though. It can be developed with a bread-and-butter patch list and you can predict roughly where it might go.

 

Yesterday I started with a patch which speaks to me. It's a character patch ... more complex than your bread-and-butter patch. Within minutes I was tempted to give up all the concepts I had around the tune. This has happened to me many times over the years, but nowadays the patches are more plentiful and they are more assertive!

 

Are some ideas so "good" you should let them lead, and some patches so "good' you should let them help you write your tune? One of the novelists said he first imagines the characters and then the characters tell him where they want their stories to go. That seems backwards but also ... creative.

 

Do you have a system of writing which resolves this question? I'd love to hear stories from someone whose initial idea got derailed by a patch for better or for worse. Thanks. ð

[marczellm]

Disclaimer: I suck at getting from idea to finished song - I have like 6 mostly finished songs and 600 ideas.

That said, why not write a fully fleshed out take on both versions you have in your head?

[Markyboard]

I think it"s an either/or deal. You can write some really cool music by letting a patch dictate the song structure, rhythm and melody. But if you already have these components in mind then the patches used should serve the song as opposed to 'distracting' from the song. It"s really no different than coming up with a cool drum beat. You can write really cool songs around them but trying to fit one into a pre-conceived song - maybe not.

 

Let the song dictate what it needs.

[GRollins]

One of the novelists said he first imagines the characters and then the characters tell him where they want their stories to go. That seems backwards but also ... creative.

 

Nope. Not backwards. This is when you know things are going well. You become a conduit for the characters. Think of it as taking dictation. It's the best possible way to write.

 

You know how in Star Wars, Yoda, Obi Wan, et. al. say to quiet your mind and the Force will speak to you? That. Don't be rude; shut up and let the characters speak. After all, it's their story, not yours.

 

It also works in reverse, so to speak. If the story goes dead and you're working harder and harder to push it along, STOP. You've taken a wrong turn. I had that happen on a rather large story one time. Turned out the reason things had ground to a halt was that I wasn't listening to the characters. I had to rip out the last third of the story and do a massive rewrite, but when it was published it hit people hard enough that they were literally sending me condolence cards (this was pre-internet, so snail mail) due to the death of a major character. I still have that stuff in the drawer where I keep old manuscripts.

 

Somewhat closer to your point, there's a preset on my Kronos that's got, uh, character, shall we say. My wife came in not long after I got the keyboard and was still exploring all the native sounds it could make. I said, "Honey, listen to this stupid sound. How could anyone ever use this?" and dropped my fingers on the keys, playing a hokey riff, all the while making fun of the patch. Only...suddenly, it sounded cool. Really cool. I frowned, looking at the keyboard as though it had betrayed me, tried a few more notes...and they fit, almost magically falling into place. Nothing for it, but to...I fluttered my hands at my wife. "Go away, I'm going to be busy for a while." She smiled, knowing that look on my face, and backed out. The tune practically wrote itself from there on out--at least the keyboard part. I still need to go through and write some lyrics, but that's always been difficult for me (apparently being an author doesn't ease my travails when writing lyrics).

 

The short answer: You're a fool if you don't follow your inspiration. Write down or record your original thoughts so you still have a trail of bread crumbs that you can follow if the new ideas fail. They may yet become the basis of a separate tune (or a part of your current one if you abandon your preconceived ABABC structure), but it's important to strike while the iron is hot--your muse may not be patient enough to wait for you if you ignore her.

 

Grey

[KuruPrionz]

Make both versions?

Then make more versions.

 

Then see if any parts fit together.

 

I capture sketches of ideas quickly and revist them when looking for "something."

 

Trust your creativity, creating one thing does not exclude creating another thing.

[Tusker]

Each of you has helped me in different ways.

 

Mark, your idea about committing to a decision has made it clear. I choose to go with the original conception of the tune (for now ... which relates to the idea Kuru mentioned) I enjoy plunking it on the piano and the melody feels more natural than it does on this beautiful atmospheric cello patch. It''s almost as though the melody would need to be reshaped, like grafting an amiable personality on to Batman in order to drop him into a rom com opposite Julia Roberts. There is something wrong about that. It seems to break the principle Grey alluded to: the muse is at least partly about flowing with it, right? "Try Easier" is really hard for a control freak. We love our intellectual straitjackets! For now, I'll keep the cello idea off to a side... and hope to marry the two later as Kuru suggested.

 

All of this raises a question about the pliability of thoughts and ideas ... and whether they can truly cross the borders in our mind, while retaining their essential character. I am sure it's a question anyone asks when they turn a book into a script, or translate a lyric from French to English. What is the skill set required to reimagine something in a new context I wonder. Is it a learnable skill?

 

Thanks everyone! ð

[Stokely]

I'll give the same disclaimer as marczellm!

 

I don't normally fare that well with those "super patches". I may be referring to something a bit different that what you mean. I'm talking about those moving, twisting, morphing awesome-sounding patches that have lows to highs and everything in between. Problem: how to add anything to them! They kind of use up the air in the room a bit. One plugin I tried that had these in spades was Dune 3--man it sounded good, but it was doing all the playing for me.

 

Now that said--I pulled up an electric piano patch for a solo my friend wanted on his tune, and went kind of crazy with the fx (this was Scarbee 88 in Kontakt). Put overdrive and a rotary on it, and it immediately got me playing a really cool progression. That progression wouldn't have done much on a piano or regular-sounding electric piano, in this case the sound kind of made it work.

[KuruPrionz]

Each of you has helped me in different ways.

 

Mark, your idea about committing to a decision has made it clear. I choose to go with the original conception of the tune (for now ... which relates to the idea Kuru mentioned) I enjoy plunking it on the piano and the melody feels more natural than it does on this beautiful atmospheric cello patch. It''s almost as though the melody would need to be reshaped, like grafting an amiable personality on to Batman in order to drop him into a rom com opposite Julia Roberts. There is something wrong about that. It seems to break the principle Grey alluded to: the muse is at least partly about flowing with it, right? "Try Easier" is really hard for a control freak. We love our intellectual straitjackets! For now, I'll keep the cello idea off to a side... and hope to marry the two later as Kuru suggested.

 

All of this raises a question about the pliability of thoughts and ideas ... and whether they can truly cross the borders in our mind, while retaining their essential character. I am sure it's a question anyone asks when they turn a book into a script, or translate a lyric from French to English. What is the skill set required to reimagine something in a new context I wonder. Is it a learnable skill?

 

Thanks everyone! ð

 

Decades ago I was in a cover/original band in Fresno and the latest fad to hit was reggae. It sort of crept up and then exploded. I was driving and My Girl by the Temptations came on the radio. In my mind, I heard a reggae arrangement. When I got home I worked out the bass and guitar parts. Next practice we worked on it. Next gig we played it, filled the dance floor. The dancers made the decision for us.

 

I'd been repurposing the puzzle pieces long before that so it was more or less a slam dunk. As a hippie friend once said to me "It may not be a perfect circle but it is a perfect whatever it is."

Let it flow, let is go, you don't have to like it. Some of my favorite music took a few listens to even be able to tolerate it - MIles Davis Bitches Brew comes to mind, it stands tall on it's own mountain. You don't define it, it defines you.

 

There ya go, some loosey-goosey philosophizin'. Cheers, Kuru

[David Emm]

"The dancers made the decision for us." Exactly this! I can generally tell pretty early on if a patch is a Playable or a Mini-Orchestra. With most melodies, the Playables are self-evident, like EPs. The Mini-Orchestras can be tempting, but you discard part of the showoffs, while others can be trimmed down to Playables. Some require too much reshaping; others come to life when you just kill off two of the layers. (That applies to most of my songs, too.)

 

In either case, they tend to show you their internal stuff pretty easily. I've been at it long enough to know where the tweaks should go. If it inspires you at all, GO and give the genie lamp a rub. I write some things by hand from the outset. Others grow from a loop or Big Patch that makes things begin to gel. For me, its all about the process of getting to where I *can* make that next decision. Its called Fun.

[Tusker]

Exactly this! I can generally tell pretty early on if a patch is a Playable or a Mini-Orchestra. With most melodies, the Playables are self-evident, like EPs. The Mini-Orchestras can be tempting, but you discard part of the showoffs, while others can be trimmed down to Playables. Some require too much reshaping; others come to life when you just kill off two of the layers. (That applies to most of my songs, too.) In either case, they tend to show you their internal stuff pretty easily.

 

I probably over-focused on size in my description of the patch, leading people to think (quite rightly) that it had many separate moving parts which could be toggled. Instead it's a processed set of string samples, which sound big and full in the cello register, run through distortion effects which are embedded in the samples. There are crazy articulations which make it sound bigger and more full of character than a regular string sample. It's tempting to anchor the tune around it, but as Kuru and you suggest, perhaps it's best to construct the tune first, then add/substitute these types of timbres. Note to self: Two stages. Cake first. Icing later.

 

You can hear a bit of the patch

. Anyone use this?

 

Its called Fun.

Wise words.

[Tusker]

Maybe I just need help discussing this to "re-purpose the puzzle pieces", as Kuru mentioned. ð

[David Emm]

Maybe I just need help discussing this to "re-purpose the puzzle pieces", as Kuru mentioned. ð

 

I hear the issue now: its a Spitfire combi! For me, that would be one-third to one-fourth of an entire composition due to its aural size. I sometimes turn to Mellotron over real strings for that effect. I'm more of a chamber orch. type and that's Zimmer-sized. I could enjoy dressing it up, but there's a point where IMO, you can look like a poseur with the super-sized library houses like Spitfire. I'm also a piano guy posing as a synth guy posing as a wannabe cellist, so I don't want to fall prey to the seduction of merely pushing Play too easily.

 

I didn't dig into the plug, but depending on your end goal, there could be another, less busy variation available. Its also near-criminally easy to build up a sub-group from solo strings or brass. Let the phrasing & total shape of the piece define itself a bit. Of course, I cheat and throw in a little synth to make it unnaturally larger, because up to 30% hypocrisy in the name of Synth-Fun is artistically acceptable. Besides, no one outside our circle recognizes Patch #78 (SpacesuitFart) from the UltraHonk 5000, so keep that in mind as well.

[KuruPrionz]

Maybe I just need help discussing this to "re-purpose the puzzle pieces", as Kuru mentioned. ð

 

Alas, I am unable to quantify inspiration - at least as it relates to my own random bursts.

I write songs and parts of songs. I have no idea why or how, I just do.

 

And so, that is my reccomendation - just do!

Cheers, Kuru

[EricBarker]

If the song's already finished/arranged, I don't do well with presets. Either I have a sound already in mind and done, or I have to make it from scratch. Shoehorning someone else's preset into a finished composition almost never works. If it does, it's been tweaked into oblivion, thus making it a new preset and my own. However, I have written a number of tunes that were inspired by weird presets.

 

I'm tackling a bit of that right now. I've been playing with a video game cover band for a few years and we've put on a number of live shows. Now we're currently wrapping up our first album. For live, I sometimes just copped patches that sounded like their original video-game counterparts, tho usually updated a bit so they fit a rock band environment. For the album, I want to push it a little further away from the original patches, so that they take on a little more of a life of their own. I was struggling the other day with a patch from an Iconic mid90s game that sounds like synth strings/horns from a Wavestation or M1. Very cheesy and dated now, like an old NBC sports theme. But I was having a hell of a time getting something else to fit the part. In the end, the sound I used wasn't too different, just tweaked to be a little less harsh with more reverb, and I pushed it back in the mix so it didn't dominate.

 

It's tough getting away from meat & potatoes if the piece is already finished.

[KuruPrionz]

If the song's already finished/arranged, I don't do well with presets. Either I have a sound already in mind and done, or I have to make it from scratch. Shoehorning someone else's preset into a finished composition almost never works. If it does, it's been tweaked into oblivion, thus making it a new preset and my own. However, I have written a number of tunes that were inspired by weird presets.

 

I'm tackling a bit of that right now. I've been playing with a video game cover band for a few years and we've put on a number of live shows. Now we're currently wrapping up our first album. For live, I sometimes just copped patches that sounded like their original video-game counterparts, tho usually updated a bit so they fit a rock band environment. For the album, I want to push it a little further away from the original patches, so that they take on a little more of a life of their own. I was struggling the other day with a patch from an Iconic mid90s game that sounds like synth strings/horns from a Wavestation or M1. Very cheesy and dated now, like an old NBC sports theme. But I was having a hell of a time getting something else to fit the part. In the end, the sound I used wasn't too different, just tweaked to be a little less harsh with more reverb, and I pushed it back in the mix so it didn't dominate.

 

It's tough getting away from meat & potatoes if the piece is already finished.

 

Isn't a real piano a preset? It's a timeless, beautiful sound. A real Hammond organ with a Leslie is a preset too, no? Another timeless sound.

Just stirring the pot... :- D