Prisencolinensinainciusol - Oll Raigth!
April 24, 2011 3:18 AM
My fairly quick and dirty house-techno remix and update of Prisencolinensinainciusol. More info.
posted by loquacious (4 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
posted by loquacious (4 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
Update/notes:
I'm happy with this as a quick sketch or proof of concept. It was literally just a couple of hours noodling around.
But I'm probably going to end up reworking this, but with similar structures/beats. I want to remix the levels and tie some of the effects together better as multiple parts rely heavily on a few different kinds of delay. Need to trim the "intro" a lot, too.
The sort of terse glitchiness of the rhodes/electric piano sound is intentional but I want to polish that better, too. I want it to sound like it's just barely leaking through in snippets like someone keeps opening and closing the door.
A accomplished electronic musician friend of mine called it "weird dream house" which is what I'm aiming for. Somewhere between The Orb and Mark Farina with just a hint of old Detroit or Chicago house for that urban/alienated feel, but not too dark. Just weird and kind of slightly haunted.
For those interested in the tools and tech, I'm working in Ableton Live 5 point something, so it's all really basic. No VSTs. No other DAW besides audacity to record/rip the raw samples to WAVs:
Master tempo is 126 BPM. The original is about 108.
I've only used two "samples".
Sample one is the loop at the beginning before my drums come in on top of it. It's a 4/4 single measure and not synced/sliced very well, but it's hard to find a clean loop in the original song.
Sample two is the entire track beat-warped to 126. The beginning intro is layered in several times, then the entire track is played once through to the applause. This track is run through a three stage tempo-synced filter delay. All the movement, panning and you hear in the vocals, guitars and horns from the original song are caused by manipulating and recording the changes of this tempo-synched filter delay. There is no sample slicing or manipulating going on. I'm basically just DJing the track in to my own basic track, but with effects/filters.
Sample one (the loop) is re-used several times throughout the track, and helps carry out the beat after the applause and end of the original track.
Besides the loop and "sample" of the entire song, I use the following instruments:
One drum kit and pattern set. It's a modified/tuned patch of the basic and well known Roland 909 kit. The pattern is a pretty basic, fundamental house beat with some funky cowbell to tie it into the more disco beat of the original. The 909 patches I'm using are: hi hat closed, hi hat open, cowbell, snare, bass drum. The rest are unused.
One synth. This is the Rhodes-like electric piano. I'm fond of this sound because it distorts, reverbs and delays well. The pattern is a 4/4, two measures long. You never really hear the complete pattern played through once, as it's only played in snippets from various different points.
One "bass line". This also uses the rhodes, but at an impossibly low scale and sustain. This is what makes the sustained "bass kick" counterbeat and house-friendly floor rumble noises. It's also a 4/4, two measures long, but there's just two patterns. One with one note, the other with two notes, both long sustains.
And that's it.
I'm really happy with the bit about 1/3 to 1/2 half the way in where the beat really gels and solidifies and gets really smoochy.
posted by loquacious at 4:43 PM on April 25, 2011
I'm happy with this as a quick sketch or proof of concept. It was literally just a couple of hours noodling around.
But I'm probably going to end up reworking this, but with similar structures/beats. I want to remix the levels and tie some of the effects together better as multiple parts rely heavily on a few different kinds of delay. Need to trim the "intro" a lot, too.
The sort of terse glitchiness of the rhodes/electric piano sound is intentional but I want to polish that better, too. I want it to sound like it's just barely leaking through in snippets like someone keeps opening and closing the door.
A accomplished electronic musician friend of mine called it "weird dream house" which is what I'm aiming for. Somewhere between The Orb and Mark Farina with just a hint of old Detroit or Chicago house for that urban/alienated feel, but not too dark. Just weird and kind of slightly haunted.
For those interested in the tools and tech, I'm working in Ableton Live 5 point something, so it's all really basic. No VSTs. No other DAW besides audacity to record/rip the raw samples to WAVs:
Master tempo is 126 BPM. The original is about 108.
I've only used two "samples".
Sample one is the loop at the beginning before my drums come in on top of it. It's a 4/4 single measure and not synced/sliced very well, but it's hard to find a clean loop in the original song.
Sample two is the entire track beat-warped to 126. The beginning intro is layered in several times, then the entire track is played once through to the applause. This track is run through a three stage tempo-synced filter delay. All the movement, panning and you hear in the vocals, guitars and horns from the original song are caused by manipulating and recording the changes of this tempo-synched filter delay. There is no sample slicing or manipulating going on. I'm basically just DJing the track in to my own basic track, but with effects/filters.
Sample one (the loop) is re-used several times throughout the track, and helps carry out the beat after the applause and end of the original track.
Besides the loop and "sample" of the entire song, I use the following instruments:
One drum kit and pattern set. It's a modified/tuned patch of the basic and well known Roland 909 kit. The pattern is a pretty basic, fundamental house beat with some funky cowbell to tie it into the more disco beat of the original. The 909 patches I'm using are: hi hat closed, hi hat open, cowbell, snare, bass drum. The rest are unused.
One synth. This is the Rhodes-like electric piano. I'm fond of this sound because it distorts, reverbs and delays well. The pattern is a 4/4, two measures long. You never really hear the complete pattern played through once, as it's only played in snippets from various different points.
One "bass line". This also uses the rhodes, but at an impossibly low scale and sustain. This is what makes the sustained "bass kick" counterbeat and house-friendly floor rumble noises. It's also a 4/4, two measures long, but there's just two patterns. One with one note, the other with two notes, both long sustains.
And that's it.
I'm really happy with the bit about 1/3 to 1/2 half the way in where the beat really gels and solidifies and gets really smoochy.
posted by loquacious at 4:43 PM on April 25, 2011
Thank you for the explanation. I just rediscovered this today— still rocks!
posted by yaymukund at 1:44 PM on May 8, 2011
posted by yaymukund at 1:44 PM on May 8, 2011
Updated and much nicer sounding version of the remix posted here.
posted by loquacious at 1:57 AM on May 17, 2011
posted by loquacious at 1:57 AM on May 17, 2011
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
posted by KathrynT at 10:08 AM on April 24, 2011