Fire Dove ...making of...

This tune started out from messing around with a step sequencer (below) and ended up being really a basic rock instrumental by the time it went through a few transformations.

I also wanted to do a more punchy tune after the last few ambient offerings. The drums were from a collection of loops (from either Looperman site or other legitimate offerings). I depend on them a lot, as I don't play drums. I did start out with just programming the kicks.

Because I made this over four months ago (and I've been very busy), I can't actually remember everything I did to make it, however, I know I was aiming for a simple rock based tune with a dash of experimentation to keep it interesting.

I know I was looking for a Midnight Oil sound on the guitars and didn't really get it but the process came up with something that worked to my ears at least. Tremolo is in there if you listen carefully to the backing guitar.

For lead guitar, I pushed it through an unnatural source which was what I was after 'mini moog synth' for keyboards. I often like to go around the traditional electric guitar sounds.

As usual, I play all the other instruments besides drums, so it's live bass guitar on here through a 'power pop' modeler.I also used a 'saw synth' way in the background and also another Square bass synth. 

Bouncing and laying tracks is normal because my computers never have enough CPU or Memory. So this is the end result of all the tracks but there are probably a few hidden before this, lost in the layering. I multitrack to try and give a bigger sound, otherwise it sounds very dry and limp and insipid.Theres a piano synth in there somewhere too, I just discovered...

The video clip was partly done in front of my old trusty green screen 

I'm always grateful to those who share their short clips, so those of us who do this on a budget can make budget clips :-)

I've put 'Fire Dove' on my latest offering on  Bandcamp Page as a name your price so if you aren't cashed up, help yourself.

Join in for conversation or feedback on my Tim Oestmann Music page

'Broken' the making of...

'Broken' was put together in 2019. The guitar parts were actually internally recorded in the 1980's and I had them floating around for years. They came together when I had a mixture of medieval music I had been listening to and U2's beautiful song 'Tomorrow'  somehow give me the idea to bring all the parts together in a spontaneous way. It is not as tight as initially planned because I was quite busy and decided to finish the sucker off quickly.

 

The title 'Broken' came about from where I was at the time of writing and so it was sort of therapeutic as well; as is a lot of the music I write. I could have used the title "I feel like crap" or 'Why don't you just shoot me now" but "Broken" seemed portrays the music which is most important to me in the long run.

This tune is a bit of an excursion for me in that I use the main theme but then run off in (gasp) not pop. Before you get worried, it's just an experiment in where I could repeat the theme but stretch it out in a more classical way, in repeating a theme and playing with it in different ways.

Here's a short visual explanation of how I put it together. Hope you music nerds enjoy it!  Blessings. Tim Oestmann

Always with us making of

Always With Us The tune I actually started in the 80's but thought it might be time to finish it off. Call it procrastination; fermentation's a better word... Here' the clip:


Here's how it started:




Here's some of the in between bits:

VSTi's

The original chords and preliminary notes

Way in the background I used piano in LMMS

 

Would you believe the lead guitar was partly inspired by pan pipes? I like the vibrato sound, so I tried to find something that emulated that sort of sound.

Blessings

Tim O

Radio Waves -some of the making of

Radio Waves - mainly 'spy surf' but with some Eastern instrumentation for a bit of spice.



 I needed to occupy my mind (waiting on reports of a relative in hospital), so I finished off this half baked idea over a few nights.

Basically it is a 140 bpm surf guitar tune but i wanted to contrast an Eastern sound with a Western sound in one tune.

Besides playing my trusty old AXL strat copy (which I still like the sound for the surfy stuff), I played real live bass but I thought a Nay, Oud and Tabla sound would make it kind of interesting, though they are instruments from different areas.  The only loops I used were the Western drum
loops otherwise I attempted to play (via midi keyboard) these VSTi's:

The mixed down tracks:

Tabla percussion I programmed

A short clip playing around with the Eastern and Middle Eastern instruments via midi keyboard:

Making of 'Coming Home'

Here's a few minutes of the making of 'Coming Home'

It was really an experiment between using a PC (which is my main method) and iPad which I borrowed. I liked the combinations of sound it produced. The drums are loops and some of the pipes (reversed) but the rest I played or programmed.

Whatever it sounds like to you, I'm personally happy to have extended myself again. I enjoyed the experience on the whole, besides the usual frustration, agony and ecstasy of making music ;-)

I also downloaded Ripplemaker by Bram Bos which was a lot of fun to play around with. I have always respected and used much of his software over the years which is always 'friendly' to the user.

Here's some pics:

And the clip taken up at Anstey Hill I had to wait everytime someone walked past before I filmed the little model. I'm sure someone spotted me and shook their head. The things we do for creativity ;-)

How Apple made me put together 'The Road Rising'

Making The Road Rising (December 2017)

I'm a PC sort of guy, all the music I make is pretty well all done on PC's.

This tune 'The Road Rising' was made totally on Apple hardware. I used an iPad (borrowed) and my very old iPod 3 to make the tune. I did however use my trusty DAW on the PC to compress and EQ the files for more punch. I chose deliberately to stick to the iPad and the iPod because sometimes you find 'restrictions' force more creativity.


I downloaded free synth and looping software just to try and learn how to use the iPad but found some of it sounded so good, I decided to make a tune.

I need to be clear at this point, as with a lot of electronic music, I used preprogramed loops to make the biggest chunk of the song. So I'll list the programs and you'll recognise how I did it....quite frankly....because you'll find the same loops. So if you want to do it yourself it is not that hard.

As a rule I tend to start from scratch when I write music (and I will mostly do this) but this is one time I thought it sounded so good, it wasn't worth reinventing the wheel.

What I -did - add manually were the 

• 'bass'
• background 'drone' and 'ambient' notes.

• I also manually played an iPad Synth lead parts on a couple of synths 
• and manually played the iPod 'piano' parts.

• I also manually twiddled knobs and crosshairs and dot charts on the iPad and iPod to get freaking electro FX sounds underneath.

I didn't know how much fun was to be had in an afternoon.
Here are the software programs I used -they are all downloadable for free from the Apple Apps store (at the time of writng this):

Blocs Wave - this is the main one full of loops that made the majority of the tune

Tonepad 



 








 Core Synth

 

  

Virtuoso (piano)
 

 








Sylo Synth

 










Synthmaster

All of this bing bang bam electronica turned out into this film clip:

How I dropped the Anchor of Hope

As usual, I write this stuff as a record for myself because I forget how I make things...and also...I really like to learn from others how they make music, so this is my way of giving back, if anyone may be the slightest bit interested.

Here's the finished song





I like the idea of using 'samples' in production of music because it can really orchestrate the tune and fill it out and make it stronger. 

The problem with  using other people's samples (ie lifted from vinyl records) is that it is a legal minefield.

Sooo...I remembered that I had a stack of cassettes of songs and part-songs and ideas I recorded myself of myself over the 90's and early 2000's on cassette players and 4 Track tape recorders. 

I'm always 'this close' to ditching the tapes into big pile of trash but discover that some stuff can be recycled.

I found myself playing two bass guitar parts I loud and distorted and thought that it would be good to sample them and see what i could do with them...which I did.... There are really only three parts I took and then built the rest of the song around them.

Here is some of the process: