The Grinding You Hear Is Not My Teeth

It is my clock, grinding to a halt. Nah, not really, but this is taking a lot longer to finish than I had anticpated. Last week we were able to get the first part of the Epic tracked (re-tracked is more like it) with a set-up we are using in our rehearsal spot. The reults are fantastic. Aaron and Claude have a great rapport. We play as a band but tend to keep just the bass and drums as the sax and guitar bleed into the drum mics. We tend to track guitar through an amp modeller instead (the mighty Adrenalinn) to replace later, and the sax is eschewed altogether. Ange does get to play her keyboard parts though. So.

The last version we did has 6 takes which the rest of the band are sorting through now (in terms of approval; I already know which one I like best !). I took my favorite version and transferred it to my Logic software and tempo mapped it. We don't use a click track or record to sequences, so we are very concious of time. The song has is eight minutes long, has 21 time signature changes and two tempo changes, so there is a certain amount of drift to be expected.

We start out at 150 for tempo I and stay there all the way through the first 12 time signature changes (the song is in 9/4 but leaps about to 10/4, 11/4, 12/8, 7/8, 11/8, 13/8, 14/8). When it goes to the 12/8 groove we slow down to 146 (tempo II) then ramp it back up to 150 when we go back to a 1/4 note pulse. Through-out the whole piece tempo I drifts from 150 to 149 to 151, and tempo II from 146 to 148 (a set-up for a fill). That's pretty fucking amazing for an 8 minute complicated outing ! YayAaron. Yay Claude.