The Drummer

I starting playing a drum part today onto one of the improv bits of guitar that I looped a few days ago. I used "Bossy", my Boss DR-5 drum machine/etc that is full of drum sounds, among other things. I tried many different kick drum sounds, came up with one and recorded just that onto a track. I actually played the pads throughout the session, so it consisted of human performances that I'll have to gussy up later to get my timing better! I found a different kit sound for the cymbals, and played those on another track. Same with the snare drum. I'll have to figure out exactly what I did later.. Then I rendered the track to a wav file, moved it via a USB stick to this computer, and am listening as I type. I'm listening for good bits that can be edited into an actual drum track. Ableton Live offers many ways of playing with beats with warp markers and slicing to midi files; more on all that later.

Recording as Instrument

A few days ago we both got to work on our art at the same time! Kordula was in the kitchen working on a new sculpture, and it looks great so far. Meanwhile in the awesome family room I took one section of the clean guitar track, just a few seconds out of a 12 minute jam, and looped it. Then using Ableton Live I started "playing" the loop at different points within it, and recorded those results.
Today I hope to add virtual drums to this part to make a whole section of the song. This sci-fi cyberscape version of putting a song together is different than recording with a band for sure, but also quite rewarding. Remember, it was a live "real" guitar being recorded, then manipulated in "real" time, digitally. It moves through the air and it sounds good; thus analog becomes digital becomes another form of analog sound.
I can already hear future versions of this in my head; we'll see how it goes!