Hey, everyone. Thank you for listening! Sorry, hammer - didn't mean to distract you too much!
Bill - I wanted to give a little more production insight. Here's how the instruments were done. I did play everything but the drums (see below):
MIDI
My use of MIDI was limited on these tracks. I used it to play in note information for the bass on Birthday Song. I have a Roland GR-55, but I did not use those sounds. It has a USB port which I plug directly into my computer, making the guitar a USB controller for any software synth (in the case of Birthday Song, a stock upright bass sound that comes with Logic). This method was my original plan for playing in all the bass lines, until I found a better way...
EZBASS by Toontrack
Not the best name, and actually much deeper than the name suggests. I believe they must have worked with Alembic to a certain extent, because they advertise that one of their two included bass models (their 'modern' bass) is sampled from an Alembic (the other being a 'vintage' 60s Fender Jazz). The EZ in the name is from some dark magic whereby if you wanted to, you could use an extensive groove library to add bass lines to your songs. That seems to be more for songwriters making demos, where they don't want to spend too much time on the bass parts. HOWEVER, an amazing feature is being able to play in your actual guitar as if it is a bass (including things like mutes, pops, thumps, string noise, fingers vs. pick, etc.) and have it translated to actual bass sounds. It is pretty amazing, and you can get EXTREMELY detailed with things like tuning, note articulations... tons of parameters (not to mention many preset bass sounds based on the two models that come with the software. Essentially, I can now play in bass lines as a guitarist, and it sounds at least something more closely resembling a real bass. It's not perfect, but it is sonically a better alternative than just using MIDI info straight off the guitar, because that doesn't capture the feel of the fingers.
DRUMS
Logic Pro has a pretty amazing AI "drummer." If you want you can literally drag simple beats to the timeline, but you also have the option to get much, MUCH deeper. There's the option to choose "producer kits" instead of standard premixed drum kits, which allow you to choose individual drums, tune them, adjust ring/dampening, types of kick beater, room bleed, and more. It allows me to mix each element of the kit on a separate track, as I would an acoustic drum kit. Then in Logic, I map out the time signatures throughout the song, and chop/adjust different nuances of the "drummer." Imagine if you were talking to your drummer and instructing them what to do (go to the ride here, open the hi-hat more, play behind the beat, put a fill here... no more like THIS, etc...) It is kind of endlessly fun.
KEYS
The Rhodes, piano, wurly, and other keys were played in with a simple MIDI keyboard controller. The samples are built in to logic, but I used my own dynamics, EQ, harmonic distortion to get them a bit more realistic.
HORNS
I played the horn parts in one at a time also with a MIDI keyboard controller. The samples are all built into Logic as Studio Horns. After I played them in, I went back and altered articulations like making notes legato or staccato, adding swells, etc. I just messed around until I got something I liked. I've written some horn parts before, but I usually had the luxury of a good brass section say, "I think you want this..." which is them being very kind to someone with not very much horn chart experience! With this, I had to play around until it entered the realm of something that plausibly be played by actual musicians!
I started this project with a basic understanding of Logic, and was much more familiar with Pro Tools. We have both at work. As a writing tool, I think Logic is vastly superior. It just has so many features designed to inspire a musician's creativity, and for such a deep tool, it is accessible and not overwhelming. I really enjoy working in this software.
I feel like I can fly on Logic now, so I plan on writing more music so I don't loose those chops!
