Straight - This is probably one of the first techno inspired tunes. I recorded first the bass and organ as one track. Then overlayed the agogo, timbales, rhodes, another bass, and the phased pad. Originally I used just a simple disco beat to record to, but then embellished the drums by writing them out in Reason's sequencer. I had a terrible time mixing this sucker, kept on getting a real muddy sound. Took me a long time to get it to where it is, but I don't think I am totally satisfied.. I may go back and remix it again, I dunno.
Stop Time- I entitled this 'Stop Time' because of all the break beats and the Ramsey Lewis inspired breakdowns, ala 'The In Crowd'. I recorded this using my Roland RD-700SX for the organ and bass, which has a ton of awesome organ sounds! I recorded like usual to a simple four to the floor disco beat. Then I embellished the drums by writing them out within Reason, adding the crashes and breaks. I tried purposefully to write the drums so that a real drummer can actually play this track and not need a secondary drummer to fill in the gaps. I then recorded the rhodes track using a reason sound bank and voila. I plan to record the drums live and get rid of the mechanical-sounding computer drums at some point.
Senor Badass - Another techno inspired tune. This is a good example of how Reason can inspired you to make something quite unexpected.
I was searching through the sound banks that I have and found this wicked bass that has an awesome delay and other layers to it. I was inspired to compose something with it as the base. I soon came up with some powerful-sounding progressions and decided to record. I recorded to mostly the same drum track that you hear, however the cymbal wasn't there initially. I then reworked the drums, I ended up being lazy and not write out the drums for the whole track, but rather used automation to change the drum parts. I felt that the drums work well as a constant.
I then found this cool little violin run in Reason, and added the ending to the violin run using a different violin sound. In addition, there is a track of strings, also from Reason that kind of plays a droning background role that a pad might be used for. After listening, I felt it could use another bass. So to keep it organic sounding, I found an upright bass within Reason and used that. I initially was going to use it just as a secondary droning tool, then I spontaneously ended up taking a solo when recording. It sounded really nice, but I didn't know how it would work within the structure of the whole song.
It was decided later upon trying to record the Vintage EP track from my RD-700SX, that the song would work better if there were a trading of solos between the bass and piano and that is what you hear.
To me initally, after recording the first bass track, this sounded like some badass mexican from a western, hence the title. The second thing I got after putting the whole thing together is that it reminds me of maybe primordial earth, like the first day the colonists from another planet set down on earth, this is how it feels. Warm, dark, earthy, moist and swampy like in the time of the dinosaurs. The solos can be like two aliens shooting the shit, maybe complaining about all the things they lost or miss but also their excitement about their new home and what they plan to do there. Or maybe they're just musicians and this is what they decided to do instead of unpacking.
