Instrumental: Dunderhead!

Dunderhead!
June 16, 2011
[3:38]


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Instruments: FL Studio 10: Convolver plugin + vocal sample and electric guitar.

FL Studio has a plugin called "Convolver", which loads an audio sample and triggers it continuously according to the levels of an input sound source.

So here, the sample I am triggering is an old (like, 2003 old) clip of me singing a Weird Al song, "Since You've Been Gone", backwards, backwards. That is, I took the line "Well I'm feeling like I stuck my hand inside a blender and turned it on", listened to it backwards, sang that, and turned the result backwards, arriving at a really goofy sounding version of the original. The words "blender and" came out sounding more like "dunderhead!", thus the name of this track.

The input source for this track was an electric guitar (now I can't remember whether it was the Kramer Focus or the Epiphone Wildkat; I'm leaning towards Kramer Focus). I just jammed out whatever popped into my head. The more trebly and staccato notes result in more obvious triggering of the speech sample; however, the sample really is triggered by every note, which is why there's so much ambient "reverb" and glitchy effects.

Here's the full original vocal sample from 2003 (apologies in advance for your poor ears):



P.S. If you know where I might have ripped off the main chord progression from, let me know. I keep thinking it reminds me of Harry Potter music.

Song: Secretly

Secretly
Mix 7
July 3-October 6, 2007
[2:35]


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Lyrics:

Secretly I've been wondering why I was waiting here so long
When all the faults I found are gone.
It seemed to me that the way in life was to do it as I'm shown;
I might go crazy on my own.

Yeah, recently I've been wondering why I was waiting here so long
When all the faults I found are gone.
It seemed to me that the way in life was to do it as I'm shown;
I'm going crazy on my own.

Influences: John Lennon (guitar).
Instruments: Squier P-Bass Special, Kramer Focus 111S, FL Studio BooBass, Boss VT-1 Voice Transformer, Drum Samples.

The bass line and some of the words to this came to me in a dream in the middle of 2003 — although at the time, it sounded more like '90s skate punk.

By August I had finished writing out the refrain, but I couldn't really think of anything else to go with it. I had plans for combining it with another song idea that never took off, and so it ended up on the back burner for about four years. Finally, I caved and decided to just record what I had and try to make the most of it.

Rather than be overly creative and try to write more lyrics, I said to hell with it (as I often do!) and made the song just be the refrain repeated several times. If it hasn't sunk in by the fourth repetition... well, that's why we have the "loop" toggle on music players.

So, there are three vocal lines -- one low octave, chill vocal; one higher octave, slightly manic vocal; and a female vocal (sounds a little weird because it's run through the VT-1) jumping between unison and harmony with the higher vocal. And I must have been thinking about John Lennon's scratchy guitar — featured at the end of the songs "I'm Losing You" and "I Don't Wanna Face It" (the version on Wonsaponatime) — when I did this.

Mmmm... Oh, the "bwah" drum is a DNC kick sample with some sine modulation fx added in FL Studio.