The Retro Project

A long time ago, between 2005 and 2007, when I was starting to make music again after a long hiatus, I thought it might be fun to do a song (or two) only using instruments I had back in the late 80s.  At the time, I actually had to re-aquire some of them, like a Synsonics drum set:


http://www.burnkit2600.com/synsonics-drums/


After a little poking around the web, I abandoned my idea.  Here's why.  What I was planning to do was to use only vintage gear to make a song using a modern DAW (digital audio workstation), but what I discovered were people going much more extreme than what I was planning, making my effort seem pale and moot.


What I did do, though, was use some of those old instruments to add flavor to my "modern" recordings.  Flash forward: last week.


Last week I was surfing around, reading tutorials about creating complex bass synthesizer sounds.  It's something I've been working on for a few weeks.  Trying to create "live" playable versions of popular contemporary bass timbres.  But I stumbled on something very interesting, to me and I wish I had a link to share (see comments when I find it), but someone had rediscovered their cassette 4-track recorder in their attic, and decided to make a recording with it, and had posted said recording on soundcloud.


I was so curious to hear this track, and I was so happy to hear a modern recording done with something so completely obsolete.  I didn't imagine I'd ever follow in that guys footsteps . . . but,

I had also recently dug out my own 4-track (see above) because someone who once performed in a video of mine asked to see the finished video.  Nothing sexual, but the video wound up being a little to personal to post on the web, so no link, but I digress.  I had long ago lost the finished edit of the video, so the only way to share it with my friend was to make a new master.  I located the edited video and then set about marrying it to the 4-track audio tape containing the music and narration.  So my 4-track has been set up in my studio for months.  But that alone didn't get me interested in actually using it to make music.  Perish the thought.  What a pain it would be, to use that old thing to record a song, to say nothing of the crappy quality of the output.  Read on,


I could not get that guy's retro track out of my head.  It was so cool to hear the sound of tape again, the kind of warm smooth sound digital can only aspire to, with its crisp precision and perfect replication.  I started to think, it might be interesting to try and record something with the 4-track, just to break the monotony of the way I normally make music now.  But then I remembered all the trouble my 4-track was having when I stopped using it.  The erase heads don't work as well as when they were new (meaning, you can't fix mistakes you might make while playing), and how the machine will not stay in record mode without some strong packing tape.


I then remembered, the last time I checked, you could buy a new cassette 4-track for about $80, so maybe I should just replace mine, if I was serious.  However, a little sleuthing clued me in to the fact that production of these machines ceased several years ago, and the price, has, of course, gone way up as a result.  The cheapest "new" one is now about $240, best I can tell.  Way out of my budget for something I may use only once or twice.


However, I became kind of obsessed with seeing if I could find one cheaper and wound up discovering a lot of people who, beyond being nostalgic for these old devices, were actually waxing about the benefits of using them, today:


http://yearoftheboy.com/2011/04/03/4-track-cassette-recording-a-few-thoughts-on-why-older-recording-techniques-are-sometimes-better/


I started reading more and more about analog 4-track recording, it's history, demise, all the while, thinking, I really want to give this a go, at some point, feeling like I was just getting the dominoes lined up for some future knock down show.  Until I found this:


I am attempting to create a compilation of like-mi...


Simon Holland (a.k.a. Carrillion) is creating a compilation audio project of music recorded on or using the techniques and instruments of old cassette tape 4-track recording, with a single rule, no guitars.  Now this is a little different than anything I'd been contemplating before, as my retro track plans always included a spot for some guitar.  But I'm totally up for this challenge and it changed my future looking into present action.


As such, last night I dug out both my old casio keyboards, a VL-1 and Casio MT-540.  I had an idea to lay down a click track using the built in rhythms of the VL-1. If you are familiar with the Trio song: Da Da Da:


Trio - Da Da Da


You already know how the drums on this little synth sound.  Here's what it looks like:

I connected the VL-1 to an old delay unit from Roland/Boss and started to created the feel I was looking for.  I ended up adding a flanger to the loop too, to give the synth sound a little more dimension.  I also had an idea for a "sequence" type melody.

Recently I've been trying to get a handle on being able to actually play all my instruments, especially the synths.  I was recently working with my Korg Kaossilator:

And noticed it was set to "Ionic" scale.  I was not familiar with "Ionic" scales, so I consulted my friend, wikipedia and wound up also looking up pentatonic scales, which I had heard of before but never bothered to learn more about.  On reading about pentatonic scales, I thought they would be very useful for a novice like myself, because it's very hard to get discordant in that mode.  

After coming up with a nice sequence melody.  I set about making a good bass timbre.  Remember, learning how to make cool bass timbres was how I wound up going on this whole retro journey in the first place.  I took the Casio MT-540:

Blended the Brass Ensemble (an old favorite) with the Funky Clav sounds but ran it through my old Roland Boss Octaver, which creates bass sounds one octave lower than what you put in, and the sound was fat and rich.  Now, I have no idea what the eventual bass line of the song will be, but that timbre is going to be great.

I have yet to decide on a voice for the main melody, but there will be additional drums provided by the Synsonics (and maybe a 'real' tambourine).  And I started to develop some lyrics, though, given the retro nature of the project, I'm tempted to grab some of my old poetry instead, and edit it to fit the song.  Time will tell.