Five minutes after I wrote this entry, I figured it out — mix all the MIDI parts to a digital audio track, reverse it, then overdub the metal effect over the reversed audio, cut and paste the effect in the appropriate spot, and reverse it as well.
No more guesswork.
Duh.
Tonight, I really messed up all the work I did on “Hear the Wind Sing” by pasting tempo information in places where I shouldn’t have. As a result, a good number of my audio clips were time shifted, and I had to re-record them.
I also spent a lot time on Japanese TV and radio sites, looking for a stream with a female broacaster. Most of the clips I found were done by men. I eventually found a news report with a woman correspondent, so I recorded that and manipulated it to create the babbling effect on the original file.
In the end, I used 19 tracks in all, six of them for digital audio. And damn, are the results really weird.
I have to say — I was proud of myself when I did this song on a four-track recorded, bouncing things around and creating all the same effects. Now that it’s spread out the way it’s supposed to be, I’m impressed by the sheer ambition of working within earlier limitations.
There’s still a lot to tweak though.
By contrast, I managed to put together “Downtown Downpour” in a just about a single evening. (I don’t have the bizarre solo section in the middle, though.)
I added an acoustic bass part to this version that doesn’t appear in the earlier draft. You can barely tell it apart, though. I only have it playing on the downbeats, and the bass part of the electric piano masks it.
There’s still part of me drawn to adding more instrumentation to this song, but the song itself has resisted such measures, that I just may leave it as it is.
I’ve budgeted another two tracks for 「風の歌を聴け」, and I’ve been working on this one song that consists entirely of two chords: D-major and E-major. (D/F# and E/G# finish off the four-bar phrase.)
I like the challenge of trying to write songs with as few chords as possible. It means the melody has to be all the more distinctive. The problem with this chord progression, though, is that it doesn’t really resolve. So I just may not let it.
I’m no fan of fade-outs, but if the shoe fits …