TW #15 — Advanced Tracking Tips II (Necros)

necros adapts Jim Aikin's "Demo Tape Workshop" (Keyboard, June 1995) to tracked music: six lessons on structure, dynamics, melody, drums, harmony and samples.

Key claims#

• Structure: Intro (alludes to the melody, rising energy) · A/verse (the lead) · B/chorus ("Hey! Check this out!") · Bridge (often a different chordal area) · Resolution (a modified B leading to the ending). Radio form is roughly Intro / A / B / A / B / Bridge / A / B / Resolution; listeners raised on it hear anything without some structure as "incoherent" or "random".
• Peaks and valleys: a song is "an emotional statement"; plan where the tension rises and falls — start with a catchy A, build to a chorus, a fuller A, a bigger chorus, a "HUGE" bridge, then a quieter A, a more melodic chorus and a slow finale. Neither six minutes of 180 BPM nor eighteen minutes of one piano riff works.
• Melody: sing it "like your life depended on it" — if it isn't catchy hummed, "it sure as heck isn't going to sound good" with the "FC-SINER.SMP sound you stole from Second Reality"; playing an instrument helps enormously.
• Drums: avoid the same 16-row kick/snare pattern all song; think like a live drummer reacting to the band — a rising fill before a chorus, a crash on a peak even mid-bar, soft snares on the "and"s for hip-hop, try 7/4 (Rush) or ride cymbal and brushes for jazz.
• Harmony: three ways to a decent song — a cheesy progression orchestrated well, an intricate progression with everything else simple, or a moderate progression with a good groove; five progressions to avoid: Cm–B♭–A♭–Gm, C–F–Am–G, C–F–C–G, Cm–A♭–Fm–B♭ ("you have to orchestrate it damn well"), C–F–G. "Either get a good progression, or get a good groove"; a groove is riff-oriented, not chord-oriented — a catchy phrase inside the chords, with the drums.
• Samples: never rip the Second Reality soundtrack ("that lead synth"), never use ST:-prefixed Amiga samples, rip only obscure sources (Aminet mods) and credit them; sample your own CDs — line-out or headphone jack into the GUS/SB line-in at 22 kHz through FT2, then ALT-A in ST3 and save as FT2 .IFF; shielded cables cut RF noise from monitor, CD player and PSU; 16-bit libraries at ftp.mfi.com/pub/keyboard.

Practical takeaways#

Sketch the energy curve before the patterns; write drum fills where the sections change; test a melody by humming it; if the progression is stock, make the groove and orchestration carry it.

Notable quotes#

• "A song is not just a collection of melodic riffs, it is an emotional statement."
• "SAMPLES! GET GOOD SAMPLES!"

Relevance#

Arrangement and songwriting doctrine from the scene's most-cited musician; the progression blacklist and the "sing it" test are directly usable in arrangement, melody-writing, rhythm-and-groove and chord-progressions.

Pages touched#

arrangement, melody-writing, rhythm-and-groove, chord-progressions, tracking-workflow, necros.