Studio Feed: Starting from Scratch #3 Pt. 1

Hey Everyone, 

A couple weeks ago I used my handheld recorder (Tascam D-40x) to record some noodling on a steel drum my friend gave to me. The thing is kind of a toy but I was recording all sorts of melodies, patterns, stray hits, etc. with a few different mallets and brushes. I brought the recording into Ableton later on and made nice pre-arrangement loop out of it--cutting it up and using it for melodies, bass, and even drums. I wasn't screen-recording unfortunately, but went back and talked through everything I did to get to that point. That's the first 20 min of the video. There's a ton to learn there, including creative ways to use field recordings and a trick for auditioning how your loop might sound if it was sparser.

The next 1 hr and 40 min are me trying to make a longer arrangement, sparsing out the chords, drones, and melodic stuff a lot more so it feels more dynamic and not too loopy. In all honesty I wasn't super happy with how that strategy panned out for this song specifically so I never posted the video, but I'm thinking at a minimum, the first 20 minutes are super valuable. If you wanna watch the remainder, feel free---there's definitely stuff to gain from it, especially just seeing how I would go about taking a song like this to a fuller arrangement, however the only caveat I suppose is that after 2 hrs I was ready to go back to the drawing board. Maybe the initial progression just wasn't strong enough, or the magic just wasn't there that day (happens all the time) and I'll have more luck when I revisit later.

Here's the steel drum I was using. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it though (I honestly thought it was way cheaper than $230 but maybe its a supply chain cost increase) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003VTZSLS. I'll include the recording as well in case you want to experiment with some of these tips and concepts but don't have an instruments or means to record them at home. Looking at Amazon, there are some surprisingly cheap options for pan drums if you wanted to have some fun at home.