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 Spirit Chewality - Paigan0 & Jayesskerr Collab 
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Post Spirit Chewality - Paigan0 & Jayesskerr Collab
Here is Scott Kerr (Jayesskerr) and my latest SINKERR (SINK + KERR) prog rock INSTRU-METAL creation, called "Spirit Chewality." This is our second collaboration (that we've let you see anyway! :oops: )

I play Railboard bass, keyboards, drums, acoustic and some rhythm electric guitars; Scott plays most of the rhythm guitars, and all of the solo and lead 6-strings, as well as the entirety of the intro and the outro in Chapman Stick Grand 12-String (bass and melody). Whew!

I wrote my parts; he wrote his parts. He gave me an initial rough version, and my producer credits include saying "More shredding here and kill that 13 seconds there with fire!" and then slapping some Engineer pixie love (hi/low pass filters) on the tracks he delivered to me--about 20 tracks in total. The basic song structure and chord progressions are mine, although Scott vastly opens up any song harmonically that he is on.

Quote:
Someone asked for "An exploration of Spirituality, Technical yet Expressive." And thus the prog rock tune "Spirit Chewality" was born, crafted by Chapman Stick enthusiasts Stephen Sink (Paigan0), and Scott Kerr (Jayesskerr/Tapicus Maximus). Together, we are the prog rock INSTRU-METAL band SINKERR.

Instrumentation

Steve
Bass: Chapman Stick Railboard (Sapphire Blue, 10-string)
Rhythm Guitar: Gladius 6-string
Acoustic Guitar: Acoustic-Electric 6-string
Piano: Pro Tools stock piano plugin. “Bright piano” patch
Keys: Saw-tooth wave at bridge, and Deep Bass quarter notes throughout
Drums: NI Machine + NI Studio Drummer + samples

All of Steve’s guitars and Sticks were recorded direct into the board and then post-processed. Effects are a combo of Native Instrument Guitar Pro, and Pro Tools’ cabinet emulator called “PSA,” and a slew of Waves products.

Scott
Bass and Melody: Chapman Stick Grand 12-string. Boss GT100 direct in; some reverb
Rhythm guitars, Solo and Lead guitars:
The guitar was a Malmsteen Strat plugged into a Marshall JCM 2000 DSL 401 combo. Scott mic'd it with a somewhat off-axis Sure 57 (what else?) and ran that through an all-tube EHX preamp.

Image



--Rocking it out in Stickland, where "We all have our rocks in the stream coming down from Stick Mountain." Cheers and Yoroshiku!

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Steve Sink, Laser Fractals
Rosewood 10-string, #5989, M4s
Sapphire Railboard, #6763, MR
Wenge-on-Wenge NS/Stick, #170130, Bass 4ths
http://soundcloud.com/stephen-sink-1
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-RDlN ... Ez0hN49_Qg


Sun Nov 20, 2016 7:37 am
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Post Re: Spirit Chewality - Paigan0 & Jayesskerr Collab
Nice collab guys...congrats.

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Sun Nov 20, 2016 8:11 am
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Post Re: Spirit Chewality - Paigan0 & Jayesskerr Collab
Very cool Steve, thanks for letting me participate on this it was a lot of fun!

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Sun Nov 20, 2016 10:19 am
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Post Re: Spirit Chewality - Paigan0 & Jayesskerr Collab
Jayesskerr wrote:
Very cool Steve, thanks for letting me participate on this it was a lot of fun!

My pleasure! I enjoyed digging into this one. I really think we took this song up a few notches from where it was just by myself, pre-Stick. It only took two days for each of us to drastically alter this song for the better. My favorite Japanese expression: "Jikan saé areba!" or "If only I had the time..." Sometimes it doesn't take much time when you've got a good framework to start with.

My old composition teachers in both music and fiction writing always said that beginning and endings are easy--it's the middle parts that are hard. But when someone gives you a bunch of stuff to work with, it's really just plug and play. You react to my stuff, I react back, then you again, and repeat. It's almost like actually being in a studio together, except we're in two different countries! :ugeek: Making covers better is usually not much work, and when it's your own song you're covering, then how much work can that be? I love to watch these creations organically grow with each new instrument added as we pass it back and forth. Good times!

The real work for me was EQ'ing--a real challenge with so many tracks. Lots of things wanting to hog up the sonic space. I put Low and Hi-pass filters on all the major sub groups and played with things. This was mix #24.

I posted it up at icomposition.com, shortly after I posted it to SoundCloud. As of this second, SoundCloud had 13 plays, and icomp has 91.

http://www.icompositions.com/music/song.php?sid=219025

Thanks! More to come!

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Steve Sink, Laser Fractals
Rosewood 10-string, #5989, M4s
Sapphire Railboard, #6763, MR
Wenge-on-Wenge NS/Stick, #170130, Bass 4ths
http://soundcloud.com/stephen-sink-1
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-RDlN ... Ez0hN49_Qg


Sun Nov 20, 2016 5:03 pm
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Post Spirit Chewality - Paigan0 & Jayesskerr Collab
Bummer. No link appears on iPhone's Tapatalk. Gotta wait for the laptop tomorrow morning. :(


Sent by Tapatalk

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Sun Nov 20, 2016 5:54 pm
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Post Re: Spirit Chewality - Paigan0 & Jayesskerr Collab
bachdois wrote:
Bummer. No link appears on iPhone's Tapatalk. Gotta wait for the laptop tomorrow morning. :(


Sent by Tapatalk

Hi, Rodrigo! So I just downloaded the app to try it out. If you happen to hang with a multitude of different forums, it seems like a really cool aggregator. But as you say, the soundcloud link did not appear when I viewed the post. I use an RSS aggregator when I'm at work (NewsBlur) and it also shows Stick stuff but won't show YouTube videos or SoundCloud links. It will show Vimeo embeds, of all things.

Here's a direct link:

https://soundcloud.com/stephen-sink-1/spirit-chewality

Here's the re-embed that won't work in Tapatalk.


The SoundCloud App works pretty good for iPhone. Or just wait until you get to a laptop.

Cheers, Rodrigo!

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Steve Sink, Laser Fractals
Rosewood 10-string, #5989, M4s
Sapphire Railboard, #6763, MR
Wenge-on-Wenge NS/Stick, #170130, Bass 4ths
http://soundcloud.com/stephen-sink-1
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-RDlN ... Ez0hN49_Qg


Sun Nov 20, 2016 6:10 pm
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Post Re: Spirit Chewality - Paigan0 & Jayesskerr Collab
The piece is solid. I am particularly attracted to the stick parts on this one, whereas I was drawn to the keys on previous offerings. Not sure why.

Not as aggressive as your other stuff, that's cool. Not everything has to be aggressive (does it?)

How do you guys approach your collaborations? What is the process?

K Rex

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Sun Nov 20, 2016 9:06 pm
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Post Re: Spirit Chewality - Paigan0 & Jayesskerr Collab
Wow, really liked the way it turned out. Good music, nice sound, it develops In a very solid way throughout the hole song.
Thanks for the link! Plus, I totally subscribe K Rex's question. What is the process? Cheers


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Mon Nov 21, 2016 4:01 am
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Post Re: Spirit Chewality - Paigan0 & Jayesskerr Collab
K Rex wrote:
The piece is solid. I am particularly attracted to the stick parts on this one, whereas I was drawn to the keys on previous offerings. Not sure why.Not as aggressive as your other stuff, that's cool. Not everything has to be aggressive (does it?) How do you guys approach your collaborations? What is the process?K Rex

bachdois wrote:
Wow, really liked the way it turned out. Good music, nice sound, it develops In a very solid way throughout the hole song. Thanks for the link! Plus, I totally subscribe K Rex's question. What is the process? Cheers Sent by Tapatalk


Thanks guys! I appreciate the listens and the comments!

There's actually nothing on earth I enjoy more than talking about process. I love to watch those George Martin vids where he walked you through all the hidden tracks on Day in the Life, for example. I could watch any video ever with Prince in the studio, where he just picks up a random sax and plays a solo, then a guitar, then a vocal line, then programs some drums, then gets on Vanity or Appollonia...(who runs a youth group as a pastor's wife now!)

This song was supposed to be just that, a song, and a quintessential rock song. I deliberately set out to create the most accessible "rock" or even "pop rock" song that I could. It's really a 4-chord song in a major key (D), with D, Bmin, G, A; and a chorus/bridge still in D but with 4 different chords (D, Emin, D/F#, G).

Now the timing is a bit odd. It's 3/4 or maybe 3/4 split time--I'm horrible at my time signatures.

This song started like most of my songs, with a riff. There is a Dmaj7 piano arpeggio that runs through almost the entire song, played in higher and lower octaves. That right hand riff continues while the left hand grabs power chord bass D, B, G, A for most of the song, and then D, E, F#, G for the bridge/chorus.

That alone--the Dmaj7 riff over the bass line--was the entire song. It wasn't Smoke on the Water or Black Dog, but it's a nice, pretty riff, if I do say so myself.

I then wrote out 6-string guitar parts with me playing huge chords, one per measure. Then, the same thing with some simple rhythms in each of the four chords.

Then I dragged and dropped my guitar chords wherever seemed appropriate, and sliced and diced up my chords to make rhythms. Most of the rhythm guitar is in my ability to play, but I don't record that way. It's one chord at a time when playing 6-string guitar. I'm very much a hack in that regard with guitar.

So that gave me this little ditty, called D7 because it's really supposed to be "Dmaj7" but D7 sounded better. But it needed a lead or vocal line or both, so I never released or did anything with it but say "Here's something cool I did with guitar...."

https://soundcloud.com/stephen-sink-1/d-major-7


So, I've had that and never knew what to do with it. Then along comes Scott.

So I gave it to him as an MP3, and he loved the guitars. Then I told him how I did them, and he had to do something (better) himself. So I mixed down a version with none of my guitars at all, but with everything else in it and gave that to him.

He put it into Logic Pro X as one track, and then laid 20 tracks over it, and then sent me his source files for me to load back into Pro Tools. He added an intro that I decided also made a good outro.

I sliced and diced up his guitar--just the opening 4 seconds and the Stick parts with 12-string--to make the end, just to demonstrate the same technique using much more superior source data, like Scott's guitar.

Then I added all of his guitars tracks to one channel and EQ'd and also used a Waves CLA Electric Guitar "Cleartone" patch on it. That added both reverb and delay and also tweaked the molten fury of his tone slightly. Then it went through WAVES SSGL Channel, with another Chris Lord Alge patch to cut and boost frequencies for guitar. Every track had that SSGL Channel patch on it to wrangle the frequencies.

Then I mixed Scott's guitars and my guitars back into the song, and tweaked levels measure by measure until everybody lived happily together in what I hoped was a Mutt Lang Wall of Sound.

Then I added the Railboard bass line and mixed it into the master mix. I sent to Scott for a level sanity check, and then pushed it out to the world.

Cover art was done a couple weeks ago, not that finding spare fractal art is hard lately. I have fractal art for all of China if they need album cover art.

My process starts with a riff or riffs and then builds iteratively like that. Scott and I seems to thrive sending each other tracks back and forth and then adding our bits, commenting on the other's bits, and generally breaking our hand patting ourselves on the back (okay that's more me than humble Scott. But he's awesome enough to carry my slacking ass...)

So far both pieces we've done were my creations that Scott added to and then I added to. He's got stuff, too, that I haven't ruined yet, but I seem to have an abundance of tracks that could use his expertise, more than the other way around!

Thanks guys! We'll keep at it, separately and hopefully together as well. I need to get into more of my Railboard than just the bottom 3 strings as well!

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Steve Sink, Laser Fractals
Rosewood 10-string, #5989, M4s
Sapphire Railboard, #6763, MR
Wenge-on-Wenge NS/Stick, #170130, Bass 4ths
http://soundcloud.com/stephen-sink-1
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-RDlN ... Ez0hN49_Qg


Mon Nov 21, 2016 5:00 am
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Post Re: Spirit Chewality - Paigan0 & Jayesskerr Collab
Collaborations like this are a lot of fun! I have done tons of them for fun and for pay, and there are a few key ingredients to a successful collaboration.

1) One person assumes the "producer" role. Every one else has to allow that person to do what they do to the mix, organization of various tracks, etc etc. By the same token, the "producer" has to find a way to make what they are given "work".

2) Someone provides a track to be used as a framework. The simpler the better, usually, but it usually works as long as people have this key information; tempo and where they are supposed to play. It can be a backtrack with some chord changes, a simple melody, or both. A little bit of direction from the producer is nice also, and can take the form of a simple chord chart, or maybe a kind word if someone is stumped...

3) If everyone uses the same format to record, then it is as easy as sharing your DAW files and getting to it. But often times, one guy is using cubase, another GarageBand, another Logic, another Reason, another Abelton etc etc. An omf export can go awry, so often just wav/aiff files get zipped and sent to the "producer" via email, google drive or Dropbox.

4) A spirit of fun collaboration is critical. The people submitting tracks have no idea what may or may not end up on the cutting room floor. The "producer" has no idea what these guys are going to do over the track. The fun comes in mixing it all up, and seeing what happens when a bunch of different people contribute to a piece of music. Listening to the end results are always interesting. And it's great for the community while being a lot of fun. One learns a lot while doing these... and there is a lot of give and take...

I know along the way, we have had a collab go sideways. Kind of funny! Steve had me play over another track a while ago, and I think he was expecting some "stun" guitar, but instead I gave him some almost "country" stuff that was extremely subdued and in the end, very weird sounding. I bet the first time he heard it he was like... "wtf, is this the same guy playing?" Lol Steve and I also did a track with a fella here "Bill the Hitman" which was a bit of a challenge also, Steve had a tough time fitting his tracks in. I think that one can't be too attached to preconceived notions, no two people think alike.

Just give your imagination a second to wander for a second, and think of what it would sound like having Rodrigo, Greg, Steve, Emmett, Gene and Dean going to town on one recording, in the framework of one song. I bet it would be pretty different for all involved, and the end result would be absolutely unique.

Just a thought.

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Mon Nov 21, 2016 9:54 am
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