How Did You Record This?

Enter the King of Glory 

CLICK above to hear on ReverbNation

After putting out the "Enter the King of Glory" classical instrumental on my ReverbNation site, I got a question from an admin on the "Catholic Music Insiders" FB site. He asked, 

"What a great instrumental. Did you record it on an organ, or is it a midi?"

Well, that's an either/or question. BUT it's not as easy as that to explain! I thought an extended article was the way to make clear what happened. Let me go through that process.

First of all, it's based on a four-part choral "Credo" or Creed with orchestra that I wrote about twelve years ago. At that time, I mapped out the sheet music for what I heard in my head on Noteworthy Composer and produced a primitive MIDI version so it could be heard. This is what that sheet music looks like on the program: 

And so it sat for all these years. Then, last week, I had an inspiration to get pro level orchestral 'voices' or sounds to make it sound more like a real classical concert. I've found a 'formula' lately to get good results on some of my creations. So, I created MIDI tracks for each vocal part and for the treble and for the bass orchestra parts. I then transferred these tracks to the GarageBand app (on the ancient Mac that is somehow still working!!).

To get an orchestra sound, I decided to take the treble part and make it a brass ensemble. I then panned that to one side and replicated it with a woodwind ensemble panned in the other ear. LOVE how that sounds! I then did the very same idea for the bass clef parts using cathedral organ on one side and plucked harp on the other; I think this gives it both a clear attack and a rich sustain. Wow! (I wasn't able to easily pan on GB, so I saved that for the next step.)

The next step was the vocals, and I ran into a brick wall. All the vocal sounds I could find were quite unsatisfactory. Maybe someday I can get live Soprano/Alto/Tenor/Bass voices to record, but that moment was not then or now. Then someone chimed in with a remarkable insight. Why not make this a pure instrumental that proclaims what the sounds speak. It sounds like the high royal entrance of the Ultimate Glorious King. Why not just make it all instrumental and let it speak that? Of course, that's right! Brilliant! Maybe someday I can get the Credo version recorded vocally in Latin, or even write more Mass parts. If any reader feels so inclined please go for it!

So, I used the "Smart Strings" voice on GB to approximate each part into violin, cello, etc. as seen here. 

I then created exportable tracks for each of these. I also created a single track with the four vocal tracks together as "String Ensemble". These nine tracks I then loaded up on the Audacity app on my regular computer.

Here I find it easier to do things like pan, add effects or mix. I panned the four individual string parts as if they were in order of front of you, with the ensemble mix centered. Each orchestral pairing was panned harder to each side. The general reverb I added was like "Church Hall" just short of "Cathedral"!

All in all, I was pretty amazed by the result. It really does seem to foretell how the King of Everlasting Glory, the Bread of Life, the Lamb of God WILL return to the center of his altars one day soon, with his Queen Mother seated at his right as in David's kingdom. And of course we think also of His final triumph at the End of Days and the Eternal Glory that we experience now through His Great Gift.

  Great Rock Road!

(This post is based on the original post about the classic live early 80's version of "Great Rock Road" put out July 15, 2010. CLICK the title to listen to a brand new mix treatment!)

{NEW! Great Rock Road VIDEO!}

It seems like this song is fitting perfectly with "Cast Your Soul" and the Mt. Carmel connection we noted last time. In the killing desert-dryness that sin and death is, there is a very Sure Way that leads to refreshing Living Waters. 

This song, believe it or not, came from the name of the road Dave & his family lived on for a while! (Most all of us got stopped in the speed trap the police had near there.) I said it, "Wow, Great Rock Road; sounds like a song." Everything sounded like a song, I guess. Plus, I managed to get the word "roll" in there with "rock" and "road". Lots of lyrical fun with a very strong underlying spiritual reality.

The biblical imagery that came to mind was the "great highway" in Isaiah's book of Consolation. God was going to make a road for the people to come back to Him from the Exile, lower the hills, fill in the valleys and so on. Of course, typologically this also refers to Our Loving God coming to us in the Incarnation to be Our Way out. Jesus talked about his yoke being easy if we let God make the way for us. This is the idea in this song. The way out of this desert valley of tears is the way of holiness rooted in Jesus who IS the Way, the Living Waters.

One memory with this is doing it at the Hartford Civic Center; I believe it was the show we did the whole "Prodigal Daughter" theme. Anyway, I remember the sound crew positively loved this song and they actually came to tell us about it. I remember there was tape of this version at one point and, boy, was it tight and it really rocked. We used to joke that we were all 'playing lead' during the lead.

Musically, this is a classic rocker, no doubt with all the 1-5 chords, but there are also a couple of nifty key changes and some of that major-minor back-and-forth action going on. Sure the chorus is repetitive, but sometimes a battle cry is exactly what is called for.

This live version is an earlier one.  Later, we cleaned up the intro; we got rid of that twangy vamp on D and made some other arrangement changes.  In particular, Greg & I on guitars and Dave on bass got really tight after this time. You may notice the 'Boston'-style pick-dragging on the strings the guitar used to do at the end.  In this version, I have been able to highlight the bass and drums. You can clearly hear those plastic "Roto-Toms" of Tony's drums (you can also hear them well on the chorus of "Love's Beginning"). Dave's 'walking' bass is delightfully 'running' here with some semi-chromatic funkage.

Funny, one time, John (Henry) took a stick of underarm deodorant and wrote something like "Anti-Evil Roll-On" playing on the words of the bridge, "I need to roll on"! We love puns.

Good times...thank the Lord for this greatly hopeful message so perfect for now.

Mark L.