The GraveYard Strut – New Music (Instrumental…)

22 Replies

I recorded a new song the other day and put up a video. I think the animation I made for it is pretty cool – watch for the animation! Anyway, it is only two minutes long and I do not sing. Yea, no awful voice! So here it is, just a quick ditty:

(Click here if you don’t see the video below)

Now the story:

I was playing around with my music gear on Friday. At one point I decided to try to recreate a bass sound similar to the Arp Odyssey bass sounds that I like on my Prophet Rev 2. Listen to the beginning of the video in my review of the Korg version of the Odyssey to hear what I am talking about. Anyway, I came up with a sound I like, then changed it ;) Playing with my new sound, I soon had a little bass line that I liked. I decided to record it so I could figure out something to play with it.

OK, that is where I hit the rabbit hole. I recorded that line repeated several times and began to play. A couple of seconds later I looked up and a couple of hours had passed and I had a finished song. Hmmm, yeah, that happens.

As with most of what I have recorded this year, there is combo of electronic percussion from the Rev 2 and acoustic percussion, a cajon, a tambourine and a cabasa. The bass, as I said is Rev 2, as are the “guitar-like” sound, strings and a few sounds that aren’t obvious, but you’d notice them missing, are the Sequential Prophet Rev 2. There is the live, single take synth solo, which is, as usual, played on the Behringer Poly D.

So Saturday I decided to do a quick animation. I had a few ideas in mind, but for the most part just winged it. Yeah, creating the animation took longer than creating the music. So it goes… I do think it is kind of cool, even if a little rough (I’d have to spend much, much more time to make it smooth!)

So there it is, a short little ditty with a synth solo and abstract animation. I hope you enjoyed it!

22 thoughts on “The GraveYard Strut – New Music (Instrumental…)”

  2. msjadeli

    That sounds so cool, Trent. I like how you start out with just the bass riff and build on it. I also like the animation you did. Could you do one that starts out like you have it with the “ghosts” creeping out and get it just to the point where they are going to mix together and somehow reverse it so by the time the song is over they have disappeared again? Of course I have no tech skills to know if that can be done or how much work it would be.

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      Thanks! I could do a few things with the video – the first, of course, would be to continue to develop the way I did including reshaping with black to dwindle them back to nothing. I could also use the frames I made and just put them in reverse order. In fact, on another video i did a few years ago, I had the animation run back and forth – a kind of stutter – a few times.
      Anyway, glad you enjoyed music and video!

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  3. Marilyn Armstrong

    Very cool and a bit spritely. Great walking music. The moog has come such a long way since I made its acquaintance in college. Cool animation, too. It’s rather ghostly. One of my best friends is a bass player, so I love good bass lines. Bass is such an underrated instrument.

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      Thanks, Marilyn. Synthesizers have come a long way since back in the day. Funny, though, my favorite synths are very retro – the Poly D that does the synth solo is a clone of the MiniMoog from the early 70s and the Prophet Rev 2 is a modern descendant of the Prophet 5 from the late 70s that revelutionized synths almost as much as the the MiniMoog.
      My brother is a bass player and has been in one band or another since he was in high school – everyone wants to be the guitarist (or now the keyboardist) so a good bass player is worth their weight in gold.
      Walking music – the working title was “strolling”, but I thought it had a mysterious edge, so I changed it to The GraveYard Strut”.
      Thanks also re: the animation – a lot of fun doing it.

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      1. Marilyn Armstrong

        Herb Deutsch wrote a song for my son when he was born (my son, that is). I have no idea what happened to it. It was before home computers and it was on a tape and over the years, it just disappeared. But it had to be one of the very earliest piece of music written for the moog and it was the original moog, too. That was probably THE coolest thing about majoring in music at Hofstra, being mentored by Herb. He really is (still) a very cool guy.

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      Thanks, Alethea :) After I was finished I sat and listened to see if a title would come to me and this was the first thing up. I think it is a little more mysterious than spooky, but close enough :)

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