Dio Tribute "Stargazer" Song Discussion

[Max Morton]

I'll finish drums tomorrow, and then - throw me the orchestral midis - i'll run 'em through some samplers.

 

[DanLights]

Ok EWQL is pretty much what I was talking about, that will sound super pro. Yeah it should be the last thing to come, but it's cool to know we can use the excellent sounds of EWQL for our song

 

[DanLights]

I spoke to Jussi (Vespiz) and he gave me a few pointers for composing some orchestrations that I will post here, I could give a shot at writing them down and then Max would put them through his EWQL plug and they will sound brutal. We also talked about adding some synths under the ocrhestration (maybe even a hammond organ, those things kick ass) just to thicken it up a bit more, maybe the synths could fade in while the rest of the music fades out at the end.

Anyways, here are the tips:

Oof.. I dunno about the orchestration, only maybe have a listen and comment if something sounds "funny" to me, how's that? I don't know how much you (or whoever is doing it) knows about orchestration, but one thing that was taught to me was to avoid block chords, straight c-e-g blocks etc, and try to separate the voices wider. Also think in how the voices would be divided in a real ochestra (1&2nd violins, altos, cellos, basses, etc..), movement within the chords and so on. By no means am I an expert on orcestration..

We could maybe beef the orchestral sounds a bit with synth sounds (korg/roland strings, etc)? Kinda what they did with eg. Nightwish on their latest albums.

 

[Max Morton]

Here we go, the first version:
http://www.maxmorton.com/Stargazer_drums.mp3

I used only Slate samples here, i'll mix them with some of my own samples a bit later, for more "live" feel.

 

[DanLights]

Hey, wanted to bump this to say something.

Max, drums sound pretty good, and mixing them with your own samples is a great idea so they won't sound so obviously "slated" hehe.

I wanted to say, personally I'm not a fan of drum intros in a song (or drum solos in general, I find the lack of notes to be boring), and wanted to suggest a major change in the song. How about instead of a drum intro, an orchestral intro? the original song is very heavy on orchestrations specially towards the ending (gives me fuckin chills everytime I hear it, that ending), and I think a soft orchestra intro followed by a short and quick snare/tom run works better than the original long drum intro which really doesn't do much for me, and sets a good pace for the beggining of the song. I figure this isn't Painkiller (to which the drum intro really is too characteristic of the song to take down) so it might be doable.

Anyways, it's just a suggestion if no one else likes it and prefers to keep the original drum intro then it shall be that way, just wanted to suggest a change that IMO could work really well. I'll even work on a midi for the idea just so you can all hear it and be more objective about it

 

[Skinny Viking]

I'm crashing this thread for a moment ... you guys better not fuck this song up!

 

[DanLights]

I'm crashing this thread for a moment ... you guys better not fuck this song up!

I so hope so! just as a friend, what do you think of my idea about the intro? I know it's crazy, but I think it might work well, and, be different and unexpected (that can be good or bad)

 

[Skinny Viking]

I so hope so! just as a friend, what do you think of my idea about the intro? I know it's crazy, but I think it might work well, and, be different and unexpected (that can be good or bad)

Just as an outside opinion from someone who has told his wife that this song is to be played at my funeral ... yeah, I'd love to hear something orchestral as an intro piece ... however, again as an opinion, another idea would be finding a way to incorporate some kind of heavy rhythmic percussion at the tail end of the orchestral bit ... kinda like a bridge between the two. This way you have an original orchestral intro that segues into some kind of cool drum fill opening via an orchestral drum bit

thats something I would find cool as hell to hear in a new version, as a fan

by the way ... what's this "just as a friend" shit? I thought we were more than friends ...

Now I know why you close your eyes when we make love

 

[DanLights]

Just as an outside opinion from someone who has told his wife that this song is to be played at my funeral ... yeah, I'd love to hear something orchestral as an intro piece ... however, again as an opinion, another idea would be finding a way to incorporate some kind of heavy rhythmic percussion at the tail end of the orchestral bit ... kinda like a bridge between the two. This way you have an original orchestral intro that segues into some kind of cool drum fill opening via an orchestral drum bit

thats something I would find cool as hell to hear in a new version, as a fan

by the way ... what's this "just as a friend" shit? I thought we were more than friends ...

Now I know why you close your eyes when we make love

have you tried looking at your own retarded face while cumming? It's hard, even for a friend.

hahahahahaha seriously though, I like your idea, hopefully the rest of the guys on this song (who have gone AWOL on me it seems) like it too

 

[Skinny Viking]

have you tried looking at your own retarded face while cumming? It's hard, even for a friend.

something like this

to this

to this

to this

and finally, this

if I'm not mistaken

 

[DanLights]

something like this

to this

to this

to this

and finally, this

if I'm not mistaken

LOL! looks just like mine haha

 

[vespiz]

How appropriate. "Do you close your eyes / when making love!"

Anyhoo, to me, the drum intro is an integral part of the song, it's such an iconic fill.
So you'd better make the orchestral intro blow our minds, eh?

 

[DanLights]

How appropriate. "Do you close your eyes / when making love!"

Anyhoo, to me, the drum intro is an integral part of the song, it's such an iconic fill.
So you'd better make the orchestral intro blow our minds, eh?

hadn't noticed the reference hahaha nice.

Well the point of the orchestral intro is to make it soft and not too "mindblowing", just like a preparation for the bad ass song to come. It's my opinion of course, but I don't find the drum intro "iconic" or "memorable" in any way, I find it kinda repetitive and I would even dare say dumb, just a loong roll and then this lame hi-hat/snare thingy that sounds like a cd skipping.

I mean no offense to anyone by saying this, and as stated before, if my idea is not liked then I wil gladly keep the silly drum intro

 

[vespiz]

Simo called me today and said that the E standard tuning is.. well a bit too high for him to sound good. He can do it, no doubt about that, but said that Eb would be better. D works also, if a bit heavier. Are the guitars set already? If so, then we'll go with what you guys have done!

 

[DanLights]

Simo called me today and said that the E standard tuning is.. well a bit too high for him to sound good. He can do it, no doubt about that, but said that Eb would be better. D works also, if a bit heavier. Are the guitars set already? If so, then we'll go with what you guys have done!

Nothing is recorded yet, and my bass is tuned in D so it's better for me, although luckily I will have a bass tuned in E for some time also, so I could do any of those two, but Eb would be a problem for me. So if 89mph is ok with D then we could call it that? I haven't seen him online for a while, going to pm him

 

[Max Morton]

The intro. Well, if we had a live drummer, it would be kinda cool to have that drum solo. But in our case it's a bit useless.
On the other side, taking that solo away may spoil the mood for some Rainbow fans.

I don't think the orchestral intro would be cool, we might keep orchestrations for the coda. But how about the FX intro? Some soundscapes and delayed slide-guitar playing eastern tunes, Blackmore style? Just imagine the people walking through the desert, at first being summoned by the wizard, then being released after his death, with their minds severely damaged and their eyes bleeding. Something like that.
And then we may run some reversed gong, cymbals, some filtered noise, etc etc, and glue it to the intro riff, without the drum solo.

 

[DanLights]

The intro. Well, if we had a live drummer, it would be kinda cool to have that drum solo. But in our case it's a bit useless.
On the other side, taking that solo away may spoil the mood for some Rainbow fans.

I don't think the orchestral intro would be cool, we might keep orchestrations for the coda. But how about the FX intro? Some soundscapes and delayed slide-guitar playing eastern tunes, Blackmore style? Just imagine the people walking through the desert, at first being summoned by the wizard, then being released after his death, with their minds severely damaged and their eyes bleeding. Something like that.
And then we may run some reversed gong, cymbals, some filtered noise, etc etc, and glue it to the intro riff, without the drum solo.

Well your idea sounds really cool, and it would be more creative and might even fit better than mine, so I would be up for it.

If you get a chance you could make something up and post it sometime soon? you could get some really good samples from http://www.freesound.org/

 

[vespiz]

Cool idea for the intro! Let's see if I get inspired to do something also.

BTW, D is fine if it's easier to do. Should be a bit more heavier in that case

 

[DanLights]

well still no life signs of 88mph, he should have a say in the tuning also, but so far it seems it will be D, I'm perfectly happy with that

 

[88mph]

Guys, D-tuning was my first choice, so it's ok with me. I was busy this week, sorry I could not sign in. I can start working on the song tomorrow then.
About the orchestration, my vote is for keeping the original drum intro but adding orchestral elements for the grand finalé.
And what's the tempo for the drum track?