Producing 101: Don't throw away your "bad" riffs; recycle them!

[ahjteam]

I have like a few riffs that I have recorded that I thought were pretty cool or average at the moment, but couldn't think of any use for them.

For example I don't play black metal stuff, but I made this riff that I recorded with a fucking battery operated Marshall MS4 amp:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338211/ahjteam/ahjteam_coffee_v01.mp3

Sounds totally awful, but it is a "sound memo" for me about the idea. Well, today I remembered that riff and used the same chords but added the root bass note from the 6th string, so they actually turned into a triad chords. Then I added a demoloop and demo bass and the newly "produced" version sounds like this:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338211/ahjteam/ahjteam_coffee_v02.mp3

Another similar example:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338211/ahjteam/vanhat/ahjteam_halo_v00.mp3

and on the "finished" product I simplified the riff just a bit, made it about 30bpm slower and so on:




I wonder what I will use this, this, this, this, this, this, this or this for...

 

[Spiritbeast]

Definitely good advice you're giving out. It's something I've noticed when writing our full length with my friend - We've busted out riffs that we made like 2 years ago but never could fit in ... with out better song writing abilities, we found places for these ancient masterpieces.

We write all our riffs in Guitar Pro, so it makes it really easy to copy paste and see if it fits in a song!

 

[nezvers]

Definitely good advice you're giving out. It's something I've noticed when writing our full length with my friend - We've busted out riffs that we made like 2 years ago but never could fit in ... with out better song writing abilities, we found places for these ancient masterpieces.

We write all our riffs in Guitar Pro, so it makes it really easy to copy paste and see if it fits in a song!

Just the same thing for me!

 

[ahjteam]

Another work in progress, so more happy metal to you So here is the current version; still missing a C-part and the ending, but the intro - A - B - A - B structure is ready. Worktitle is "Sports"

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338211/ahjteam/ahjteam_sports_v05.mp3

BUT, a back story; Had a hard drive crash about a year ago so I lost a great deal of old sessions of my own old projects, but I had an mp3 bounce of this riff that I wrote in 2009 or something, and I kinda liked it, but since it was in chromatic scale, it was "unusable", so I just kinda forgot it. Yesterday I wanted to write a folk song, so I just plugged in my hollow body guitar and started to jam something and suddenly remembered that riff, and I had a delay and I had a bunch of extra ideas how to expand it.

So I started twisting the riff around a bit to see how it could "work out" a bit better. and figured out that the original progression was (can't remember the chord names so I'll just list the notes I used) GDB - BD#B - BEB - C#FB, but the stuff around didn't sound so swell, then twisted it around a bit more, and the chords I came up with work as the intro on the new track. Then from the same idea I made it more sleek, played in triplets and like 4 strings lower and ended up with a two chord progression(!): EBE (+ B to C# D# hammer on's) - F#C#F# (+ C# to D# E hammer ons) and then it turned out to be that what is now the main riff.

Then I just ditched the hollow body and put on the distortion and rocked my socks off.

AND, a funny story; I was in such a hurry, since I have cranky neighbours, and I have put 10PM as the deadline how long I can play guitar in my apartment, so I just turned on the amp and pressed record and wondered why the fuck I can't hear myself from the headphones and why the tone is really muddy, the amp was loud and everything and sounded good in the room. Oh well. Tracked DI bass, programmed drums and went to bed. Then the next day I noticed that the mic had slipped like 20 cm down, so it wasn't pointing at the center of the top cone anymore, but the wood part in between the elements The next day, I retracked and the difference was massive (before and after)