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Posted by: TesttubeMammoth Oct 24 2011, 08:47 PM

Hey guys,

I am starting work on a new solo project writing songs about (you guessed it) mammoths.
I am quite excited about this one. It is going to be a purely instrumental effort, just me and my gear.
I have just started the first tune and here's what I've got so far :

http://soundcloud.com/testtubemammoth/ralas-theme-first-bit

Work in progress!
I am trying to make it progressive but not too busy - because the rhythms can be quite complex I am trying to give them time to establish themselves before layering loads of lead over the top. The idea is to write it as loops and then go back and record the guitars properly.

You comments are welcome!

Posted by: Daniel Realpe Oct 25 2011, 01:30 AM

I like it! It sounds fresh.

I love odd time signatures. Great job!

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 25 2011, 05:41 AM

That's great man! I like this tune. All the best with this new project!
keep us updated!

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Oct 25 2011, 09:17 AM

I'm lovin it mate! wooohooo

Posted by: AK Rich Oct 27 2011, 08:01 PM

Y0 Mammoth thats sounds really good man!! not the kind of stuff I normally listen too but I gotta say it kept my attention as it was very interesting and I really liked it. Imagineing watching a Mammoth slog around in a prehistoric swamp or something.Very cool you rock man! go Mammoths!

Rich....

Posted by: Sinisa Cekic Oct 27 2011, 10:03 PM

Hey ,that sounds very goood man ,like it! Congratz !

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Oct 27 2011, 10:17 PM

I like it, I can smell the Mammoths already

Great riffs, nice layers, some better mixing and it will sound awesome!

Posted by: TesttubeMammoth Oct 28 2011, 01:55 PM

High praise indeed! Thanks guys

I will post more when I get some tracks finished, struggling to get it flowing at the moment...

Ivan, what would you improve about the mix? There is no bass in there yet.

Posted by: Adrian Figallo Oct 28 2011, 10:15 PM

hey i like those riffs man, great stuff, i really like that distorted and detuned feel.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Oct 29 2011, 12:27 AM

Very cool stuff! Almost Djent meets Eric Johnson in terms of spiff time sigs and heavy riffs yet melodic passages as well. keep it up!

If you decide on getting the songs some exposure, here is a cool site where you can submit your songs under creative commons license and video producers from all over the world might use them in various projects. It's a great way to get your stuff out there

http://freemusicarchive.org/curator/video

Posted by: Ben Higgins Oct 31 2011, 10:40 AM

Wow this rocks serious ASS !

Your off the wall downtuned riffs and odd time changes remind of of Tyler T, another GMC member. I don't mean that you guys sound the same, but your creativity reminds me of his. It just goes to show that there are lots of great composers out there waiting to be discovered !

I'm very interested how you create your drum lines.. did you just use existing loops or did you create some of the drum beats yourself ?

Posted by: TesttubeMammoth Oct 31 2011, 05:24 PM

Thanks man
For the drums I used Superior Drummer with the Metal Foundry expansion. I used the Fredrik Thorendal Metall preset kit as it's my favorite.
I love superior drummer for this kind of stuff - I was using plain old DFH before but I think superior is, well, superior. Well worth the upgrade IMO. I use cubase sx to sequence my stuff.
I didn't use any loops - just good old fashioned drum map, adding flourishes with groups of 16th triplets on the bass drum. I like my drums to tie in heavily with the rhythm guitar and I can't get that degree of control with loops. As for odd time signatures, well surprisingly enough the whole thing is in 4 - I wanted to keep this stuff accessible so I kept it kinda straight. Maybe the riffs are a little odd though.

Check this one out for an example of a polymeter I use http://soundcloud.com/testtubemammoth/northpole-re-working

At about 1:40 this changes from being straight to having a 7 against 4 rhythm - the guitars and bass drum hold the 7's and the snare and cymbals hold the 4's. This makes the guitar riff finish an 8th note short (the pattern moves back an 8th in relation to the drums on each repeat) of the drums giving it an off kilter feel which introduces a bit of movement. I made the chord change happen three guitar phrases in to add more movement. Later on (2:12) I change the snare from landing on the 3's to landing on the 2's and 4's to give a feeling of groove. The chords change every phrase now and the last bar of the pattern is a beat short to make it sound a little more complex than it in fact is. I think then I just repeat a single bar until it finishes.

I'll stop rambling now lol, I am sure I have probably made a pretty poor job of trying to explain what I was doing! - I am quite pleased with the way that groove turned out but again it is still a work in progress - need to get better at playing what I think rather than what my fingers want to do.

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Nov 1 2011, 11:23 PM

Hey Frankie most definitely, you and Tyler share that creative power!