Sunday, 29 July 2012
Tuesday, 17 July 2012
Making "Ngelengede"
Just a couple of notes about the making of the song.
When I got into Lusaka early June, I linked up with the boys at UNZA Student Centre. We got drunk, of course. They sang me the chorus of "Ngelengede" at one point during the night; I like it so much I asked them to come through to the studio the following day so that we could record it.
The following day we ended up recording our version of Oliver Twist and only got as far as recording a single vocal on the chorus for Ngelegede after I had made the drum pattern at 123BPM and played a very simple guitar progression to guide us (Em D A x2 Am G D Em x2). A couple days later I made the synth riff that runs throughoout the record (everyone tells me it has a 90s rhumba feel to it... I think thats what really drives the song) and the bassline. Stashed the song for a couple days and then invited the boys over to come and record in earnest.
This is what it sounded like on the beginning of the second day of working on it: Click here to download. . Recording the verses took most of an afternoon an evening, mainly coz Billy despite being probably our strongest and most natural vocalist, really likes to take his time in writing verses. Eazy's verse was fairly straightforward in writing and recording... as I usually do I helped him pick out his harmonies. My favourite being the on the second "elo waibila ..."
Billy's verse (verse 2) initially I thought was way too long (24 bars!!!), and I had plans of cutting it up after he left. But after listening to it like a million times I decided to leave it as is, simply because of all the raw emotion he put into the delivery and how incredibly melodic it was. And we at Bana love melody. He put down his lead vocal in 4 parts, citing lack of breath as making it impossible for him to do it all in one take. He then put a second, very melodic harmony on about 95% of the verse and finished off with a little baritone
heres a screen shot of Billy's verse
Albert (verse 3) on his good day is a recording specialist. On this record I beleive he recorded his verse in one take. Albert has a nice way of switching his verses 4 or so bars into it (as you will hear on other songs, and this song is no exception. He started with the very sorrowful "umwana alelila" repeated for the first 8 bars. The following 8 I asked him to put down a harmony to sort of thicken it out, as I had already figured I wasnt going to play drum for the first 8 bars and I wanted a nice dynamic change into the last 8. I finally asked him to back up selected words as if he were recording a rap verse (for a teeny bit more thickness). Finally he put down spoken ad-libs (if you listen carefully you can hear him saying "please tata... chaba shani kanshi... not even salt ... umfweni mayo" ... in the left channel). Other interesting features to take note are the little organ sound which I just totally loved and a little arpeggio from Hypersonic that was hiding in the mix all along but you only get to hear on this part after I muted the lead synth.
Mixing verse 3 gave me a hard time, as I wanted to create like a surreal psychedelic dream-sequence type feel to it. So I experimented with some unearthly sounding reverbs and delays as well as the little African-inspired guitar riff on the right and a more 70s rock inspired distorted guitar sound on the left. You can hear the same African riff right at the very beginning of the song.
The chorus was a real bitch to work with... I had wanted Albert's vocal to lead because he sang it so well, and Billy's attempts at singing a lead were way too bland. Billy and Eazy were thus assigned harmony duties and I also put down one making it a total of 7 sung harmonies on the chorus, with a further 4 tracks of shouted "ngelegede" to thicken it out. here's an acapella mix of the chorus. See if you can hear my voice!!
I'll be entirely honest: this isn't my best mix. The reasons are many but mostly time as I was working on a deadline to get the song and the video out. And I feel I was being a tiny bit too ambitious with the sheer quantities of sounds I wanted to put in the final mix. For example I put a shaker AND a hi-hat pattern on the chorus, two snare patterns and like 3 percussion tracks. Which frankly is extreme over-kill. My strummed and finger picked guitar tracks are barely audible because I really couldn't find any space in the mix to put them, put I felt taking them out entirely would kill something on the song. The finger picking, I'll admit, was pretty awful, which is the main reason its turned down so low. Song was just too damn fast and my brain and fingers were just too damn slow!! Listen to the guitar work here
It was however my first true 24-bit recording. I had the M-Audio Fast Track Pro for about 3 years, but only was able to really use it for the 6 weeks I was at home this holiday.
and finally, the plugins I used!!
KORG Polysix (you won't hear this one... totally subliminal)
DSK Elektrik Keys (you wont hear it either... just gave shit some thickness)
KORG MS-20 (bassline...!)
KORG Legacy Cell (for the 90s style rhumba synth)
Organ-One (for that sad-ass organ on verse 3.. its actually on the chorus also)
VL-Tone (you wont hear this either... its a nice little emulator of an early Casio keyboard... I put heavy effects on it and let it sit quietly in the background of the mix to confuse the enemy)
Hypersonic (hey I think all of us have used this baby at one point in life, I stil use Hypersonic 1 but I'm very proud to say I'm not at all dependant on this plugin like a lot of people out there. Used it for an arpeggio and also a little string and clavi sound
Cakewalk SI-DrumKit (hi-hats... I always use this for hats in all my boostele shit)
Sony DLS Soft Synth (shakers)
My drums came from my very secret 2 gig folder of samples. The snare pattern was heavily influenced by Jimmy Judge's work with Mozegator. Credit where it's due.
I would appreciate al y'all's feedback on everything from song structure to mix to general direction, influences and the future of lack thereof of my guys. Hope its been readable!!
You can listen and download the song here!!
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