Dubby Dub

Update: Backing vocals were recorded over the original vocal tracks, and I edited them down to several groups of samples. These were applied roughly in the same places as originally sung. I did end up moving the backing vocals section in the middle a little later. I also discovered that shifting the last couple bars of the backing vocals by 1/64th of a beat to the right made them lock in much better.

Here you can see the arrangement of the backing vocals in the NN-XT sequencer track:

I also found a nice tamborine/conga loop from a collection of funk grooves. It sits in the pocket pretty nicely!


I chopped up the two guitar tracks in ProTools again, using the grid system which locks to Reason, making loops a snap. I imported the loops into the NN-XT sampler, which allows me to balance out individual loops one by one.

You might notice that the notes are assigned in "reverse" order (stairstepping up)! I did this so that the list of loops would match the vertical keyboard in the MIDI section, below. Here you can see my approach to guitar part arranging. Again, I offset a few picking guitar parts for better effect.

As I considered the arrangement of the song, I realized that the guitars could cover some of the emptier areas of the piece. The top track (below) shows where the drums drop out momentarily, and I filled those parts in using the skank guitar and a reprise of the intro lick on the second breakdown.

This still didn't quite have the effect I was looking for, so I automated a couple of Aux Sends on the guitar parts to add some delay to the break sections. Below, the knobs outlined in green have automation data. You can see the actual automation lines below that, in the sequencing window. A little delay goes a long way!


©2004 Dub Train Records