Eleven Eight Debate
Eleven Ate the Bait

We fooled around with 11/8 in 1970s as an alternative time signature for Ain’t No Sunshine. Based on that fun experience, decided to give Bill Ray’s Swampland in 11/8 a go. Closer inspection revealed the drum recording is an exercise in fun with ever changing 11/8 rhythms.

Started by creating a simple MIDI bass pattern using an Am, Em, Dm progression that follows the drums. Chorus chords are Em, Dm x 4. A second pattern of Em, Em, Gm, Em was used in one section.

In places, the MIDI bass line also drives Synapse Dune and Image Line Harmor soft-synths. The horns are largely single note trombone samples stacked and strung together as needed to break up the repetitive bass pattern.

After the horns were created and some piano riffs recorded, some bars of drums were moved, deleted or replaced to mo’ better fit the remix . A few extra crash cymbal/kick hits were pasted in.

ElRon recorded using a Washburn guitar with some fancy replacement pickups he added. Three of the guitar tracks used tweaks of various AmpliTube3’s freeware and Fender Collection presets. The jazz guitar track used Voxengo’s freeware Boogex fat jazz preset. Like what the Boogex did for the solid body Washburn.

At the all you can eat Chinese food buffet before the the Friday night session, we discussed adding some notes akin to Lalo Schifrin in 5/4. Without plagiarizing Mission Impossible, we crafted a Schifrinesque intro and bridge.

Configured FL Studio 12 project settings to 11/8. This is the fist time configuring the DAW to an odd time. Usually leave the time signature at 4/4 no mater the time. Did help the work flow.