Spliffington at ReggaeDubwise.com | The Fastest Growing and Largest Internet Reggae Community

Artist - Spliffington | Blog (6)

new mix of 'A H.I.M., Sah'

Spliffington (08/27/08 10:26:45) Tag: default

I made a new mix of the "A H.I.M., Sah" riddim cleaning up the keyboards (not my #1 instrument), fixing a couple of drum glitches, and bringing down the 'horns' in the mix. Gibsy from Springline wants to hear Hammond organ lines instead of the keyboard 'horns'; I'll try to oblige him tonight. Of course I'd love to have real horns on this cut; there are some terrific horn players around, but I can't afford 'em. So bide up with the squinky sound 'til I can put something else on there! Thanks Gibsy & fullness for the suggestions...anyone else have some input, please come forward...
bless,
s'ton

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"CRAZY NO RASS" updated

Spliffington (08/12/08 00:04:59) Tag: default

yep, the guitar WAS drowning out the bass & drums. I changed the mix to where that naw gwaan again...if I'm breaking the copyright laws let me know admin...
here's the remixed tune, that first mix with the guitar 3X louder than everything else was obviously the result of staying up too damm late!

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Real Upfulness

Spliffington (08/09/08 13:40:27) Tag: default

Blessings to each & every one!
Well, I did the same thing to my "Upfulness" riddim that I did to "Tenacity", i.e. took out the mechanical & stilted electro bassline and played the line in real time. Made all the difference. It seems that some songs I can get away with the bass machine, but anything calling for any swing at all needs to be played live, since there is no 'swing' setting on my drum/bass machine. Plus, there's something about fingers thumping bass strings that gives the bassline more impact. Anyhow, here's the new track, I hope you enjoy it. What I'd really like to hear over it is a group vocal in the style of Heptones, Gladiators or Wailing Souls. If anyone would like to help with that, contact me sooner than later. Thanks and respect!

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Tenacity fe real

Spliffington (08/01/08 00:35:06) Tag: default

Checking my track from earlier this year of "Tenacious Dub", the electro bass imho lacked cojones, so I played the bassline live, which helped it swing a lot easier. It's not the dub but the instrumental, which would make a nice solid foundation for the right vocals. If one interest, shout I forward seen?

Here's the choon...

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Blessed fada's Day...

Spliffington (06/15/08 11:46:37) Tag: default

to all poppas everywhere who know how multitalented a good father needs to be; nurturer, breadwinner, teacher, disciplinarian (well, sometimes!), and not least, role model. Big up yourselves! You kno seh the wuk (and reward!) begins after sowing the seed...

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The old skool

Spliffington (04/04/08 18:25:21) Tag: default

Once upon a time on a likkle far-away (from most of us) island, there was a music and riddim being created, the likes of which had never been heard anywhere on the planet. Producers with strange names like Scratch, Coxsone, King Tubby, Harry J and Matador got groups of musicians together to play backing tracks for the singers they were producing, and these musicians were astounding in both the amount of creativity and the discipline they exhibited in the studio (esp. considering the profusity of ganja smoke in the area!). They would take a singer who sometimes couldn't even read, let alone read music, have the singer sing their song, work a riddim and arrangement out around the vocal, record it, voice the riddim, overdub horns, percussion and background vocals, mix it and master the finished product, and send the master tape to the pressing plant, all in the space of maybe 2 hours. Time is money in the studio, and the producers used it very efficiently. I can vouch for all these runnings, because I was there, I witnessed them, and often took part in them. More than once I was hired to do a guitar track on a tune at Randy's in the afternoon, then, when I stepped off the bus downtown the very next morning, I'd hear the finished freshly pressed 7" of that same tune blasting out of the big box in front of the Record store below the studio...

I suppose I'm phrasing it like a fairy tale because it seems so quaint and detached from what's going on in reggae these days, i.e. a producer sitting down in front of a computer screen and programming tracks to a cursory riddim that about 2 dozen vocalists will voice that week...I guess I'm asking, where are the real live musicians working together tribally in real time with live instruments to create music around a song? Am I so hopelessly ancient that this mode of music-making is found anymore only in the Smithsonian and in Viagra commercials? If there are any artists or producers here @ reggadubwise who make music in this manner, I'd like to get together and share experiences...respect to all who create good reggae music, whether with a computer or any other tools, but it was the works of the live musicians creating riddims for songs (rather than vice versa) and the dub engineers who tweaked these live tracks that roped me into reggae in the first place, back in the day. It may have been like that for many of you here as well. It's still how I make my music, perhaps because it's the only way I know how...

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