Started out by experimenting with the Chord Trigger and Scripter stock MIDI plugins in Logic. Fooled around with the stock “Guitar Open Chords” preset for Chord Trigger and then got curious what would happen if I combined each resulting chord with its own mirror image in terms of MIDI note numbers (hence the name for the track), so I wrote a two-liner MIDI processing script for Scripter to do the mirroring, then put unmirrored chords on an Acoustic Guitar patch and mirrored chords on an Electric Piano patch. Turned out if I choose the mirror point strategically, then most generated chords when accompanied by their own mirror image tend to sound quite jazzy and interesting.
Equipped with my “instant jazz generator”, I started jamming on my MIDI keyboard against a 12/8 shuffle-feel drum machine sequence that I had created out of boredom a few days earlier, in order to find some interesting chord progressions by trial and error essentially.
As for that drum sequence - some readers have probably already noticed that on my screenshots, the time signature and tempo of my Logic project are both “wrong” because I had initially started making a drum beat in a 4/4 step sequencer, but then my brain suddenly pivoted and I decided to make a shuffle beat instead so I just increased the number of steps in the sequencer and clicked away. Only after my shuffle beat was already done did I discover that my project was still stuck at 4/4 time signature. I never figured out how to change the time signature and tempo of the project after the fact in a manner that didn’t mangle up my beat in some way. Since I’m such a noob to Logic, I just left the project time signature at 4/4, and left the tempo as I had originally tapped it in for 4/4. Figured it’s fine since the 8th note grid still matches up with my shuffle beat even though some 4th notes and bar lines do not, and I wasn’t planning to use the metronome at all since I already had a beat going to guide me in tracking the rest of the instruments. Also, I wasn’t planning to enter too many MIDI notes manually either, since I’m using a MIDI keyboard for real-time recording.
After having found a few intriguing chord progressions by chance, I recorded those as MIDI loops. Felt that a trumpet would fit well on top as the main solo instrument, so improvised a main theme using Logic’s stock “Studio Trumpet” patch on top of one of the progressions.
This is a good place to admit that the chord generator took me places that would have otherwise never occurred to me had I not been using a chord generator, and that some of the chord progressions weren’t exactly “Autumn Leaves” either. I had absolutely no idea what specific notes my chords were made of. I still don’t, since I don’t possess the gift of perfect pitch and I also ran out of time to render out the generated MIDI stream as a normal MIDI clip in order to inspect the actual chord notes. All I can see are just trigger notes. Even if I hadn’t run out of time and had inspected the actual chord notes, it would have still been an enormous effort to reverse-engineer chord symbols out of them.
Was still missing bass, so decided to go with synth bass. When it came to recording the bass - there was, again, lots of trial and error involved before I finally started getting some bass lines down that actually made some sense with those “incognito” chord progressions. Made good use of Mod Wheel and Aftertouch on synth bass during the psychedelic middle section.
I did my mixing moves (EQ, Compression, Aux Bus FX) as soon as I had the main theme section recorded, this way I was able to record the remaining sections at maximum inspiration due to a better sounding and therefore more immersive foldback, so to speak. Once I got all the sections recorded and arranged, as well as some unnecessary bits cut out from a few places, I called the track done. Well, I had to, because time was running thin by then and I still had to write this documentation.
PS: I would be happy to also share my Logic project file for this track in case anyone's interested, just let me know if so!
PPS: Isn’t this the longest documentation rant you’ve ever read?
