#12 The Created

The Feeling:
       This is one for our band "Eye Of The Beholder" just written yesterday and recorded that night.  A good throw at a heavy song all in 7/8.

Inspiration:
       System of a Down - Cigaro.  Just the drumstick clicks in the intro.  I was like "what if it didn't count off in 4/4?...what about 7/8??  :D"  yea. This started all of this.
       Dream Theater - A Nightmare To Remember - after the intro in the first verse, having the large hits over the riff
       Dream Theater - Forsaken - A good reference for songs in 7/8 in Dm, especially the two low bass notes in each measure
       Dream Theater - Stream of Consciousness - large chords in intro
       Linking Park - New Divide - for the basics of the chord progression
       Inspector K - Infection - yes, from In The Groove.  For the start on that top line that plays throughout.  The rest was jammed out until written as is
       Children of Bodom - Children of Decadence - key change for solo with same riff idea
       Threshold -  Mission Profile - solo idea and feel, progressive soloing (over 5/4 in Mission Profile) in Ebm
       Dream Theater - Panic Attack - drum ideas

Technical:
       Again, "Cigaro" created the idea for this whole song, with a stick count off in 7/8...which ended up making the entire song in 7/8.  In my head immediately was the idea of low distorted D5 chords on the guitar on beats 1,2,3, and 4 of the 7/8 measure making hard heavy hits.

       The next step was making a chord progression for these hits, with the idea to keep an ostinato on the bottom with the D5 chords.  Thinking of "New Divide" in the chorus where the bottom guitar jams a chord and the top guitar slides around with octave paired notes, I picked this progression:

1. D5 - D on top       2. D5 - Bb on top      3. D5 - G on top     4. D5 - F to E on top, leading to the D in the first measure

       With that in mind, I started to lay that recording, but instantly better was the high riff that is in there currently.  At first only the first 6 notes in the first measure were played (Dm arpeggio backwards D-A-F-D-A-F).  I had to figure out how to make 7/8 riffs, and decided to double the bottom note on the last beat, even though it sounded weird at first.  Next chord (using the Bb idea) was Gm in the same style.  The rest was jammed out slowly but surely to make the perfect chords.

       Most of the rest of the song was jammed out with the recorder going and the metronome running, Making verses and choruses from the idea in Dm.  The key was changed up to Ebm for the solo (Children of Decadence) but kept with the original idea of the riff, cut in half to two measure segments.

       Lastly, the synth riff was placed all by itself with some bass jamming on my feaux bass (guitar digitally taken down an octave), because the idea boat had beached.  Drums were added on the second mixdown, all done with visual writing from gut feeling and what was in my head.  I love drum parts for epic riffs like this intro where the first half is heavy hits matching the guitar, then the bottom guitar goes to straight 16ths on the bottom while the drum matches with double bass drum 16ths and snare+hi hat on the on-beat quarter notes.  It's a personal writing style, probably derived from the solo section of Dream Theater's "Panic Attack".