Track 9 - Catalina Mourning

 "Catalina Mourning" is another track where I think I nailed the mix. The drums breath and the tom fills sit nicely in the sonic space. I used the Versilian Studios Upright 1 VST for the acoustic piano sounds. It's another quality free VST and with a few adjustments the results can be pretty convincing.

Track 8 - Catalina Dip (The Drip)

"Catalina Dip (The Drip)" is another mix that I'm pretty happy with. The drums snap, crack and pop and the bass sits good in the mix and is a great showcase of what the Ample Bass P Lite can do. Overall just a fun, driving track that moves us towards the last 3 tracks on the album.

Track 7 - Catalina Kush

 

"Catalina Kush" is my current favorite song from Catalina Rush. It's got another great "band" feel to it. The interplay between the HaNon and ZoonChak exceeded what I thought I'd achieve. The one key thing I really enjoy is the synth going nuts and that was completely by accident. As previously stated I approach things like the guitar player I am and the synth note layout I went with created that wild sound.

Track 6 - Catalina Cruise

"Catalina Cruise is another track that was produced pretty late in the process. I had worked it up as "Catalina Drama" (I was listening to the Yes album Drama around this time) with the ZoomChak and HaNon and was unhappy with the results so it went in my riff folder. After seeing what LABS could do though I gave it the string treatment and had the song. You can hear the ZoomChak towards the midway point and I also worked in the Mellotron VST Redtron.

"Catalina Cruise" and the track before it "Catalina Rumble" are a great bridge between "Catalina Days & Catalina Nights" and the next song I'll be covering "Catalina Kush".

Track 5 - Catalina Rumble

 "Catalina Rumble" was one of the last songs written for the project. It takes full advantage of Spitfire Audio's LABS. LABS is an amazing free resource and I think this track is a good showcase of what you can accomplish with it. I used the dulcimer, mandolin and strings and really enjoyed exploring new sonic territory.  

Track 4 - Catalina Days & Catalina Nights

"Catalina Days & Catalina Nights" is one of the songs on the album that has a very strong guitar influence. On guitar I enjoy playing power chords starting on the D string with the root, the 5th and then the root octave. Using that approach I came up with the main riff on guitar and it transposed over to the HaNon B70 beautifully. This was the most challenging mix on the album and I worked on it right up until release day. As previously stated the HaNon in full on dirty mode takes up a lot sonic space. The ZoomChak does as well and it was challenging to find space for those two instruments while also finding a spot for the hi-hat, other cymbals and toms to sit. I'm ultimately happy with the results but am looking forward to refining the sonic space of my songs as I continue to produce music.  

As a final note the name of the song was inspired by The Beach Boys and their album Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!).  

Track 3 - Catalina Promise

 "Catalina Promise" is probably the song that sounds closest to the original concept for the Catalina Rush project. I really like the way the HaNon B70 and the Sweetcase electric piano blend together. I'm also really happy with the overall mix on this one, and it's probably because there isn't any one instrument sucking up all of the sonic space. Look for the band feel when the drums switch to the ride cymbal during the piano break. That's a detail that I explored late in the mixing process and I feel it adds some extra excitement to the track.

Video - Catalina Kush

Catalina Kush from Craig Cohen on Vimeo.

Copyright 2020 Craig Cohen

No rights to clips claimed or implied. 

Clips courtesy of:

Peggy_Marco

Engin_Akyurt

Micah Buzan

PixLord

Vimeo-Free-Videos

Dieter_G

TH-DARK-Media

ChristianBodhi 

StefWithAnF

Track 2 - Catalina Rush

This is the second song I titled "Catalina Rush". The first was "Catalina Lord" but I didn't feel it worked with that title. Once I came up with the octave driven bass line for the real "Catalina Rush" though I knew I had my song. The ZoomChak is front and center on this track with brief breaks for the bass and drums to slow things down with a "Black Sabbath" style feel.  

This was one of the hardest songs to mix. The ZoomChak takes up a lot of sonic space and I struggled to find space for the aggressive open hi-hat. The HaNon is pretty far back in this one and was added during the mixing process. I'll focus more on the mixing process once I'm done covering each song.

I'll be back tomorrow to write about song three "Catalina Promise".

Track 1 - Catalina Come Up

Even though it's the first track on the album "Catalina Come Up" was actually the last song written and produced. It came about when I thought I needed a song between "Catalina Promise (Reprise)" and "Catalina Lord" so I went to my riff archive for the project and found what would become the opening mandolin riff. I was originally playing around with some Keith Richards' type chords and phrasing to see how they worked on the electric piano. Well, they didn't and the idea went into my idea folder.

Towards the midway point of the project I found Spitfire Audio's LABS. I originally discovered LABS while looking for string sounds but found it had a lot more to offer. Looking to rework the Keith Richards' riff I tried it with the Mandolin in LABS and had my opening. I went with a dueling Mandolin concept with one picked and the other plucked.

At this point the "band" concept was already established and I guess now is as good a time as any to get into it. After I came up with the concept I came up with some rules. Rules are made to be broken, and on this project they were, but it's still good to have them. As I put songs together I approached them with the idea that 4 musicians could perform them live. A drummer, a bass player and 2 keyboard players who would act as utility players. As you listen to the album you'll find the 4 person lineup is pretty consistent (with the exception being the string pieces).

"Catalina Come Up" had the benefit of being last so I was very comfortable with the instruments I'd use as my default ones going in. As mentioned in my earlier post all of the drum sounds were created in the LMMS Beat Editor using samples I acquired several years ago from Drum Werks. These are real sounds generated from a real person hitting real drums. I had hundreds of sounds at my disposal and narrowed them down to a few dozen for use on the album. Sequencing drum parts is time consuming but it's an aspect of making music that I really enjoy.    

Just about all of the bass sounds on the album were created using the Ample Sound Bass P Lite. The P Lite is a very convincing bass and allowed me to work very quickly. My approach to composing bass parts was simple: If I could play it on my bass that's what would go in the song. You'll hear some other bass sounds on the album and those were generated using the Martinic Kee Bass. 

The two keyboards you hear on the album are the HaNon B70 mentioned in my last post and the ZoomChak pro II. I'll talk about the ZoomChak in  a minute but wanted to spend some more time expressing how important the HaNon B was to this project. If "Catalina Lord" hadn't come together as quickly as it did I'm not sure how this project would have proceeded. I can say with confidence though that without the HaNon it would have sounded much different. The HaNon really acted as substitute for my guitar. I'll explain more when we get to the songs where you really hear it.

After I had the HaNon picked out I went looking for a synth to compliment it. I'd always been fascinated by Moog synths and a Google search lead me to the ZoomChak pro II from K Brown Synth Plugins.The ZoomChak pro II is a take on the Moog Sonic Six. After choosing it I discovered the Sonic Six was the least Moog sounding off all of Moog's offerings. I was committed though and liked what I heard.

The two keyboard concept is introduced right out of the gate here with the HaNon and ZoomChak taking turns playing fills. I wrote this entire song on the guitar including all of the fills. At one point I was tempted to just track the guitar and drop it in the song but that was a rule I didn't want to break.

As it developed I realized instead of a bridge track between the last two songs on the album it actually worked much better as an opener. This surprised me as the adrenaline charged "Catalina Rush" seemed obvious as the opener. Now I can't imagine the album without "Catalina Come Up".   

Why Catalina Rush?

As a companion to the release of Catalina Rush  I thought it might be interesting to do a song by song rundown of the album here on the blog. Before we get into that though let's start at the beginning and see how the project came to be.

I got my first guitar when I was 15 and have been playing music ever since. I was interested in recording early on and setup my first "studio" while still in high school. It consisted of a 4-Track Tascam Portastudio and a Boss Dr. Rhythm drum machine. I fell in love with recording and after high school went to college with dreams of becoming a recording engineer. I learned on tape just as Pro Tools was starting to take off. After college I didn't pursue a career in music but maintained creating musical ideas as a hobby.

In 2015 I relocated to Las Vegas from the east coast and life got in the way of music. In March of this year like it did for everyone else my world changed. I was furloughed from my job and suddenly had lots of free time. I kept busy by starting a PODCAST and conceptualizing and editing a VIDEO SCRAPBOOK about my favorite band the Ramones. As I was finishing the Ramones project I started thinking about my own music. I'd seen lots of posts from people online about GarageBand and was impressed by what I heard. I knew it was an Apple product so I set out to see if there was a Windows equivalent. My main goal was a program that was free as I wanted to kick the tires and see what I could do. I did a quick Google search and found a program called LMMS that looked like it would fit the bill. 

After downloading and setting up LMMS I launched it and started to play around. I've never been a manual guy so I just jumped right in. It's a pretty intuitive program so I was able to figure out the basics rather quickly. Whenever I hit a roadblock I went to Google for the answer and continued on my way. The first thing about LMMS I knew I would have to adjust to is the lack of traditional inputs. Simply put this means no instruments or microphones could be plugged in as a source. The options were MIDI, samples and VST plugins. This wasn't a big roadblock as I wasn't planning to record my guitar. As a way to challenge myself I figured I would try and execute the whole thing via keyboards. I had my Korg MicroX for the MIDI portion and hundreds of drum samples from a great company called Drum Werks at my disposable. Now all I needed were some sounds. VST or Virtual Studio Technology was a new concept to me but it's opened up my musical world. My 15 year old self would be amazed by the tools I currently have at my disposal. Another Google search delivered exactly what I needed. By the way, LMMS is loaded with some pretty great sounds right out of the box but I was looking for a bit more. VST4FREE immediately became my go to resource. 

Before we get too far into VST though I think now's a good time to get into how the whole project developed into what it is. Catalina Rush jumped out at me as a band name. I've hid behind a band name in the past as a way of making my projects seem like more than just a guy producing a bunch of songs. Back in the Myspace days I had a project called Sad Sack. It's a dead page now but I still have a majoity of the songs on my digital 8 track. I might dust them off at some point... I last released music under my social media name MrCraigCohen. That track was was my first attempt at electronic music and was a lot of fun to put together. Back to Catalina Rush though. I conceptualized a band that consisted of drums, bass and a keyboard player. Kind of like a local Yacht Rock band. I found a great Electric Piano VST called the Sweetcase and after setting it up I quickly remembered that I'm not the best keyboard player. As previously stated I'm primarily a guitar player and I tend to like lots of distortion. If nothing else it can hide flaws in your playing and cover a lot of sonic space. After a quick search I found the perfect solution: Lostin70s take on a B3 Hammond organ. I downloaded it and dialed in the dirtiest sound I could find. Kind of like John Lord from Deep Purple.

I grabbed my trusty Fender Stratocaster and came up with a bass riff that got me started. After I was finished I had the start of what would become the last track on the album, "Catalina Lord". I also had the start of a loose concept for an album. Instead of Catalina Rush the band what if it was Catalina Rush the story? From that point I approached the rest of the songs with the idea of telling a story.

In the next entry I'll cover more of the album's concept and the first track "Catalina Come Up". 

Catalina Rush Now Available!

Catalina Rush, my 11 song instrumental concept album is now available digitally via Bandcamp. You can listen or o purchase the album HERE. I'll explore releasing via other avenues during the next few weeks.

I'll also be sharing a song by song account of the album over the next few days.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy the album!