Near Wild Heaven
Out of Time | 1991
Listen Original Listen Final Mix

Next arrangement

For the second song, its a complete 180 chagne of pace. Not only is the other Michael singing (wassup Mike), but this is a completely different style than “So Fast, So Numb”. The distorted guitars are restored to the original REM Byrdish Jangle. Mike gets to fully reveal his Beach Boys fandom. Time to bust out the happiest harmonies this side of the shiny people.

I’ll still use a robot drummer, but I’ll be trying out the automated drummer instead of just a series of related loops. The Garageband drummer track lets you pick a style that matches your arrangement track. You get a 2D slider to pick complex to simple and agressive to relaxed styles within each setcion. This looks like a pretty good way to sculpt the track without having to program each note.

I also started with the original recording on a separate track. This ensures I’m playing all the sections and at the correct tempo. It’s nice to have for comparing what I’m doing against the original.

First Tracks

Drums and bass will be first, anchoring the song. Again, having the original is great for learn the bass part. I’ll spend the next couple days practicing guitar parts. I’ll see how the rickenbackre part sounds transfered to lap steel. Otherwise, it shouldn’t be too bad to learn.