We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Sci​-​Fi Western

from The Forbidden Meditation Method by 7X3=21

/

about

This one was fun to make. The first drum machine that I owned was a Roland 505. It’s a decent drum machine, but the sounds aren’t great. That was in 1987, and a few years later, I got my Roland TR-808, and that was a game changer. It was with that drum machine that my group (Wildstyle) and I produced an album’s worth of demos, that we performed and were also known locally around town (to select people) in Lake County for a short while in the late 80s and early 90s. It’s a very special and impactful part of my life.

Because of that, I wanted to mess around with classic drum machine sounds for this project, and of course, the 808 is the classic of all classics in that realm. This whole beat leans heavy on the rolling 808-ish bass hit from the Ironman kit.

For that synth-y sound, it’s me using a glitch that I’ll explain with track #6, where my Pioneer DDJ-200 DJ Controller will control parts of the midi sounds when I touch the platter, so I was just lightly raising my hand off and on the platter for this sound to happen.

Funny thing, that day after I did this one, I had to restart my computer and change a few things around to fix the sound, and now I can’t get the platter to control the MIDI anymore, so I have to figure out how to set it up wrong again!!

I’ve found myself going to the Feat Pete drum kit on Ableton a lot this week when choosing sounds, it seems to be.a favorite. For this beat, I finally decided to use some high hats from that kit. I just “played them any old way”, with two fingers. I also accidentally hit a snare and a tom tom in the process, cause I’m clumsy, but the velocity pads, plus the sloppy delay effect, gave it an interesting sound, so I kept it.

There’s an extra bass hit, that I played an off beat pattern paired with a timbale. I didn’t think of this until after I came up with the name, but that timbale sounds like a bell, which the idea of high noon and bells, has this connection to Westerns, so that must’ve influenced my title choice.

I originally was just going to make this a short 2 minute piece with only the above sounds, but I decided to try the switch up towards the end of the process, and I liked how it shifts the feel of the beat in this somewhat jarring way. I suppose coming from that ominous sounding, long intro, the surprise is almost to be expected, at least in hindsight.

I envision this playing in a sci-fi movie scene with a character walking down a spaceship’s corridors, searching, and when that beat switch happens, that’s when they’ve discovered what they were hoping NOT to find.

Side Note: I also pictured Amirah Sackett doing a Popping routine to this, with the long intro being this dope slow build, then just gets busy when the drums drop. Honestly, that was my first thought when listening to this once I finished it. I already have witnessed this performance in my. mind, and I can tell you all, it was great…as expected.

credits

from The Forbidden Meditation Method, released January 1, 2022

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

3Wisemen Entertainment image

3Wisemen Entertainment Minneapolis, Minnesota

3Wisemen Entertainment is the brainchild of Kevin Beacham, and is the over-arching brand for his various ventures of the past and present; Stories About Songs Podcast (Coming Soon!), Time Travel Radio, RedefineHipHop, Redefinition Radio, Caught In The Middle Magazine, etc... ... more

contact / help

Contact 3Wisemen Entertainment

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this track or account

If you like 3Wisemen Entertainment, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Featuring interviews with LA music scene pillar Kamasi Washington, and new London-based duo Mrcy.

listen now