For Christmas, my wife bought me a wah wah peddle. Since it was early in the month I convinced her to let me play it the first night. You know, to make sure that it sounded good and worked (and because I was dying to use it, but that wouldn’t go over as well). After screwing around with the settings a bit, I settled in to a sound that fit my playing. I kept playing around a few progressions and ended up recording it.
First I put down a guitar track just to get a basic feel. Then I found a looped drum track that fit the feel and adjusted the tempo to match what I was playing. I randomly chose portions of the song that would increase in intensity, and then I went back and recorded a bass line. I made it up as I went along and eventually found a groove. For the increased intensity bits I used the wah on the bass. After recording the drums and bass I went back and recorded the guitar part. After recording I played with the mix a bit (try listening with headphones) to clean things up and make it more interesting. Not that this is by any means a final product, of course, but it’s always nice to hear what you can do with the tracks in the mix.
I must say, man this one’s rough. The intense portion turned out to just be noise (it was fun while I was playing it, but the end result is still noise). Here and there the bass and guitar hit a groove, but overall, man this one’s rough.
Since recording this initial “jam” I’ve attempted to write and lay down a bass groove. As soon as I actually receive the wah wah I’ll try recording a new draft of this one. We’ll see where it goes!