Travis Orbin - Darkest Hour - Four Tunes from 'Darkest Hour' + Percussion Tracking

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/dar...
  / darkesthourdudes  
http://officialdarkesthour.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkest_...)

For more information regarding the recording session behind our album 'Darkest Hour', please peruse the video description for "Wasteland" & "Lost for Life".

It's been over a year, so it's time to delve back into this video series. This quad vid nearly finishes it out, but there are a few more pieces I'll have to actually track in my home studio when I've the time (since they were altered too much post-tracking). Tacked on at the end is some footage of me tracking percussion. We were trying different sounds from my little collection and the percussion on the record is--overall--more of an effect/mix reinforcement, so I'm not sure what actually made the cut. However, the footage is pretty funny/goofy and somewhat informative so I figured I'd include it. I forgot my tripod that day, so Lonestar was my cameraman, haha. Taylor also makes an appearance here and there.

Regarding the tunes, "Beneath the Blackening Sky" was a part of the batch of tunes we demoed during our first pre-pro session for this album; it almost didn't make the cut and ended up being the very last one I tracked. "The Goddess Figure" and "Hypatia Rising" came about somewhere in the middle of it all, the former containing bits of my and Lonestar's penchant for quick little 16th triplet unison runs. If memory serves, "Departure" was presented to me similarly to "Surrealist"--during the last pre-pro session--and pretty disparate, drum-wise, from the initial demo. The choruses used to feature steady 16th double bass before Taylor and I convinced everyone to utilize a groove heavily inspired by LZ's "Immigrant Song". "Departure" is one of my personal favorites. And as I tend to do, largely, I employed lots of chord/note complementation in general via various orchestrations.

Side note: There's a little bit of foot cam footage in "Hypatia" that doesn't align, as we did some alt. takes and I can't seem to find it; I also wasn't able to find the three snare hits that close the tune.

Notes:
"The Goddess Figure"
0:49 - there's only SO much you can do with a traditional thrash groove, but this 32nd floor tom roll is a cool example of changing things up without losing momentum
1:42 - crazy fill-in
"Beneath the Blackening Sky"
5:18 - tough fill-in
5:29 - 16th triplet kicks cap off excitement to segue into the chorus
6:04 - 6:17 - this whole section was based on a wholly improvised take from a pre-pro session
6:17 - 6:43 - crash/hat orchestration complements chord progression; hats are lightly 'pedaled' to reduce ring
7:29 - difficult fill-in sequence complements guitar
"Hypatia Rising"
9:32 - 9:46, 10:43 - 10:48, 12:20 - 12:33 - Schleibaum dubbed this the 'funky Miami Vice tom part' hehe
9:58 - 16th double bass is broken up to accent vocals
10:59 - cool triplet unison
12:04 - 12:18 - snare accents are doubled for variation
"Departure"
choruses - splash accent is pretty tough, as the same hand has to slam the rimshot backbeat a 16th later
bridge - fun tom pattern with accents and pedal hats on the upbeats
17:40 - improvised fill-in

Full drum set transcriptions:
"The Goddess Figure"
http://travisorbin.com/images/Darkest...
Tempo = 120 BPM
"Beneath the Blackening Sky"
http://travisorbin.com/images/Darkest...
Tempo = 150 BPM
"Hypatia Rising"
http://travisorbin.com/images/Darkest...
Tempo = 126 BPM
Tempo change (9:02) = 129 BPM
Tempo change (12:34) = 130 BPM
"Departure"
http://travisorbin.com/images/Darkest...
Tempo = 117 BPM
Tempo change (16:12) = 116 BPM
Tempo change (16:28 - 16:37) = 'linear increase' to 117 BPM

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