Sippo and the Funk

This one is about the theme song for the online person of YleX radio station, Sippo.

Sippo and the funk.

What was wanted from the music that it would give you the feel of a lot of hassle and stuff going on. Also a bit of that undercover cop feeling wouldn't hurt. So my mind pops up with the feel of the 70's, of funk music and Starsky & Hutch.

I pondered on the elements for a while before one day I was going to lunch and a clavinet melody started playing in my head. It was just the thing I needed to get things rolling. So there I was trying to eat lunch as fast I could, humming the melody in my head all the while. Then a rush back to the studio and some quick writing to get it down. It ended up forming the backbone of the song.

Next up was the beat and bass. I didn't want the beat to be too grrovy, but rather be a forward moving force that drives the track onwards. I stacked three different sounding drum kits on top of each other to get a good layering into the drums. I selected some of the most dry and dirty kits I had at my disposal at the time. For the bass line I selected to do a slightly slapped bass to get some of that funky feeling. But not too much since I wanted the bass to be low.

From the actual lead theme I wrote an ascending and descending brass theme for saxes, trumpets and trombones. It's a simple enough melody, which starts out from the same note each time go either up or down. I wanted the brass to sound dirty and used quite a bit of gracing elements on the trumpets. There are stabs and falls all through the melody.

The sound is rounded out by a rhythmic organ and wah guitar.

I'm still pondering whether to do a more song like version of this with added string elements. Now the structure of the this song is more of a loop than an actual theme song.

Gear I used for this track:

DAWs and editors:

• Cakewalk Sonar 8.5
  

Samplers, instruments and effects:

• NI Kontakt 3
  
• NI KorePlayer
  
• NI Battery 3
• NI Guitar Rig 3
• Kjaerhus Master Limiter
  
• Melda Equalizer
• PerfectSpace
• Audio Damage Roughrider
• Bootsy Ferric TDS
• Smartelectronix SupaPhaser
  

Libraries:

• Vienna Horizon Series Overdrive
  
• Sonivox Flying Hand Percussion
  
• Project SAM Brass
• NI Battery 3 Library
• NI Kontant 3 Library