ediot2wit;
mods please merge with ftheollwing IF APPROPRIATE
tia:Thanks for asking about the details, and sorry it's taken so long to get back!
As Christmas day approaches, I had to churn out a few more "classics" and do a proper holiday EP. Click on the garish graphic below for the band camp page.
1.Carol of the Bells 01:30
2.Bring a Torch Janette Isabella 02:22
3.Deck the Halls 02:49
4.Holy Night 01:39
5.Silent Night 02:44
6.Jingle Bells 02:17
Oh yes, DETAILS! Where does one even begin? You pretty much start with your MIDI composition, which you play on a keyboard, and quantize to taste. Sometimes, just for shits and giggles, I'll use a dumb and boring synth patch just to get the part sequenced, and THEN I'll work on the timbre/sound. From there, it's just being tasteful with your synth patches (which are all semi-programmed from scratch for the specific part), along with some half-decent mixing. Just the standard compressors and EQ's in that dept., along with some spectral enhancement, reverb, and other stuff used sparingly. They say arrangement is everything, and you really do have to be mindful of your parts, instrumentation and structure. In this regard, you also have to choose or design some nice hits/crashes/swells for your transitions. Drum Parts are relatively easy for the house, trance, or disco parts, while the "dubstep" is just some triplet grooves, for the most part. The 3/4 timing in "Carol of the Bells" was no sweat either, but maybe it's kind of drum n' bass sounding? 
"Bring a Torch Janette Isabella" is also 3/4, but has a more traditional disco feel. Had to try and keep that one "K-Pop" sounding! And I'm not Korean! Obviously, any loop samples you're using at this point (drums only) are going to be chopped up, cropped, and re-arranged. Most of my drums are sequenced like everything else, though. Maybe I'll bullet point some more interesting things:
My MIDI "controller" is a Roland Fantom - I also use it to sequence stuff when my computer is busy playing netflix.
The reggae guitar on the intro of "Holy Night" is real, and was performed by the esteemed yet deposed Prince I&I ASIanman of Jah-Rastafari. The Prince is currently in contact with C2C for an upcoming guest spot.
I use Massive (the vst soft synth) for a bunch of parts, but a host of other vst synths are used too.
"Carol of the Bells" contains a sample of a human scream, to signify the true horror of the holiday season.
It was all done in "in the box" using REAPER. Pro-Tools was not involved
If you want to see a complete gear list, check out my studio webstie at www.MusicStudio13.com
With that said, you should probably ignore everything I just said and check out the music straight away. Unlike my rambling and near-meaningless technical details, the actual music is kind of rad.
2ndEdit: All jokes aside, that man is a mean and scary piper. If the drums were
peasant we truly would have been home by Christmas about a hunnert yarns/threads ago plus or minus a few days/weeks/months. I fear the day that I see that one on the field of Mars. Either as a general or a
mano y mona(sp) whiner take all fought... I salute that GRATE SCOT, awesome pipes, love the pipes can't stand the artillery barrage of music at this time of year and he made my musical point most eloquently and brutally no further effort required on my part.
mmm...
