‘Dotty Ditties, Volume 6: A Whole-@$$ Record’




Bandcamp (purchase)




Individual Song Breakdowns

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About the record:

My muse must have been feeling generous, for composition on the six new pieces began less than a month after finishing writing the previous volume. As with Volume 3, I had always planned on grouping the two preceding volumes with the new tunes to comprise a full-length/proper release, as those works were only available in the digital realm. The only curveball was “Congé,” which I’ll illuminate within the song breakdowns page.
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Credits

1) Haulin’ Ass
2) During the Night
3) I Smile, Prima
4) Errant, Cagy
5) Desideratum
6) Everything’s Tangled (And Made to Be Broken)
7) Arrow Slit
8) Frolicking in the Lava
9) Megalopsychia
10) 17 Jinns
11) Memories for Sale
12) Ode to the Jilted
13) Kitty-Cat Claque
14) Living in an Ellipsis
15) Manqué
16) Congé

 · Travis Orbin - Drum set, Percussion, Bass, Guitar, Mandolin, Santoor, Piano, Synthesizer,
   Theremin, Xylophone, Programming, Vocals
 · Mary Voutsas - Piano on 4, 8, 9, 11, 14
 · Ben Vize - Saxophone on 8
 · Sinha Krammer - Guest Vocals on 11
 · Sophia Uddin - 7-String Electric Violin on 14
 · Piano engineered by Blaine Misner of Cue Recording Studios
 · 7-String Electric Violin engineered by Gabriel Riccio at his home studio
 · Ben & Sinha self-engineered at their respective home studios
 · Saxophone solo on 8 by Ben Vize, comped by Travis Orbin
 · Vocal editing on 1, 2, 4, 5 by Gabriel Riccio
 · Composed, Produced, and Mixed by Travis Orbin
 · Lyrics by Travis Orbin
 · Mastered by Taylor Larson at MixWave Studios
 · Cover Art by Travis Orbin


Thank you to my fans, friends, associates, and family; especially my mother for her perpetual support and my neighbors for putting up with all of the racket. Also, thank you to my endorsements: Pearl Drums, Zildjian Cymbals, Remo drumheads, Vic Firth drumsticks, RTOM drum accessories, Vratim drum shoes, and E-Pad! Practice Pads.
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Cover Art Construction

I made a digital collage in Gimp with 28 selfies, then imported that image into the Glitché app and made four main images with various filters. Such a fun, useful app. Then, I printed out all four and snapped photos of them, cropping and importing them back into Gimp. I colored then resized/scaled each evenly to make the four panels, and further processed the image as a whole. The printing step was to furnish the whole thing with a baked-in grainy look; I’ve done it a couple times with previous covers. Layered the title, and voilà! Probably the quickest album cover I’ve contrived to date.

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‘Dotty Ditties, Volume 6: A Whole-@$$ Record’ Gear List:

For the gear used on DD4 and DD5, click here and here.

“Memories for Sale”
· 12”/16” Pearl Reference Pure tom-toms with Remo Vintage Emperor coated batters/Emperor clear resonants
· 6.5”x14” Pearl Sensitone brass snare drum with Controlled Sound X/Ambassador Hazy snare side
· 20” Pearl Reference Pure bass drum (augmented with a 24” Decade maple bass drum) with Powerstroke III coated batter/Ebony Powerstroke III ported resonant
Cymbals (from left to right, player’s perspective):
21” K Heavy Ride, 19" K Dark Thin Crash, custom hats (14” K Constantinople bottom (top) / 14” K Custom High Definition Bottom (bottom), 11” FX Oriental “Trash” Splash, 8” A Custom Splash, 13" A New Beat Hi-Hats, 19” K Custom Hybrid Crash, 18" K Custom Special Dry China, 20” K Custom Flat Ride

“Ode to the Jilted”
· same drum setup as “Memories for Sale”
Cymbals (from left to right, player’s perspective):
20” K Heavy Ride, 19” A Custom Crash, 13” A Custom Mastersound Hi-Hats, 8” A Custom Splash, 6” A Custom Splash, 13” A New Beat Hi-Hats, 17” A Custom Crash, 18” A Custom Crash

“Kitty-Cat Claque”
· same setup as “Memories for Sale,” except with a 20” K Heavy Ride in place of the 21” K Heavy, a regular ‘stack’ (14” A Custom EFX / 16” FX Oriental China “Trash”) in place of the 11” FX Splash, a small ‘stack’ (8” FX Trashformer / 10” A Custom EFX) in place of the 8” A Custom Splash, and a 19” K China in place of the 20” K Custom Flat Ride

“Living in an Ellipsis”
· same setup as “Kitty-Cat Claque”

“Manqué”
· same setup as “Memories for Sale,” except with a 22” K Constantinople Renaissance Ride in place of the 21” K Heavy, 15” K Light Hi-Hats in place of the custom hats, a 18” K Dark Thin Crash in place of the 19” K Custom, and a 6.5”x14” Sensitone brass snare in place of the Reference

“Congé”
· same setup as “Kitty-Cat Claque,” except with an 11” FX Oriental “Trash” Splash in place of the regular ‘stack,’ and during the ‘live’ drum and bass portion, the Reference snare is switched out for a 4”x14” maple piccolo



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