Posts
I know it's been a few months since I've posted here, but that doesn't mean I've been totally inactive; I've been working on quite a few different things lately, actually.
But I am going to be starting to update this space more regularly; if not with sound clips, then at least with some documentation. I'm going to be starting a new project and I'm going to be documenting my progress here.
Hope all is well with you and yours, if you're out there.
So this is just something I was fooling around with tonight; it's pretty much just me experimenting with Reason 4 and some of its new synths. I think it's clipping a little bit; I probably should've taken a little more time to make sure the levels were ok.
Can't believe I haven't already posted this; this is the commercial I was working on earlier this year.
Kinda went bananas this weekend, and I've got 2 new recordings to show for it. More than that, I learned how to do about a million things with ProTools that I'd been needing to learn, and now I feel like a goddamned ninja.
The last time I played "Elizabeth" was probably at the show I played with some friends which took place during the 2000 Subway Series - which happened to be the one game the Yankees lost. This version is not at ALL what it used to sound like; not that it ever had any particular sound - it was never officially recorded.
I'd been meaning to re-record "I'm Connected"; I originally recorded it in 2006 on my old digital 16-track, and while it has its charms it desperately needed a fresh coat of fidelity.
So, yeah; obviously I haven't updated here in a while. Lots of reasons/excuses, but no matter - I'm back, baby. We re-did the studio over the weekend and now it's a pleasure to be in here, even if it gets murderously hot.
This is something that has kept finding its way into my fingers over the last few months or so, and I figured I might as well give it a demo. I wasn't planning on recording it with 4 guitars, but that's the beauty of home recording; you don't pay by the hour. I also wasn't planning on showing it off in this early a state, but I'm working on a bunch of other stuff as well (including a possibly ill-advised cover of "Strangers" by The Kinks), and I figured this was as close to what the final idea will be as anything else I've got at the moment.
Pretty productive night, all told.
1. Went back and fixed a bunch of things in "To Retreat", namely:
- added electric guitar
- redid main vocal
- added backing vocal
- actually did some mixing-type stuff (EQ, compression, level adjusting)
- removed egg shaker
- remembered to get rid of all the ambient noise
It still needs a great deal of work, and I may end up re-recording it entirely.
- added electric guitar
- never actually wrote a 2nd verse, so just cut/pasted from first verse (which sorta works, I guess)
- minor mixing and adjustments
So there you have it. And, now, the songs:
Oh hell yes.
The RPM Challenge may be out of reach now, but I've conquered my computer's technical difficulties and now I've got something to show for it.
All I really wanted to do tonight was to make sure I remembered how to bus everything. My computer doesn't have nearly enough RAM to run ProTools and all my plug-ins without crashing, but my friend Mike [ALERT: technical blabbing ahead] showed me how you can bus out midi tracks into audio tracks, which is apparently ProTools 101. Anyway - now I can run Velvet and BFD and still have room left for some other stuff.
So, then: this new song is really, absolutely brand-spanking new; I didn't even know I was writing it at the time. I was originally just listening to American Analog Set, trying to find a mellow sort of groove where I could play a Rhodes, and instead I picked up my acoustic and started strumming something out. The thing I'm most excited about is that the bridge here is totally made up on the spot; I was rolling tape and didn't really have a structure planned out, and then it just happened, and it stuck.
Also: this is NOT EVEN CLOSE to a final mix. There's clammy notes all over the place, there's peaking and some weird cymbals near the end, I forgot to trim the opening measure AND the fadeout, and the vocals in the 2nd verse sound a bit too much like Lisa Loeb. I'm just so freaking excited that I was able to record tonight without my computer crashing and I just want to put this out there ASAP, even though it's so far away from being done.
I don't know where the lyrics came from; they were lying around in a notebook.
After a weekend of slacking off and Superbowl mania, I got back to work tonight. I had a couple acoustic ideas I wanted to try, but late in the afternoon I started wanting to do a drone, some sort of variation of those long Neu! drones in E (like "Hallogallo" or "Fur Immer"). I quickly sketched out a VERY basic outline and started recording, and now I've got something. It's only 3:30 right now; will definitely have to find a way of expanding it, and this would be as good an opportunity as any to really learn how to do some copy/pasting in ProTools.
This would be the part where I post what I recorded tonight, but it still has a ways to go. That said, I'm pretty fucking jazzed about where it's headed, and if I can figure out how to give it the correct length, and how to properly arrange it so it's not such an obvious Neu! clone, I think this could be the centerpiece of the whole project.
So far, I'm not really getting anything new done; I've done some tweaking of what I did last night, though, and I'm liking how that's coming along.
Anyway, here's some phone cam photos, because my brain is frazzled and I can't think anymore. And, you know what, fuck it; I'm putting up the link to the mp3, too.
