Category: Music

Tracking Guitars – #RPM2022

One of my gimmicky ideas for this year’s RPM Challenge is to double the rhythm guitar tracks with two different guitars. I thought of that a few weeks ago but figured I probably wouldn’t go through with it. Tonight? The first time I sat down to record guitars? I did it. One guitar part panned hard left, another panned hard right. I always do that. This time, instead of using the same guitar on both tracks…

You’ll hear the Les Paul coming out of your left speaker:

and the SG coming out of your right speaker:

Fun, huh? I only got through three songs, but that’s a good start.

No Electrical Fun Today

Jen was going to rewire the light switch in the dining room today because she’s absolutely amazing. She was doing a little research last night and found that our switch contains some stuff that we weren’t prepared to deal with, so we gave it a miss and are looking to have an electrician come in. That means one of the two main projects on the agenda for today didn’t happen. The other main project is my super hero wife making spaghetti sauce from scratch. It’s on the stove right now and it smells so good.

You would think that I would have used this extra time to record guitars. Nope. Not yet. Maybe after dinner. That seems like a decent plan. If not, tomorrow. Instead of guitars I worked on drums. Not literally, more like I worked on GarageBand functions that simulate drums.

GarageBand has a tool called Session Drummers. There are a bunch of different “drummers” to choose from, all with different styles and different quirks. I tend to bounce back and forth between two. One that is pretty straight ahead rock and another that is more R&B. For the last two (I think) Quarantine projects I only used the rock drummer. I was planning on sticking with the R&B drummer for RPM but, with eight songs underway, I changed my mind. I went through a bunch of the options available today and picked a different Rock thing. I then changed the drummer on all eight songs.

Will the listener be able to tell the difference? Nope. Not likely.

Does it matter to anyone on the planet Earth other than me? Nope. Not at all.

Damn if that sauce doesn’t smell gooooood.

Happy Ice Storm Day

Snow is bad enough, but when little chunks of ice fall from the sky? That’s just mother nature being a jerk. We’re supposed to be getting a full day of this crap. Yippee. I just put ice melt all over the driveway. Our new furnace is supposed to get a check up today so I want to decrease the danger of a slip. The guy is supposed to be on his way so I am sitting here with a mask hanging off one ear. I am so* sick of having to wear a mask, but unlike 50% of America, I am willing to deal with the difficulty in order to keep other people healthy.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, ice. The first sand truck just went past. Here’s hoping this doesn’t turn into a big deal today. I hate winter. I hate ice. Blah.

I failed to do anything with the RPM Challenge yesterday. I’m optimistic today will be more productive, but who knows. We are up to date on The Book of Boba Fett, I am up to date on Peacemaker, and Jen and I watched the first episode of Pam and Tommy. I wonder how historically accurate it is. I remember hearing about a contractor and I remember hearing about a safe, but is this how it happened? Not that it matters. Also, is Sebastian Stan (sp?) a method actor? I kinda hope not, because that would require him to take a lot of cocaine. Yikes!

Sigh… It’s Friday. I really want to get through this work day with as little stress as possible. I also want to have my next batch of appointments booked. The weekend is so close I can smell it, and it smells like freedom. Or something like that.

*I am trying to set the world record for the most uses of the word “so” in a blog paragraph. Thanks for cheering me on!

Anniversary

I missed an important anniversary yesterday. I was all focused on Covid itself and I missed an important date that is mainly important because of Covid.

Yesterday was the two year anniversary of the last time Lizardfish played together. It was Greg’s birthday party. We played a couple of sets and it went really well (except for the untimely death of a snare drum head, RIP). We took a couple of weeks off after the show, like we usually do, then Jen, Harry, and I went to Florida for a week, and by the time we got back Covid was a thing and the country was starting to shut down.

We haven’t played since.

Every time I start thinking I might be okay with trying to get together, something Covid related happens that screws it up. We were talking about maybe having a play in December. I wasn’t really good with that, but maybe early January? Nope. Omicron. Crud.

Maybe… things seem to be calming down around here. Maybe March? Ugh. I miss playing for real. I miss my band.

And We’re Off… Again – #RPM2022

Here we go again.

Welcome to February and the annual onslaught of RPM Challenge posts. Hurray for bad music! Well, a lot of the people who play the RPM game make excellent music. I just don’t feel you’re reading a post from one of those people right now.

The Trello board has been created and the first card has been added! The working title being “RPM 22 01 iPad” because it’s 2022, it’s the first idea, and the file was originally created on my iPad (only because the Logic Remote app isn’t playing nicely this morning, otherwise it would have been started on the Mac).

Does song number one contain a tempo change? Why yes, yes it does. Look at me being all musically thematic and shit.

Have fun, folks!

RPM Starts Tomorrow

Tomorrow is February 1st. That means my 15th RPM Challenge will be underway and you, my poor unfortunate reader, will be blitzed with endless posts about a bad musician making bad music. I mean, you get that crap on a regular basis from me, but in February it’s out of control.

I don’t have any plans. I was thinking of using two different guitars, but I am not sure I want to bother with that. We’ll see. The Les Paul needs new strings before I record anything, and if I use the SG as well then that desperately needs new strings. I was thinking of going for a wetter sound over all. Maybe just longer reverbs and some more delays, maybe? My latest gimmicky idea is to use more tempo changes. I used a slight tempo change in one of the last batch of re-recordings and I kinda like how it came out. Maybe more of that.

Beyond those gimmicks, I don’t have any plans. Just 10 songs. 10 faux bluesy, faux proggy rock and roll songs. Dad rock. Stuff like that.

The RPM Challenge started in 2006 but it was just a local thing in Portsmouth, NH. In 2007 they went international, meaning they just put it on the web. I first heard of it late in the month so I missed out. I did one on my own using old songs the following month, then the month after that I tried doing it again with new songs and failed miserably. 2008 was the first time I did it for real and I failed miserably. 2009-2011 were also failures. 2012 was my first success and it made me very happy. 2013-2021 have all been successes too. Well… successes in that I met the recording requirements. Some were more successful than others in terms of the quality, but they are all kinda crappy. I don’t care. I just enjoy it, even if it is really dumb.

Tomorrow is the day. One your marks… get set……. wait for it!……

Sunday Morning Stuff

The plow guy did a great job. He only did our driveway, not the section of the yard that doubles as the kids driveway, but that’s okay. Those cars aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. He did a path from the driveway to the stairs on the side of the house which gains him the title of Hero++. That’s one rank higher than hero. He didn’t do the fire hydrant, but we didn’t ask him to. I went out and did it about an hour ago. Done and done.

I have some laundry to do today. I checked the dryer vent on the back of the house. It’s clear. We are all set to wash the sheets and stuff. Aren’t you happy to hear that little snippet of good news? I’m just a fountain of knowledge today.

The episode of The Mandalorian that introduces Ashoka Tano is so freakin’ good. The episode that reintroduces Boba Fett is almost as good. When he smashes the stormtrooper’s helmet with the gaffey stick? It’s like poetry, man.

Did I mention that the RPM Challenge starts the day after tomorrow? As if I haven’t been boring the crap out of everyone with music posts. Get ready for more, kids!

And that’s where we are at 12:09pm on a random Sunday.

But wait, there’s more! Just before I hit publish Bellana called. We had a FaceTime and it was lovely. Apparently our Dutch friends like to put mayonnaise on French Fries. I don’t know… I don’t know if I can get behind that trend. We’ll see.

The Nerdiest Music Nerd Thing I’ve Ever Done

I’ve done a lot of musically nerdy things in my life. I’m a Rush fanatic so I sort of goes without saying.

Years ago I made a playlist on Alonetone that held songs I wanted to re-record. Before I started actually finishing songs I just kept adding songs to the playlist. When I started finishing songs I added those to the playlist and matched them up with the originals. Now that it’s done there are 114 songs on the playlist.

Through all of this time I kept the playlist private. Today I made it public. Good lord what a nerd I am.

The Great 2015 Re-Recording Project Reference Tracks