Category: Recording

Sweet Tones

I took my laptop into my room to record some guitars. I had every intention of working out the kinks in the KTR/D&M Drive combo and then without really planning it I unplugged the board and plugged in the new RYRA The Klone pedal. Then I did something that would not have happened without Coronavirus.

I was planning on selling a guitar (my Strat) and some pedals so that I could buy another amp. With the lock downs and all there was no selling anything so all of that stuff is still here. When I took the D&M Drive out of storage I also pulled a few other pedals, thinking I might experiment. One of them was the Keeley Super Phat Mod. I bought that pedal a couple of years ago and I tried but I never really connected with it.

Tonight I put it into the chain after the RYRA and… it sounded really good.

It worked pretty much perfect with the first two songs I worked on. On the third I should have lowered the gain on the Keeley by a lot so the tone is way heavier than it should be. The fourth and final song of the night was just the RYRA because it’s freakin’ awesome.

i still only have seven songs in progress, but now they all have rhythm guitar. As for the guitar itself, I used the ES-335 and it went really well. No issues at all. The intonation is good, a lot of the buzz is gone (not all, but a lot) and it just felt and sounded good.

Robert is pleased.

June Music

I figured I’d give a quick update on the June Music project even though no one else on Earth gives a shit. I give a shit, so here we go.

There are seven songs in the works. All have the MIDI tracks, drums and bass, complete. One has a piano as a placeholder for the melody. Three, as of this afternoon, have rhythm guitars.

Two songs used the KTR and the D&M Drive pedals. It was my first crack at substituting the D&M for the OCD. It didn’t work well. I had the output on the KTR maxed and the drive off. The D&M didn’t seem capable of handling that signal and it got really mushy. I used the ES 335 on the first song I did and wasn’t happy with the sound. The string buzz may have been making it worse so I switched to the Les Paul. It was a little better, but not much. So two songs have less than good guitar sound. It’s good enough to roll with for now. I don’t think I’ll change it. The third song used the Les Paul but just the KTR. I wanted a cleanish sound, so I shut off the D&M. That sounded pretty good.

After I was done I set to some major tweaking and found something that was much better. I lowered the output on the KTR, lowered the output and the gain on the D&M, an added a little treble on the KTR. That was better. I will try recording with that setup. I was hoping to just use the RYRA The Klone pedal this month but the whole racist pedal builder shit made me want to experiment with the gig setup more. I also pulled a couple of other overdrive and fuzz pedals out of storage. I might try pairing different things with the RYRA. We can sort of consider June as Lab time. Let the tinkering continue.

One thing I do know… it’d been over a week since I had played at all. With all of this quarantine, social distance shit going on… playing is good for my mindset. If I don’t play for a longish period of time I start getting under people’s skin. The more I play the easier I am to be around. It’s definitely a good way to work out my quarantinie frustration. I knew it would be, but I think I have some evidence to support that original theory now.

Playing helps me not be an asshole… therefore I should play more.

QED.

Music Day

The guitar was played today and recordings were made.

The Keeley D&M Drive doesn’t play with the Klon KTR as nicely as the OCD did and there’s some mushy, flubby tone on two of the songs to prove it. I’ve got it figured out though. The tone will improve. The new wah was also recorded for the first time. There were many, many takes. I screwed up many, many times.

June Music

In an attempt to not go completely insane as I watch my country disintegrate around me, I have decided to try and push through on another month of music. I am not optimistic that I will finish this one. Not optimistic at all.

Whatever.

I’ve got three things in the running. #1 is just a couple of riffs with no song form. #2 has a full song form and a guitar part written out but not recorded. #3 is the interesting one.

I had a bass riff come to me fully formed last night. I am kinda afraid that my brain stole it off of something I heard while watching TV with the fam. It’s that sort of >poof< here I am, all complete that makes me think I actually heard it somewhere else. See Paul McCartney’s explanation of “Yesterday.” He woke up with it complete in his head and assumed it was something he’d stolen. In his case it wasn’t, because he’s a genius. In my case it probably was. I mean it pretty much definitely was.

Anyway, the phrase I heard in my head was four bars long. When I played it into GarageBand though I realized I was wrong. It’s actually three bars of 4/4 time and one bar of 3/4 time. Basically, it’s one beat shy of four bars. Crud. GarageBand doesn’t actually handle changing time signatures (at least it didn’t the last time I Googled it). So I needed a work around. Instead of four bars, the phrase is now one bar… of 15/4 time. Yup, I’m that guy.

Yippee.

The Playlist Didn’t Work

Okay, so yesterday when I posted the playlist from hearthis.at that had all of my May music project songs on it, it embedded into the post okay, but it only played the first song. Jerk.

So here are links to the 2020 music projects so far. I don’t do this because I expect anyone to click on them, I just do it so I can look at it and say, “awwww.”

I’ve already made a trello board for June. Starting in July the tracking gets weird because July through September fall under the 50/90 FAWM challenge. I still want to try to have at least 10 songs started and finished during each calendar month while slaving my way toward a total of 50. Like ya do.

I still have one song from April that is unfinished. It just needs a guitar solo and a mix. I might complete that today and tomorrow and then be ready for June. I don’t want to declare any gear restrictions but I am thinking it’s just going to be my ES-335 and my RYRA Klone pedal. I’m a little worried about the buzzing on the first string of the 335 though. I might try to raise the action a smidge but that will probably screw up the intonation… though the intonation might already be screwy. The guitar did sit in the cellar for almost two years.

Who knows. Well see.

The year of music projects will continue, starting on Monday.

May Music: Finished

Well, February, March, April, and May all have 10 song RPM Challenge style recording projects (February and April actually are officially RPM Challenges) that were all finished on the 29th day of the month.

May has 11 songs. I just finished mixing the last two.

Is it good?

Nope.

Do I care?

Nope.

Finished Another Song

This song makes nine finished songs for the month. It also puts me over 35:00 for the full run time. That means I can declare it complete by RPM rules. I still have two more to mix though.

If this audio player keeps working it’s going to make me a happy blogging nerd.

May Guitars are Done

I managed to sneak in the last two songs worth of guitars for the May Music. Now all of the tracking is done and I am down to three mixes to go. That’s it. Could we be finishing an album in a month project by the 29th for the fourth month in a row?

May Music Vocals are Done

I thought for a minute about going to a different parking lot this morning. I knew the Tenney Castle park would be closed but I figured I’d take a look. Yup, it was closed.

I finished the vocals for the last two May songs, and as a bonus I finally got around to the one unfinished April song too. Done, done, and done.

There were some people walking laps around The Loop sidewalk. This one dude showed up after me and with the entire movie theater parking lot to chose from he parked in the next row.

Sure, he was nowhere close to me at all but come on bro… There were 30 rows to choose from and all but one was empty, and you chose that one?

Bad Bad Bad

I put lead guitar onto the three songs I put vocals on this morning. I played bad. Three songs, three bads, hence the title of the post.

I got tired really fast too. It was odd. I did play the 335 and found a spot on the neck where the buzz makes it nearly unplayable. So I guess I have another reason to get it worked over.

Let’s get through COVID-19 first, shall we?