Category: Song Writing

Music: MIA

I haven’t done any music this month. Well, I put new strings on my SG but that’s it. I still plan to contribute to the Record Every Month thing the RPM Challenge folks are doing. I just haven’t done anything for it yet. Have I been too busy? Am I burned out? Am I kind of in a rut? The answers are probably yes, yes, and yes. I don’t know.

I have a bunch of things that are ready to mix. Two from the last round of re-recordings, and a few leftover from last month. I could do those this weekend, but I’m at my parent’s house keeping an eye on my mother and I get nervous when I put the noise canceling headphones on. Is she going to call for me for something and I won’t hear it?

I’d like to get the ball rolling again this weekend, but it’s more likely I will just doom scroll twitter all day. You know, like you do.

Record Every Month

The good folks at the RPM Challenge came up with a new thing for us to mess with. Record Every Month. One song per month for the rest of the year. I was hoping to have 10 but here we are on the 31st and I’ve got one. Count me as a winner for the first month at least.

Finally Played

It’s been like three weeks since the last time I played my guitar. Finally, I got back to it tonight. Therapy… it is definitely therapy.

I used my new Speaker Soak/Attenuator thing with my huge amp for the first time. You need to turn it WAY down in order to tame the volume enough to really crank the amp without instantly going deaf. It sounded good. A little squishy and compressed, but I only turned the volume up to about eight on the 30 watt channel. I liked it. I recorded rhythm guitars for two songs, just to have something to mess with. The first song was just guitar and nearly cranked amp. The second used the Ryra the Klone as a boost to get a little more overdrive. I liked both sounds. Also of note, the 30 watt channel is usually super trebly, but with the attenuator down low and the volume up high it sounded much better. Granted, the treble knob was on about two and the bass and mids knobs were dimed. Still. Pretty cool.

Dig those glowing vacuum tubes. World War II tech at it’s finest.

Music Still Kind of Alive

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. All days that I promised myself I would play guitar and then did not play guitar. Ugh. Tonight.

I haven’t touched this month’s music in over two weeks. Have I given up? No. Not entirely. I added a song last night. I have six now. Two with rhythm guitars, four with just MIDI. Hopefully I’ll do some recording tonight and maybe write some lyrics and do some car music over the weekend? Maybe? I wonder if I could still get through 10 songs with less than a week to go.

I wonder.

Tomorrow

Earlier today Jen actually told me that I needed to play guitar tonight. I told her I was planning on it. The new attenuators thing was delivered today so I had extra incentive.

Guess what I didn’t do.

You guessed it. I didn’t play guitar.

Tomorrow. I promise. It’s a moral imperative.

Recording

I did some recording. I changed things up and used the Les Paul instead of the ES-335. I used the extension speaker instead of the built in speakers and I stuck to the 18 watt channel. I used the Ryra Klon clone and the Wampler Plexi Drive Mini and it wasn’t an over compressed mess the way it was last month. It sounded okay.

I put rhythm parts onto the only two songs I have going for March, and a lead part onto one of the remaining songs from the last round of re-recordings. I still have one song that needs leads but my hands were really tired and I was pretty well done so I didn’t even attempt it. That project has two songs ready to mix now.

Really looking forward to getting my mitts on that little attenuator. It is cheap and overly simple but when I used one with my Deluxe Reverb it worked really well. Hoping for similar results this time. I really want to make that 30 watt channel happen. Fingers emphatically crossed.

March Music

Well I guess I’m going to write some music in March. I’ve got one song underway and, much more important from the nerd point of view, I created a Trello board.

I think I’ll go Les Paul this month, and hopefully go with the monstrously loud 30 watt amp. We will see.