Today’s guitar tracking haul for 50/90 is three lead parts and one rhythm part. For the leads I’m using my shiny new Les Paul Standard into a Ryra The Klone overdrive pedal (set with the gain really low) into a Wren and Cuff Super Russian (set with the gain anywhere from kinda lowish to melting the paint off the walls) into the Bassbreaker 15.
I’m really liking the sound. Really. I’m guessing once I listen back to all of this stuff months from now (assuming I ever listen back to all of this stuff) I’ll hate the way it sounds, but for now it feels pretty freakin’ good.
I ended up getting a shit ton of 50/90 work done today. I think this is a list of everything I did, not in chronological order:
Recorded rhythm guitars for three songs. Wrote lyrics for two songs. Recorded vocals for EIGHT (8!!) songs. Recorded lead guitars for three songs.
I got a little unexpected home alone time tonight and you can bet your sweet ass I took it. I had four songs ready to sing and I did them all, and then wrote lyrics and sang a fifth. My throat is absolutely killing me right now. Hopefully I will recover quick. I need to go into the office tomorrow, not that that makes any difference at all on the speaking clearly front, but whatever.
I did what I said I was going to do in the car music post this morning. I used the mic cable from this morning with my usual vocal mic. No issues at all. Thank whatever deity looks after bad singers* that the cable was the problem and not the significantly more expensive (though by microphone standards still very cheap) mic. Sigh of relief, babie.
If you could pick a deity to be the god of bad singers, who would you pick? It can’t be someone living, and it can’t be someone who was mediocre themselves. It has to be someone who was great so that they can be an inspiration, or some shit. I think I would go with Elvis. Or maybe Ray Charles. Roy Orbison would be a good choice but we was probably a little too good. Yeah, I’m sticking with The King.
I put vocals on three songs this morning. I think I am going to be able to do some more tomorrow. I had six ready to go when I started today, and hopefully I will add some more to the list at some point today.
No signal drop out issues. I changed the USB cable last time and changed the mic and the mic cable this time. Next time (tomorrow?) I will use the old mic with the new cable because I am really hoping the cable was the problem and not the mic because the mic is both expensive and the one I use with the band. I don’t want to replace it. It’s like an old friend, you know?
I normally use a Shure SM58 for vocals and today I used a Shure SM57. The mics are almost identical except the SM58 has a better pop filter on the end. That means any time I sang a syllable that contained a “p” sound it probably sounds something like nuc testing on bikini island (slight exaggeration). Oh well.
I am off work today so hopefully there will be time for a good chunk of guitar tracking. I want to mow the front lawn if the weather holds (it probably won’t because New England is now Atlantis) and I have to pick up my glasses at Lens Crafters (WOOHOO!) and I have to check on the water situation in the cellar (I’m a little afraid of that one) and I have a lot of laundry to do and I might want to sneak in a smidge of work at some point too.
Wow. This might turn into a really busy vacation day. When it comes to it I’ll probably just sit in my room eating cheese doodles and watching super hero TV shows and shit. Whatever.
Wait… I can’t do car music tomorrow because I will be working in the office. Fuck. So more car music on Saturday then. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
On a totally unrelated note, I fucking hate the wordpress.com block editor. Fucking hate it.
I was going to do these daily, but naw. One week into the project and here’s where I stand.
12 songs in progress. No mixes yet. One song has all of the tracking done and is ready to mix. One has vocals and is ready for lead guitar. Five have rhythm guitars and lyrics and melody written and are ready for vocals (car music in the morning, maybe?). Five have their song format and the bass and drums finished and are ready for rhythm guitars.
Not bad for the first week. I don’t know how this pace compares to the other two times I finished 50 songs. Who knows.
I have four songs ready for vocals. I should do car music tomorrow! I am working from home and not going to my parents until around dinner time. Tomorrow’s the perfect day!
Except for that whole tropical storm that’s supposed to hit us in the morning.
Yeah, I am not going to do car music in the middle of Elsa the Tropical Storm.
<prepare yourself for Robert your Narrator to make a Dad Joke that I am positive everyone on the Eastern coast of the United States of America has already made. Sorry… can’t resist this one>
Elsa just needs to let it go.
<GET IT??????>
I need mental help. Get me on Prozac, STAT! Is Prozac even still a thing?
So I was working on a little ditty in GarageBand just now and the cat jumped up on my desk and somehow manage, with one swipe of her paw on the trackpad, shuffle around two segments of the song and also paste a couple of new notes into the bass line.
Two vocals, one melody/lyric, and one new song idea started.
Not too bad for a work day.
I made a works in progress playlist on hearthis.at. I know it won’t play from wordpress.com, but I’m posting it anyway because why the hell not. None of this matters anyway so why should I give a flying fuck at a rolling donut?
The naming scheme is year-project-counter-device the file originated on. Look at me being all assembly line efficient and shit. Yippee.
I just came home from my first car music of the 50/90 season. I had three songs to do. I did two of them. The mic was dropping out and distorting and sounding awful again. I had to do everything over and over again because of it. I’m about 95% sure it’s the mic cable. I will test that the next time I do a car music. I am Nana Sitting tonight which means I can’t do it tomorrow. Thursday or Friday maybe? Probably more like Sunday. We’ll see.
There should be car music tomorrow. We will see how I feel in the morning.
How’d we do today? One new song under way for a total of six. All have rhythm guitars and three have lyrics. Not bad for day two.
I usually don’t stress over melodies. These shitty songs are lucky they get any melody at all. Tonight though I found myself trashing something. I was working over a riff that has some really weird syncopation and I was playing a pretty simple melody. Shortly after wrapping up the phrase it started feeling familiar. I eventually placed it… it was a song from this year’s RPM Challenge.
Inside the Red Head's Head 