Does This Work?

Years ago I was posting music on this page using HTML5 audio tags and links to my alonetone account. For some reason I stopped doing that. I think its because the audio file links were auto-downloading instead of just opening up in a new browser tab.

Everything on the wordpress.com side has changed too, but I wonder if I can still use the tags. I found some ancient posts (from 2014, I think) that are still functional. Can I use those tags again?

ADDENDUM: Nope. Doesn’t work in this editor. I tried a whole bunch of different variations on the tag attributes but nothing worked. No big deal. I’ll keep using hearthis.at when I want to post audio here. Okay, sorry to waste your time.

New Song for June

I think I had a little too much caffeine this afternoon. It’s late but I’m not really tired at all. The Vegas Knights and Montreal Canadiens are going to overtime in game six. Vegas has to win. Vegas. Must. Win.

So in my non-sleepiness I mixed a song. The Record Every Month Challenge thingie will have an entry from me for June.

No Change for Me (Part 1)

Note how the link to the song is a link and not a little embedded audio player. Why is that? Well, kids, I found out the hard way that hearthis.at has an upload limit for free accounts and I’ve reached it. I’ll make a second free account and somehow link them together, but not tonight. Tonight I am not up for that challenge. Tonight we’ll just settle for a link to alonetone.

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.

I Am Done with 63 Minutes to Spare – #RPM2020

I am finished with my 2020 RPM Challenge album with 63 minutes to spare.  Kick ass, dudes!

I ended up with 18 songs, seven of which had two mixes.  I was going to go with half electric and half acoustic or something, and maybe have the alternate mixes as their own thing.  In the end I just listed to each song and put each one onto one of three lists:  Good, kinda good, crap.  The good list had 13 songs, kinda good had three, and crap had two.  I then listened to both mixes of any acoustic songs on the good list and decided which mix I liked better.  I was a little surprised that some of the cajon mixes were the better of the two.  Last I took the 13 songs on the good list and kinda sorta ordered them from my favorite to my least favorite, and that became the final album.

hearthis.at is being bitchy and won’t let me upload any new songs tonight.  The RPM Challenge website is completely down too.  The internets are being a jerk.  Alonetone, however, is five by five.  Here’s a link to the final record:

I Only Believe in Truth

Alonetone

I started a new alonetone account.  I started having trouble uploading files.  They seemed to be making it to the server but they were showing as locked, or private, or whatever.  I can’t find the setting to control that, and nothing I did seemed to change anything.  I thought I had maxed out the number of tracks as upload #300 worked, but #301-310 did not.

Anyway, I started a new account and was able to upload this year’s RPM album without issue.  You can see it here, if you’re a glutton for punishment.

I was really afraid of the reaction, but I sent a link to the album to the guys in the band.  No response.  Not surprised.

Two Songs Mixed

I mixed two songs tonight. Both include the sound of the new Fender guitar.

The first is from March. It’s called “The Universe Next Door” because I can never sound pretentious enough. The title came from a news story I read back in March. I wrote the name down, but not the link to the story. Sorry. I don’t know what any of the lyrics are actually about. Paranoia? How rock and roll!

http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/the-universe-next-door.mp3%20

The second song is from the April list, but it is actually ancient. It was written in my bedroom back in 1993. Maybe 1992. I guess it might have been 1994. Who the hell knows! It’s old! It was played by all of the short lived bands that came after Tempest Fero but before Prime Meridian. Maria the drummer didn’t like it (I think… it’s been a really freakin’ long time) so Mike and I agreed to drop it. Almost immediately we wrote another yipppeee dance song to replace it. That one might be included in the next album in a month batch.

http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/falling-star-1.mp3%20

April Song #3

Another one about science denial. This time we have a denier questioning his belief but receiving a pep talk from a more faithful denier. Interesting, I know.

I was going to keep everything this month above 100 beats per minute. This one is 59 beats per minute. I can never keep to my own goals. It’s kind of pathetic, you know?

There might be issues linking to this alonetone file. They are having some performance/server issues tonight. Just be cool, the site is awesome even if the song is not.

http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/believedeceive.mp3%20

RPM Challenge – Day 28 – FINISHED

The clock struck midnight as I was typing this. My MacBook battery is down to 13%.

The last songs are finished. I even added a new song while I was waiting for the kids to get out of karate. It’s just a really silly 90 second long 12-bar that I probably should have left off the final CD but didn’t.

Here’s the playlist at alonetone. I’ll get it to bandcamp and add it to my music page some other time.

ADDENDUM:
The alonetone playlist is displaying but it’s not playing, so here is the same playlist on soundcloud. This will be deleted eventually, but the alonetone one will live forever (so long as the site stays up).

RPM Challenge – Day 22 Again

I mixed two songs tonight. The first of the two is just a terrible song that I really hope I’ll be able to drop. I need lyrics for at least one more song in order to do that. I think I really must get at least one more done. This song just sucks.

http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/forced.mp3%20

The other song is okay, but it is really similar to another song that I’ve already finished. Big chunks of both songs were actually written in one sitting. That might explain it. Ya think?

http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/not-if-i-see-you-first.mp3%20

I hope to be able to record more vocals tomorrow. I’ve got two more ready to go. I’ve got another song ready to mix, and another song that only needs leads. It would be nice if I could get through all of them tomorrow. Then I would have telecommuting on Monday and Thursday to finish up any additional vocals I might get to before the deadline. The goal is still to record 14 songs. It’s getting near the end, and I have a lot left to do.