Tag: DIY

There is No Excuse for Clipping

Now I know how Rush must have felt when they got the first mix of Vapor Trails…

It’s a good thing these are just demos and not a real attempt at doing anything… real.

So the vocals… the clipping… the distortion. No excuse. It’s spoiled the entire song for me.

This is the second of two songs that I recorded in their entirety using GarageBand for iPhone. My ability to get a good vocal take on an iOS device is iffy at best, but I was just all over the place with my iPhone today.

Tonight, when I did the iOS mix of this one the vocals sounded bad, but they always sound bad, you know? They were worse than most of the songs I’ve done this month, but it wasn’t the end of the world.

Then I ported the file to the Mac and I could actually see the waveforms. Uh oh. Then I actually played the track. Oh damn, what a mess.

Sorry about that.


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As soon as I heard how distorted the vocal tracks were I listened back to the iOS mix to see how bad it sounded there. Now that I knew what I was looking for, yeah it’s there. It just doesn’t seem quite as insultingly awful on the first mix.


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I suppose I could go back and rerecord, but June ends on Monday and it’s a kid weekend. I don’t have time to do any more vocal recording. I’m stuck with this, unless I want to fix it next month. I won’t want to fix it next month though. The best this can hope for is that I rerecord the entire song from scratch at some future date.

Stolen Melody

Yes, yes I know. The guitar melody sounds a lot like the jazz standard “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.” I understand and I’m sorry, but it’s so rare that I come up with an instrumental melody that I just have to run with it when I get one.

The vocals… what happened. This was the first time I recorded vocals into a GarageBand file using an iPad in over two years. I think I have now figured out why it’s so thin and awful, but it’s too late to fix it now. It shouldn’t happen on any of the vocals I record from now on, but there might be one or two already in the can that have the same issue.

The lyrics are about feeling old and useless. Nothing major.

I used the GarageBand Drummer on the Mac Mix, but I don’t think it deviated that much from the iPad version.


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And here is the iPad version.

Hyperactive Drums

First off, the inspiration for the lyric was my MacBook Pro being unable to connect to my wireless mouse. I kid you not, that’s where it started. It sort of evolved into a fictional account of one of my customer’s network about to crash. I am an uber nerd and I am proud of it.

When I originally worked this out on my iPad I had it set for ¾ time. I should have set it for 6/8. I wanted an eighth note pulse. Instead of fixing things properly, I kept it on ¾ and drastically increased the tempo. Close enough.

Then I ported the file over to my Mac and tried to replace my shitty drums with GarageBand’s Drummer.

Oh yeah… that ridiculously fast tempo. Somehow though… I like the hyperactive drums. Let’s keep it! Rawk!


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And for comparison sake, here is the iPad version.

A Sort of Almost New Song… Sort Of

I had a neat idea for a riff but I was busy doing other things and couldn’t record it for future reference. When I did get a chance to sit down with a guitar later that night I couldn’t quite remember it. I came up with something that was in the ball park and that became the verse in the song I posted last night. The next night the forgotten riff came back to me and it became the chorus on this song. Hence the reason why the two little suckers sound so similar.


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And here is the iPad mix. I used the drummer function when I mixed on the Mac, which is why the drums will sound seriously different on this mix. Everything else is similar, although all of the processing is different.

The First Mac Mix

Duck and cover kids, here come the Mac Mixes.

This that song that I couldn’t play the riff for, yet again. While working on the Mac I reserve the right to change the drum sounds and the bass sounds, and to change all the signal processing on the guitars and vocals. Also, I reserve the right to replace the drum parts with the GarageBand Drummer function, although I didn’t do that on this song.

I did change the drum sound and the bass sound, although I just ended up using the Mac version of the same bass sound I used on the iPad. They are close to the same, but the Mac version just sounded a little fatter. The only change I made to the guitar was to swap the panning. The rhythm guitar is doubled with each one panned most of the way to either left or right. One of the tracks used the neck pick up on the Strat, the other used the middle pick up. On the iPad version the neck pick up was to the left. On the Mac version it is to the right. For the vocals I changed the preset and the EQ. I also added compression to the drums, the bass, and both vocal tracks, and to the full mix. Just a little on the mix.

Here is the new mix…

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For comparison, here is the iPad mix (again)…

March Music Update (a little one)

Just when you thought the March Music project goofiness was dead and buried…

I came up with something new last night. Just a few little riffs. I put them down on the iPad just before bed. This morning I added some guitars. That’s nine songs in progress and two more ideas that I haven’t made go anywhere yet. Tomorrow. More will be done tomorrow. Really. I promise.

The Final RPM Challenge Post of 2014

Here it is kids, the (now) annual last official RPM Challenge post of the year.  I have uploaded this year’s stuff to my official RPM jukebox page.

Robert Parker’s RPM Challenge Music.

So there it is folks.  That page has three little flash playlists that contain my three officially submitted RPM Challenge projects.  This closes the book on February 2014.  I had a good time, despite being less than pleased with the end results.  There are a couple of decent moments.  One of the songs that I was really disappointed with is actually getting some love on alonetone.  I find that very weird.  Oh well.

I will keep plugging on more album-in-a-month zaniness, but RPM itself is over until next year.

Songs in Progress

Here are the first seven of what I hope will be 10 new songs for this month. Actually the last two are from last month. I kept the bass, changed the drums, and deleted everything else. It’s sort of like starting over.

RPM Challenge – Day Eight

I’m up to song nine last night. Song eight has a lot of structure left to figure out. I did it on the iPad last night and haven’t ported it to the Mac yet. Song nine is the obligatory 7/8. It’s just bass and drums so far, but I used the drummer function again. It worked out pretty well in this case.

On a net-nerd front, I had been using my “B” soundcloud account for works in progress. Today I figured that was silly so I loaded everything into the main account.

Here’s a playlist that will be deleted once the project is complete:

RPM Challenge – Day Six

Last night before bed I started work on song #6. It’s just base and drums for now but it is a return to form for me. Last year’s RPM project was the first one I’ve done that did not include a 12-bar blues. Well this year I have rectified that error. Song #6 is a 12-bar! Welcome back!

Tonight I started work on song #7. It’s a little melody I tinkered out on the iPad using GarageBand’s Heavy Metal Organ sound. Gotta love that. I ported it over to the Mac and used the GarageBand Drummer function again. It worked. I’m satisfied with it this time.

This project needs more time signature variety. I’ve got one 6/8, one 5/4, and five 4/4s. It might be time to break out the old prog rock favorite, 7/8. Maybe over the weekend.