Tag: Garageband

RPM Challenge – Day 22

We are going for a drive today in the hopes of getting desks and desk chairs for the kids.  When we woke up we had a very small window of time for anything other than getting ready to go.  I used that time wisely and recorded the leads for song #5.  It was far from perfect, but far from my usual terrible.  What was weird was that I nailed each part on the first take.  Woah!  I must be in the groove.  (that is sarcasm, the groove and I never see eye to eye, let alone meet up)

Even weirder is that I recorded a 16 bar guitar riff that will become song #15.  Now that is weird!  Here I am convinced I won’t have time to finish 14 songs and I go and start a 15th.  Somebody stop me!

RPM Challenge – Day 21

I sort of lost count. I did either two or three lead guitar parts this morning. I think it was two. This evening I mixed one of those songs. The first four bars have been in my head for ages, but I’ve never found them a home until now. The lyrics were sort of inspired by the @floridaman twitter account. I went there looking for ridiculous stories and instead found two reports of utterly senseless violence.

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

I hope to get some more guitar soloing in before we go to IKEA in the morning. We can discuss that later.

RPM Challenge – Day 20

I just recorded two songs worth of vocals…

While sitting in the front seat of my car, waiting to get the kids from karate class.

I think this is the theme of the remainder of the project.

Three songs complete, five songs with finished vocals, two songs with lyrics written but not recorded, four songs that still need lyrics.

RPM Challenge – Day 19

Not much today. I mixed one song last night and recorded one vocal this morning. I am off work the next two days, but will not have the house to myself tomorrow. I will try to do some more whispered guide vocals if I can write some damn lyrics. I think I will be using the random wikipedia article trick quite a bit this year.

Here is the song I mixed last night. I am not happy with the mix at all. The vocals are too low. Of course with my singing, too low is infinitely better than too loud. Am I right, or am I right?

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

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.

RPM Challenge Day Four

Last night I started song #4. It uses the ancient riff I’ve been talking about for the last four days. I had it sketched out before I went to bed, but tonight I added an organ part to it.

When I was satisfied with song #4 I started playing with new ideas. I wanted to keep noodling with the organ sound so I stayed with that. I also wanted an odd time signature so I set the GarageBand project to 5/4 time. I ended up with a 5th song project, but I’m not happy with it. I forced it tonight. It didn’t come to me the way the good ones do. I dragged it out of my head, kicking and screaming and the end results will show that. I didn’t outright dump it. Not yet at least.

I am working on RPM and FAWM at the same time, as always. RPM needs 10 songs, FAWM needs 14. I think I have two that are destined to be FAWM only (songs 2 and 5). I’ll finish them for the project’s sake, but I don’t see them being anything I’d listen to again. Last year I managed to like everything I had enough to put it on the RPM CD. There was one that I was on the fence with until the last minute, but something made me keep it. In 2012 I had 15 songs (FAWM, leap year style) and only used 13 on the CD. At this rate I’ll be lucky to end up with 10 songs that I don’t hate.

RPM Challenge – Day 2

I didn’t do nearly as much as I’d hoped today, but I did get a third song kicked off. Again, not the riff I’d planned for the second song, but something new. Jen was in the kitchen making dinner. I was helping, but she gave me a few minutes off. I picked up my iPad and, using a piano sound, played the first couple of things that came into my head. Tonight, while sitting in bed, I changed the piano to a bass, and then gave the new GarageBand’s “drummer” mode a whirl. It inserted a drum part into each of my three bits. I messed with the settings a little and came up with something that I would not have thought off, that was also clearly better than what I had in mind. I don’t know if I’ll use it again, but it was cool to play with it tonight.

One Last Pre-RPM Oldish Song

One more before the RPM craziness begins. This one was written in 1998 during Spring Break. It was then recorded in 2007 when I first heard about RPM but was too late to try it officially so I recorded 10 songs in March before taking a real shot at the challenge in April and failing miserably.

How’s that for a run on sentence?

I’ve always liked this one but I’ve never really been able to pull it off. The lyrics are about a photo of my grandparents that I first saw at my grandmother’s wake. I never new my grandfather, but my grandmother had always been there. Then she was gone. At the wake there was a picture of the two of them together when they were young. I think it might have been taken while they were dating. They were standing on the street looking like too kids who were acting goofy. It was hard to reconcile the saint I knew with the goofball in the picture. A few months later I came up with this song. My brother, John wrote the drum part. I was playing the guitar part in our little practice room at home and he came running in and jumped on the drums and started playing along. Just one more reason to really dig this song.

Here’s the new version:
http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/photograph-redux.mp3%20

Here’s the old version, for suffering’s sake:
http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/photograph.mp3%20

Another New (Oldish) Song

I finished re-recording another song from my 2011 RPM. This time I didn’t monkey with the arrangement at all. I just added some fruity effects and a couple of vocal harmonies.

Here’s the new version:
http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/ice-redux.mp3%20

Here’s the old version:
http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/ice.mp3%20