Tag: Guitar

Tracking is Done

The Great 2015 Re-recording project started in, you guessed it, 2015. I failed to finish it in a timely manner and it kept getting extended and each time I revisited it I added more songs to it and by the time 2020 came around and I really got to it for really reals it was gigantic.

I just put the last guitar track onto the last song. Tracking is officially done.

What was supposed to be 8-10 songs has turned into 58, I think, and instead of one little best-of playlist it’s going to end up with six.

What did I learn from today’s monumental (#sarcasm) guitar tracking session?

Stringjoy strings last longer than any other strings I’ve ever played, but they don’t last forever. When they’re dead, they are really dead, and the strings on my Les Paul Standard are dead. I will change them before RPM starts next week, I promise.

Also… calluses are important. Ouch.

I’ve got two songs left to mix and then The Great 2015 Re-recording Project, aka Quarantine Tunes, will be over. I want it done today. Let’s move on to new things, shall we?

Song Time

I said in the last post that I was going to play guitar tonight but I decided to mix a song instead. The Great 2015 Re-recording Project only has two more songs outstanding after this one. They both need lead guitars and a mix, but after that the whole shebang is done.

Which means that after RPM is done I’m going to have to think of something new to do to waste my time.

Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel

When I say that the sixth and final round of The Great 2015 Re-recording project is scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as available songs is concerned, this is what I am talking about.

Not bad. Not good. Just, meh. I probably should have left this one off.

Here’s a Song

The only song from last year’s RPM Challenge to be added to The Great 2015 Re-recording project is this little sucker. I think this version is better than last year’s, which is nice. Mission accomplished. I also think this needs to be played loud. It doesn’t seem to land as well at a lower volume. That’s probably a sign that the mix is shitty, but I don’t care. It’s done. Again.

Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel

Right, so I did four rounds of re-recording old songs, then a round of re-recording recent songs, and now one more round of old songs. I am absolutely scraping the bottom of the barrel here, and the barrel isn’t exactly what you’d call deep.

This one comes from the failed 2010 RPM Challenge, which wasn’t finished until late summer 2011, along with the failed 2011 RPM Challenge. It’s slow, it’s dumb, and it’s ridiculously simple, but it’s got a lot of fuzz on it so it’s okay in my book.

Guitar Playing is Fun

I chased this morning’s car vocals with some guitar playing. Bad guitar playing, but better than my usual crap. Well… maybe not that much better. Whatever.

I put leads on three songs. Volume six of the Great 2015 Re-Recording Project now has four songs ready to mix and only two more in the pipeline that aren’t ready to mix. Maybe I’ll mix a song tonight. That’d be fun, wouldn’t it?

Pictures!

Wah Wah

I played some guitar tonight. I wasn’t going to but I did and it made me happy.

I redid a couple of rhythm guitar tracks that I didn’t like the sound of and then I put leads on one of the songs that got vocals this morning. I used my new wah pedal a lot. It’s a Real McCoy Custom RMC10 and it is killer. The sweep on it is gigantic. It starts on Monday and ends on Thursday. That’s how gigantic the sweep is. It’s actually so much wider than I’m used to that I think it is going to take some time to adjust my brain to it. It sounds great though.

I started putting leads on the other song that got vocals this morning but I had to stop before I finished. I used my Fuzz Face again but this time I stuck a Klon copy after it as a boost and it was gnarly and bitchin and mean and nasty and wonderful.

Fuzz Face pedals and wah-wahs are notorious for not working well together. I haven’t tried the combo yet with the new wah, but I will.

I hope to get in some more car music tomorrow. We’ll see. For now though, I am feeling pretty good about the little bit that I accomplished tonight.

Lunch Break

I failed to get out of bed early enough to go out for some car music today. It’s been a while. I need to keep on this. I want the re-recordings done before RPM starts on February 1st. Get on it, fat boy!

My hair is so long that it keeps covering my glasses. When I am wearing my sit-at-the-computer glasses and I have to look somewhere else, I try to look over the top of my glasses. I can’t do that today because there is 20 pounds of hair sitting there. I keep thinking my glasses are dirty because there’s smutz on them. The smutz, as you can probably guess, is actually my hair. If I don’t get my hair cut tomorrow I am going to lose my shit. At the same time, I really don’t want to get my hair cut tomorrow because I really don’t want Covid. Damn it!

Yesterday was Dr Martin Luther King, Jr day in the USA. Was it also a holiday in the UK? Why is the That Pedal Show live show happening today instead of yesterday?

I just did something I haven’t done in ages. Instead of chasing my lunch with some junk food, I had some fruit. I am sharing that information not because it’s interesting to you, my loyal and much loved readers, but because if I happen to look back at this a few days or weeks or years from now I want to know that on at least one day I did at least one thing right. I am encouraging/guilting my hypothetical future self.

My step son is taking a jazz piano course. Just a one credit thing. He had his first lesson today. He’s very excited. He said he popped a 9th on top of a Dominat 7 chord. Yes. Next stop, Chick Effin’ Corea babie!

Right, back to work.