2023 50/90 Challenge Day 18/90

I failed to record guitars this morning, but I didn’t fail tonight. I know I wrote the wrap up post for last night today, so you’re getting a second wrap up post. Confusing? Maybe. Do I care? Not really.

I mixed a song this morning but you know that because I posted it even though it was crap. Tonight I put both rhythm and lead guitars onto two songs, and then put leads onto two more. Not the most impressive haul, but not bad given the total failure of my original plans.

Photos for fun.

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Morning Fail

Guess what I didn’t get to this morning before work.

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I managed to finish my daily exercise, watch this week’s new episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (excellent!), and finish the Library episode of Doctor Who that I started last night but fell asleep during the second episode.

No music though, so the morning goes down in the books as a failure.

Fun with Guitars

I recorded guitars for a bunch of songs today. The performances suck to the high heavens, but they exist so… yeah.

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I did not record direct today. I had a mic on a speaker like the old timers used to do. Direct signals are fine and all, but making actual noise is so much better. Every time.

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Guitar Tracks

I spent about two hours recording guitars today. I finished five of the 10 songs that are currently in the fifty-songs-in-90-days-challenge pipeline. Including the song that is in 13/8 time, and the song that is in 15/8 time. First time I have ever knowingly played guitar in either of those time signatures. Milestones, babie!

I used direct input into the USB audio interface for all of the tracks, including using two amps at a time. I took the obligatory pictures, but Flickr is being a dick today and won’t let me upload PNG files, or any files for that matter, on the web. I had to dumb these down to JPGs and share them onto my iPhone and upload them from the Flickr app. I am thusly annoyed.

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June is Ending

Today is the last day of June. I haven’t mentioned the June music project lately. How is that going? Are you going to reach your goal of writing and recording ten (bad) songs within the 30 days of June?

Maybe?

I mixed two songs yesterday. That put me at seven songs complete. At the start of the day today I had one song that needed lead guitars and two more that were ready to mix. Well, I just put some really pathetic guitar leads down on that one song, which ironically is song #1 for this month. Why is the first song started going to be the last one finished? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.

Anyway, that one guitar track being finished (poorly) means that tracking for this album in a month challenge is done and I just have to mix three songs. I think I can do that today. We’ll see.

What about the 10 songs from May? I gave myself to the end of the day on July 3rd to finish those 10 songs. I don’t think I am going to make it. I still have one song that doesn’t have rhythm guitars, and six that don’t have lyrics. Yeah, there’s pretty much zero chance of me hitting this new deadline. 50/90 starts on the fourth of July so the May stuff is probably going to be ignored for a few additional months. Oh well. I am not really doing 50/90. Not officially at least. I am going to see what I can do with a faux 50/90. We’ll see.

Okay, time to add a couple of guitar pics and then punch into work on this fine Friday. 8 hours and 45 minutes until the weekend.

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Good Morning

I wicked overslept today. I wanted to get up before 6:00, do my yogging, play some guitar, have some breakfast, then check in with work. There’s a customer going through a huge project this weekend and there is a chance I could get called in to help out. I wanted a status update to make sure I’m in the clear (I am 99% sure I won’t get called now, things are going well).

Instead I slept until after 7:30. I still did all of that stuff, I just did it hours later than expected. I also changed the litter boxes and filled up the bird feeders and am currently on my second load of laundry. It’s been an active kinda day so far.

Now that all of that is out of the way, I should be able to spend some time mixing some music and writing some lyrics for what I hope will be a huge car music tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed on that one.

Pictures:

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I put leads on two songs using my SG and then switched to my Les Paul for the third and final song. I have now run out of songs that are ready for leads. There’s only one song remaining that is ready for rhythm guitar, but I am waiting on that one. I don’t know why, but I am. I am still sticking to the May Music Project plan of only using the new King of Tone pedal. I brought my stay-at-home pedal board out of the closet the other day but I haven’t set it up yet. I will use that once the faux 50/90 starts on the 4th of July. I think. I want to put the King of Tone onto the board too, in place of whatever overdrive is currently following the Klon KTR in the chain. I think it’s the Keeley D&M Drive right now, though I hate to put that one away. I need to see how The King plays with others.

Okay, more music updates later. I think. We’ll see.

18 Days and Counting

Magically, the streak of consecutive days where the guitar was played for at least a couple of minutes has reached 18. I put rhythm guitar tracks onto one of the final two songs from May. Only one more song to go. Last night I wrote lyrics for two of the June songs, and after I finished playing the gitter I wrote lyrics for a third. There will be car music tomorrow, though I am not sure how that schedule will work out.

I used the direct out from the Bassbreaker 15 amplifier. It calls it cabinet emulation, not simulation, but whatever. It sounds… okay. Not great. The little nutube Vox amp probably sounds better. I’ll stick with this for a while and see if it grows on me.

Pics:

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Grogu used The Force to turn the amp around. After weight loss surgery, I am no longer strong enough to lift a tube amp.
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As for tomorrow. Here’s the plan. I am going to get up at the ass crack of dawn and do the third Couch to 5k training. I expect I will die during that, but once it’s over I will go inside and eat breakfast and recover. Then after breakfast is done, and the one hour pause after eating before I can drink water again is also done, I’ll jump in the car, drive to a secluded place, and crank out some vocal tracks.

Hopefully. We’ll see if I can stick to that plan or not. Wish me luck.

Yup, He Played Guitar Today

I had two song ideas left over from May that hadn’t been worked into a song form yet. I took care of both of them while watching an episode of The X Files and eating some breakfast. When that was done I put guitar tracks on both songs. That leaves me with two songs still needing rhythm guitar tracks. Both are leftover from May.

That means I have 11 songs ready for lyrics now, and two more that are almost ready for lyrics. Yikes! I need to get cracking on that. Lots of car music in my near future, eh? There are still four songs waiting to be mixed as well. Got to get moving! It’s June 22nd. There are only eight days left in June! If I do a faux 50/90 this year I might include July 1-3 in June too. 50/90 doesn’t start until July 4th. We’ll see how far I get.

Two pictures because I am getting tired of this and getting lazy.

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Okay, Robert. Let’s go get ready for work.

The Morning So Far

I did not forget to put out the trash. I am significantly less dumb than last week. Of course last week I waited until Wednesday and that was a stupid mistake. This week I had to wait until Wednesday because Monday was a holiday. Okay. Next week will be back to normal.

I did my 30 minute work out, yogging in place. The couch to 5k comes back tomorrow. I watched episode one of Secret Invasion. I am hooked so far. I will probably watch it again before episode two comes out. I did play guitar for about five minutes. It counts. I didn’t plug in, I just played an A minor scale a bunch of times. I didn’t record anything. I just don’t have time.

Up next is my pre-commute morning routine. I need to pack my bag and get moving. Today is going to suck, but I will handle it. Bring it on, bro.

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