Tag: Quarantine tunes

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.

Recording Studio Magic-ish

Back in 2015 I worked out a song for the RPM Challenge that tricked GarageBand into using different time signatures. It chugs along at 120 beats per minute switching between 7/8, 6/4, and 4/4 like nobody’s business. It was a cool song to play and I had a lot of fun working on it, but it took me a long time to get the rhythm guitars recorded in a way that was good enough to keep.

There was a section in the middle of the song though… 24 bars… written on a keyboard with the tempo set to something much lower than 120 bpm. It was, to my lame ears, a cool break in the middle of the song. Unfortunately I couldn’t play it at 120 bpm on the guitar. It was just too fast for my fat fingers to grasp. I ended up recording it in pieces. Three bars then one bar, repeat six times, then move to a second track and repeat the whole thing. It was pretty brutal to get through.

That was in 2015. One month later I started messing with the idea of a re-recording project. I didn’t get far. Then in 2016 when RPM ended I went back to the re-recording thing and added this particular song to the list. Apparently I forgot about all of the stress it had caused me when I first recorded it.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and the re-recording project finally gets around to this song. I had forgotten everything. I started with the bass and drums and had to remember how to trick GarageBand into using different time signatures (hint: it boils down to math). Then I had to remember how to trick GarageBand into letting me use the Session Drummer with the different time signatures (hint: lots of bouncing segments between two tracks, one of which is not the session drummer). Then last night I took my first crack at adding guitars.

Intro? No problem. Verses? Easy. Chorus? Cake. All the little 1-2 bar bridge sections? No problem. The section in the middle (actually, while working on the MIDI tracks I cut a few sections out of the song. One of them was the last eight bars of the middle section so the 24 bar section is now only 16 bars, dig)? Hello? Anyone?

Could I play it?

Not even close.

While I was struggling last night Harry came home from work so I stopped trying. Today I had a little time to get back to it. I scrapped everything I did yesterday and started fresh, mostly just to build up my confidence. When I got to the middle section I did something unusual. I just sat here at my desk, looking at GarageBand, and practiced. Not for long. Just enough to get it under my fingers, even though it was wrong 90% of the time. Then I split the 16 bars into four, four bar segments and started on the first segment. Remember I double everything, so each four bar segment needs to be done twice. It took me a long time to get the first one. The second track went a little quicker. Same with segment two. For segment three, it took a lot longer to get the first track, but the second track was nailed in one take! WOOHOO! Of course that just jinxed me for the rest and I needed like 10-15 tries for each piece.

The end result though… I have the full 16 bars, twice. Kick ass! The punches were nice and clean too, so I can’t even tell that it was recorded in pieces. It just sounds like I am actually able to play the guitar like a big boy and I just did it. Nice.

Wow… I wrote a lot about this stupid little song.

Guitar pictures to celebrate my being able to pretend I don’t suck quite as bad as I clearly do!

I also retired a pick today, and the battery on my clip on tuner is about to die. That’s all the news that is fit to print.

Another New Old Song

After including three Rush songs in the last post, this new thing should sound that much shittier.

A song from 2010 with new lyrics and a new coat of paint. I waffled on whether to re-do this song for years. Literally. It went on the list of songs to work on in 2016 and was dropped off and re-added at least twice. Now that it’s done… I probably should have left it off.

It has a drum solo though.

Guitar Pain

I hid away in the cellar tonight playing the guitar. I came up with something new for the Record Every Month thing for January. I came up with something last night but tonight’s is probably a little better. I’ll probably finish them both. The thing I worked out tonight was really hurting my left hand. Lots of cramping (arthritis, maybe?) painful pain.

Next I worked on a re-recording. I hadn’t done anything accept setup the GarageBand file. It’s the same file I used when I wrote the song last February. I pulled apart the mix and left one rhythm guitar track and one vocal track as guides. Normally I replace the MIDI tracks, drums and bass, before I replace the guitars, but this time I started with guitar. Why? Because I just didn’t want to stop recording tonight, that’s all.

I probably should have picked something easier because this particular re-recording took my already hurting left hand and amplified the pain by a factor of 50. Damn, was I hurting. I got through everything, though I am not entirely sure I’m happy with it. I’ll have to live with it for a few days before I decide if I want to do it again.

My hand is still a little sore, but mostly I am feeling better. It was really hurting tonight. I don’t like when that happens. I don’t like it at all.

For the record, here is the already super messy desk I’ve been using, complete with the Bruins game (second intermission, leading 3-2 over New Jersey) on my iPad.

Boxing Day Mix

So another Christmas holiday comes to an end with the posting of yet another new version of an old song. This one started out in 2011 and has been recorded three times. I am not sure why I keep coming back to it. It’s not very good. This is definitely the best of the three though.

Happy Holidays.

Christmas Mix

I snuck in a mix for a new take on an old song today. This was before our canceled family Christmas was brought back to life.

Written in 2009 for a failed crack at the RPM Challenge. This is really the first time I’ve looked at it since, but it’s always stuck in the back of my head.

Is it a good song? No. No it is not. Not even close. It’s kinda fun to play though.

Volume Five is Done

I mixed the last song on the list for Quarantine Tunes Volume 50/90. This one makes 10 songs written over the summer, redone for the winter… or something like that.

There is really nothing to this song so I went overboard on the gimmicks and effects and now it’s a soupy, saucy mess, but I like it.

Now I need to come up with a running order for the 10 songs and I can declare the fifth volume of re-recorded songs finished and get back to work on the sixth volume.

Merry Christmas Eve, everyone. Maybe next year I’ll mix a Christmas song on Christmas Eve. For now, you’re stuck with this guy.

HoHoHo.

One More Song for Today

I haven’t finished Quarantine Tunes Volume 5 yet, but here I am mixing the first song for Volume 6. This is just getting silly now.

Written in February 2007, rearranged slightly and rerecorded in 2013, and now rererecorded in 2021. I keep coming back to this, even though it’s really a crap song. Also, this is a seriously ratty, crap performance, but it is a lot of fun to play.

Song, Second Attempt

I just wrote this post a few minutes ago and it included what I thought was a new version of a song from this past summer, but the hearthis.at player actually grabbed the original version. Weird.

Let’s try again and see if we get the right one this time….