Tag: Recording

Musical Distraction

We are at the hotel, killing time before we head out to the next graduation event. I walked a couple of miles this morning to close my exercise ring. Actual walking outdoors. How sick is that?

I’m letting my tiny little brain think about music projects today. Last month’s two record-every-month songs were recorded direct input using the speaker sim out of my Vox MV50 amplifier. This month I was going to use my Fender Deluxe Reverb with a mic for everything. Now that the calendar says it is May 20th I think it’s safe to say that my May recording plans are down the shitter. As a result, I’m thinking I might go back to the direct signal thing a little more.

At first it was because we had one of the kids in the house and he sleeps late every day which means no amps in the morning before work. Now though… I think I just want to. It sounded okay to me last month. I’m watching some YouTube videos of folks with similar rigs and they are sounding okay too. I think I just want to mess with it more.

The follow up question would be do I do a direct into the PA rig when the band starts playing again. Probably not, but maybe try it once just to see how it works? Maybe.

Record Every Month for April: Complete

I have finished two songs for the Record Every Month Challenge for April. My mini-challenge of recording a single each month is still on track. My mini challenge of recording an EP in April crashed and burned. That’s okay.

The A Side is okay. The B Side is garbage. I used my SG and my Vox MV50 on all of the guitar tracks, and recorded everything direct into my iPad. I also mixed on the iPad, which might explain why the mixes are worse than the usual crap.

Here’s the A Side:

Here’s the uber crappy B Side:

Next month will use my Les Paul and my Deluxe Reverb, and my new King of Tone overdrive pedal which I waited over five years to get and still haven’t even plugged in. That changes starting tomorrow. Until then, enjoy this crap.

Car Music

The April entry for the Record Every Month Challenge lives! I hopped in the car this morning, drove to an empty parking lot, and recorded vocals for two songs. One song is abysmal. The other is okay, I guess.

I was able to stick to this month’s gimmick of doing all of the work on my iPad. I tested out my little mic interface before I left the house, just to make sure it would work. It did.

Instead of the usual pictures, I decided to test to see if iMovie still was a thing and I took a bunch of fake super 8 clips and then stitched them all together into a nearly five minute long snore fest. Don’t worry, the downtown clock is there, it’s just at the very end.

Recording Studio

What do you think of my recording studio?

Gibson SG standard into Ibanez Tube Screamer Mini into Vox MV50 Clean into IK Multimedia iRig split into iPad Air running GarageBand and an old pair of Bose headphones.

The only downside is the crew working on the bay window in the living room unplugged our router so my iPhone is now my only source of internet. Oh well.

Possible April Music Plan

I haven’t done much for the record every month thing this month. I have a couple of less than good ideas in GarageBand on my iPad but they aren’t really worth pursuing. What should I do? I might have a plan for something to force some music out of me.

I am off work on Monday and Tuesday. We are having new windows installed on those days and I took them off so that I could be available to the crew doing the work if they need anything. Other than letting them into the house, I can’t imagine I will have much to do so I have been planning on hanging out in the cellar (or if the weather is nice, maybe on the patio in the backyard) watching Star Wars Rebels (I’m a smidge over half way through my rewatch) and The X-Files. Maybe I should plan to use those two days for music.

I also recently bought a new iRig so that I can run my guitar into my iPad again. Maybe to shake things up I could restrict myself to GarageBand on my iPad instead of mostly using it on my MacBook Pro. That could be fun. Maybe I could further restrict things by using the cab sim on my Vox MV50 and using that for an amp. That way I could use an amp and not be super loud and annoying while the window folks are working upstairs. That could be fun too. I’d probably also restrict myself to a single overdrive pedal. I tried doing that in February with the Keeley Super Phat Mod (the one pedal that I want to really love but somehow cannot bond with) before switching to the Chicago Stompworks Blooze Maker.

I wouldn’t be able to pull off an album in a day thing, but maybe I could try to do an album in two days? I’d have to record vocals in the car on Tuesday morning before the window people arrive. Maybe I could just plan to do as much music as possible over the two days and then finish off whatever I don’t get to afterwards. I don’t know.

I think a plan has been formed. Let’s see if I can actually follow it and pull anything off. Maybe I could spend two days working on my iPad, and then take any music that I manage to finish and redo it on the MacBook and end up with two different versions of each song. I did that once back in 2014 where I did an album in June with each song mixed on the iPad and the MacBook. Huh… maybe.

Let’s see what happens.

B-Side

The second of two songs for March is complete. I guess. The vocals are atrocious and the whole thing feels kinda blah. The song is okay, I just didn’t play it very well. It could use a little editing and a little… enthusiasm? Maybe? It’s fine for a B-Side. The other song is much better.

Another Long Day

Another long day filled with a gaggle of long, frustrating meetings and problems. 18 minutes until the weekend. I think we’re in a position right now where we will be able to call it a day at quittin’ time, but I’m not going to count my chickens until they hatch.

What’s in the queue for the weekend? Not sunrise at the ocean pictures because the weather forecast is crappy. Tonight we’ll have our third Hello Fresh meal. The first two were excellent and I expect good things from the turkey meal we have lined up for tonight.

I have to mix a song. It’s the last day of the month so I need to finish off the second of two songs I worked on this month before midnight so that I can complete my personal write and record a single challenge. The first song was done a couple of nights ago. The second song isn’t as good, and the performance is worse, but it’s still worth finishing. Tomorrow is April 1st so the Record Every Month challenge resets and I can start working on something new. I’m thinking about using the tremolo built into my amplifier this time. I never use it… so maybe I should.

Jen has a project in her office that we’re going to work on. She wants to change a bunch of things on her desk. We haven’t done that in a while so it will be fun to mix it up. I am thinking of changing things up on my desk too, but I think I want to wait a month until the window replacement project is complete. I don’t know why but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

My exercise and calorie (move) goals are done for today. My liquid intake goal is also done. I have a few more hours before my stand goal is done, and almost half of my protein goal is still outstanding. I’m behind on that one, by quite a bit. I’ll hit it though.

Okay, time to sign off. I still have nine minutes left in the work week. The weekend is so close… so very, very close. I’m ready for it.