Tag: Recording

What Am I doing?

Remember in that last post when I mentioned doing another round of re-recordings of older songs?

I have literally lost my mind.

How about two more rounds?

I picked out a handful of songs to think about re-doing. Most were from the last couple of RPM Challenges but I poked around through other projects looking to fill out the numbers. When I got to the 2020 50/90 playlist I thought about how I made a whole 10 song project out of songs written for the 2021 50/90 and I thought… do it again?

Sure enough, I have 10 songs from various places and projects, that will be round seven. I also have 10 songs just from the 2020 50/90, and that will be round eight.

Robert… come on… what are you doing?

Realize that this is just me trying to be a 50 year old schmuck who is following social distance protocols up to and beyond their maximum who still wants to play the guitar a lot and who also likes to think that part of him is still that 22 year old kid who went to school to learn how to operate a recording studio.

So… yeah. That’s happening.

It might be a while before I get too deeply into it as I still haven’t started doing the laundry. I’ll get to it though.

Finally Played Guitar Again

It’s been almost a month since I played the guitar at all. Finally I got some noodling in today. I kicked off a couple of song ideas for the Record Every Month challenge thing and I put rhythm guitars on them. They both suck pretty hard, but it’s okay. Something is better than nothing, I hope.

My new Les Paul through the Klon KTR into the Keeley D&M Drive into the Vox AC15. That’s a happy noise.

As always, forgive the dust.

Calm Down

Given the hectic nature of the last two weeks, it is almost unsettling to have a Saturday with nothing going on. I started work on two songs for Record Every Month. I watched a Star Trek Discovery episode, and I am about to start a second.

Jen and I have talked over some plans for redesigning the rest of the kitchen and the dining room. We were thinking of going to IKEA tonight but the idea of the crowds and the Covid risk and what not is steering us away. We might try to go shortly before close on a weeknight this week to cut down on the human interactions.

I am going to play guitar today. Bank on it.

Music Idea for My Vacation Week

Harry’s home and it’s awesome. He’s in the living room kicking Orc ass in some Playstation Game that I don’t know the name of. He’ll be here today and tomorrow. On Monday and Tuesday he’ll be at his dad’s.

I was thinking about a music project that I could mess with while he’s at the other house. I assume the RPM Challenge site’s Record Every Month thing is on going. At first I thought maybe to try and record two songs each month and call it a single or something. I might do that. That sounds interesting. Then I thought… what about an album in a day thing?

I did it once before, following the rules on this page. I’m thinking maybe start around 8-9pm, write the music using my iPad, write the lyrics and melodies as soon as I start coming up with riffs, then go to sleep for a while. The next morning do a car music and then come home and add the guitars. The trick would be getting all of that done and still having time to mix the whole thing before the 24 hours are up.

I’m still undecided, but I’m thinking about it. It might happen.

Now What

RPM is over. Now for the annual “now what?” Post.

I assume the folks at RPMHQ will kick off another Record Every Month challenge. I’ll do that. I’m thinking two songs each month, sort of like a single. Then at the end of the year re-record the best songs?

In the real world I have to buckle down on the weight loss surgery prep. I have a bunch of directives from the dietician and so far have only integrated two. I think there are three more and one of them is a little Earth shattering.

Outside of that? There’s the band. I think I may have reached the point in the pandemic where I’m willing to try a band practice. I think. We will have to see. Fingers crossed I don’t panic and chicken out.

I’ll see if I can dream up anything else. I’ll let you know.

I’m Finished! – #RPM2022

2022 marks the 11th consecutive year with a completed RPM Challenge project.

I’m all done!

Here’s a link to the final playlist on alonetone.com if that embedded playlist doesn’t work.

Also, for shits and giggles, here’s the outtake playlist as well. These were the songs that didn’t make the cut.

And again here is a link to the outtakes playlist on alonetone.com, if you’d prefer to listen to my unlistenable crap there.

In summary…

WOOHOO!

Woah, Really?

I knew this, and I was aware of it, and it wasn’t actually a surprise, but I just looked at my work calendar for next week and saw that I have the entire week off and it sort of just hit me… Wow! Really? I am off all next week? Kick ass!

I have two hours and fifteen minutes left in the work day. After that I am cooking dinner for my love. Chicken and quinoa and broccoli. Broccoli is like a special occasion thing. I just steam it, but it is so good. Maybe we should have it every day. After that, I am going to mix the last two songs. It’s a moral imperative. I’ve had enough music finished to declare RPM a success for over 24 hours now, but I’m not done until every note of every song is mixed and that means two more songs.

There are currently six songs on the A List, meaning they are definitely on the final album, and eight songs on the B List, meaning they might make the album but also might not, and four songs on the C List, meaning they suck too much to share even by my low standards. I would like to end up with 10 songs on the album and 10 songs on a not-album. A leftovers, or outtakes album if you will. I might go with more than 10 on the submission though, but I want to make sure only the better stuff gets submitted, even though in all honesty they all suck pretty bad. I should really hire a singer next year. Yeah, right.

My watch has been blowing up all afternoon. After all of these years of RPMing, I follow a lot of RPM Challenge participants on alonetone.com. They are all uploading songs in batches today and I am getting email notifications for all of them. It’s pretty funny. I would like to apologize to anyone who follows me on alonetone because of the consistent, steady bomb of notifications they got yesterday as I was uploading songs all day long. Sorry about that, folks.

Back to work now. Just get through these last two hours and you can get back to the tunes, Robert. You can do it.

The Last Day – #RPM2022

Hello and welcome to February 28, 2022, the final day of this year’s RPM Challenge! Are you excited?

When I woke up this morning I had three songs left to mix. That was then and this is now, and now I only have two left to mix!

Usually when I write something that swings a little I end up with a terrible song that’s kinda fun to play. This time I think I ended up with the best song of the bunch so far. It is possible though that I will be saying the same thing about the other two songs that still need to be mixed. I think I saved all the best songs for last this year.

Okay. Post this, go to work, finish work, get back to mixing, pick the 10 songs for the final album, sequence the songs appropriately, submit the final album. That’s my agenda for today.

Let’s go!

Done for the Night

The Walking Dead starts in 12 minutes. I’m done mixing for the night.

I mixed 10 songs for a personal single day world record. Of those 10 only two are definitely going to end up on the final RPM Challenge album. This is one of them…

The Mixing Continues

I have mixed eight songs today and my brain isn’t quite working correctly anymore. I want to get through at least two more if I can. I’ve been doing laundry and helping Jen with little things here and there all day as a sort of palette cleanser to help my ears from quitting on me. It’s worked so far but for how much longer.

Let’s not forget that it’s Sunday too. That means a new Walking Dead episode. I have to save some hearing for that too. Yikes! My poor brain!

On a totally unrelated note, I just read a tweet that I really hope is true. It said that the Ukrainian government just gave the entire military a pay raise. How bad ass is that? A super power has invaded but you folks are doing such a great job that we’re going to give you a raise. Now all they have to do is win the war so that the government continues to exist and the currency they are paid in continues to have value.