Tag: Rpm Challenge

Bad Seal

I had a less than perfect sleep last night. My CPAP mask kept losing its seal. It would start leaking air on one side of my face so I’d wiggle it back into place, and then a leak would start on the other side. It was pissing me off as well as keeping me awake. Eventually I took it off and adjusted everything and put it back and it was okay. I think I’ll be using a new mask tonight, just out of spite.

One of the weight loss appointments I booked yesterday is over Zoom. I got the meeting invite this morning. Yet another baby step. Let’s all get together and change my life, okay? Change my mindset first, then change my internal structure. Welcome to a new me and all that stuff, right? New Year, new me… literally.

I wrote my first lyrics for this year’s RPM Challenge. Are you proud of me? I am. Writing lyrics sucks and I suck at it. What is the song about? I haven’t a clue. Maybe after I sing it a few times I’ll decide what it’s about. For now it’s just a bunch of words whose syllable count matches the bad melody I wrote.

Okay. It’s time for work. Let’s be productive and have a good day, okay? Ready? Go!

RPMin’ like a fool – #RPM2022

Two days in and I’m up to six songs now. All just bass and drums (MIDI track) but I’ve got weird time signatures and tempo changes everywhere. It’s just madness!!

And We’re Off… Again – #RPM2022

Here we go again.

Welcome to February and the annual onslaught of RPM Challenge posts. Hurray for bad music! Well, a lot of the people who play the RPM game make excellent music. I just don’t feel you’re reading a post from one of those people right now.

The Trello board has been created and the first card has been added! The working title being “RPM 22 01 iPad” because it’s 2022, it’s the first idea, and the file was originally created on my iPad (only because the Logic Remote app isn’t playing nicely this morning, otherwise it would have been started on the Mac).

Does song number one contain a tempo change? Why yes, yes it does. Look at me being all musically thematic and shit.

Have fun, folks!

RPM Starts Tomorrow

Tomorrow is February 1st. That means my 15th RPM Challenge will be underway and you, my poor unfortunate reader, will be blitzed with endless posts about a bad musician making bad music. I mean, you get that crap on a regular basis from me, but in February it’s out of control.

I don’t have any plans. I was thinking of using two different guitars, but I am not sure I want to bother with that. We’ll see. The Les Paul needs new strings before I record anything, and if I use the SG as well then that desperately needs new strings. I was thinking of going for a wetter sound over all. Maybe just longer reverbs and some more delays, maybe? My latest gimmicky idea is to use more tempo changes. I used a slight tempo change in one of the last batch of re-recordings and I kinda like how it came out. Maybe more of that.

Beyond those gimmicks, I don’t have any plans. Just 10 songs. 10 faux bluesy, faux proggy rock and roll songs. Dad rock. Stuff like that.

The RPM Challenge started in 2006 but it was just a local thing in Portsmouth, NH. In 2007 they went international, meaning they just put it on the web. I first heard of it late in the month so I missed out. I did one on my own using old songs the following month, then the month after that I tried doing it again with new songs and failed miserably. 2008 was the first time I did it for real and I failed miserably. 2009-2011 were also failures. 2012 was my first success and it made me very happy. 2013-2021 have all been successes too. Well… successes in that I met the recording requirements. Some were more successful than others in terms of the quality, but they are all kinda crappy. I don’t care. I just enjoy it, even if it is really dumb.

Tomorrow is the day. One your marks… get set……. wait for it!……

Discord Doesn’t Like Me

I don’t like Discord. I know that makes me sound old, but it’s just an AOL chat room so it’s not that I am old, it’s that I’ve been there and done that and don’t want to do it again.

The RPM Challenge forums no longer exist as they have been replaced by a Discord server. Okay. I’ll play along.

There I was, typing in a post to the random chat board, and either the app on my machine crashed or the server went down. Like… right in the middle of typing!

Okay, we have established that I don’t like Discord. Now it seems that Discord doesn’t like me either. Well screw you, Chuck!

On an unrelated note, Bellana and her roommate posted another video. They went to Belgium. Just a spur of the moment trip to Brussels. How cool is that? How cool is the EU?

Maybe I’ll share the video one of these days.

On another unrelated note, why is the last post I made last night displaying in a box? Is this post going to display in a box? Did I accidentally click a put-your-post-in-a-box button? I don’t know. Let’s publish this puppy and see what happens!

ADDENDUM: I didn’t click a put-your-post-in-a-box button, but I did post the previous update while I was about 95% asleep and I did accidentally click a stick-this-to-the-top-of-your-page checkbox. It should be fixed now.

Another RPM Gimmick Idea

I pretty much always use the same time effects on all of my tracks when I mix a song. I like a super short slap back echo on vocal tracks, a dotted eighth note delay on lead guitars, and a short room style reverb on everything. I don’t want my mixes to sound dry, but I do like them to sound almost dry. I want the mixes to sound like they could be a band playing in a small club or a rehearsal room. For as long as I’ve been doing this stuff, that’s been my go-to goal.

I was listening to some Rush the other day. Moving Pictures. I was kinda taken by the reverb. There is a lot of reverb on those tracks. It’s never overpowering or in your face, but it’s there. Maybe this years RPM will include a little experimenting with different reverb types and lengths.

Maybe.

Musical Thought for February

Just jotting down a gimmick idea for RPM in February….

Write a melody. Sing it on a guide track. Reverse the guide track. On a second track, sing along with the reverse track. Reverse the second track. You now have a backwards vocal track singing the correct melody.

Just a dumb idea I had in the car this morning. Gimmicky, yes, but fun.

13 days until the 2022 RPM Challenge.

Is Record Every Month Complete?

I forgot to post this yesterday, but I mixed the January song for the RPM Challenge’s Record Every Month thing. I guess that means I am done? We did the actual RPM in February, and then I had at least one song each month from March through January. Three of them were also part of the 50/90, and one was National Solo Album Month, and I forgot to submit most of them to the RPM site, but I still did at least one song each month. Hooray.

I also made a little playlist with one song from each month because I get a little obsessive about stuff like this. You know how it is.

Back to Work

Well… I knew I couldn’t fight it. I punched into work a little before 9:00am and stuck the final nail in this year’s holiday season’s coffin. It’s over, folks.

The kids are still here. I figured they would have left by now so I am pretty happy. They did both sleep really late though so that might be the reason. I don’t care. I love it when they are here. Even when I am working and can’t go hang out with them.

Today has been really quiet overall. Not much to write about. The Bruins played twice over the weekend, finally coming back from the long Covid-19 shut down. I watched a few minutes of Saturday’s game against Buffalo and the little that I saw looked pretty awful. They straightened it out and won in overtime. I didn’t see yesterday’s game against Detroit but they spanked them pretty thoroughly. Here’s hoping that’s a sign of good things to come.

Major League Baseball is still locked out. I keep seeing stories tweeted out from all sorts of sources talking about the things such and such a team needs to do to improve and yadda yadda blah. I haven’t been reading the articles but I am really hoping they all boil down to something along the lines of “don’t be locked out.” Everything else is sort of superfluous* until that happens.

What else, what else… did I mention that all of my workout time that my Apple Watch tracked last week was on the exercise bike? I’m pretty sure that was a first for me. Does it mean anything? No. No, it does not.

I haven’t given much thought to the RPM Challenge this year. The only thing that’s come to me for something different to do is to use two guitars. I always double track my rhythm guitar parts. What if, instead of just tracking everything twice, I use a different guitar for each take? My Les Paul Standard would be playing in one ear, and my SG would be playing in the other. What about that for goofy nerdness? Maybe even use a different amplifier with each guitar. I’m thinking about it.

Okay, 2:00pm approaches. Time to wrap up this lunch break post.

*I had to pay $0.10 to use that word.

And So This is Monday

Marjorie Taylor Greene has been permanently suspended from Twitter.
Devin Nunes has left Congress.
Monday has arrived and the holiday season is over. Back to work with us.

That’s the news and I am outa here.

I don’t want to go to work today. I am sitting at my desk, looking at my computer and just thinking over and over again, I don’t want to go to work today. Really, once I punch in I will be over it and everything will be normal again, but right now? Damn it, I don’t want to go to work today.

There isn’t much else going on. I think we’re a little burned out from Christmas/New Years and are sort of ready to settle back into life. Not work though. I don’t want to go to work today. The kids will be going to their father’s tonight and staying there until some point on Wednesday. Bellana leaves for her study abroad program next week and Harry returns to school the following weekend.

For me personally, I have super shaggy Covid hair again. Back when the pandemic started, about 22 months ago, my hair was in need of a cut. Everything shut down though so I had to deal. After a month or so it was so long it was insane and Jen cut it for me. Now here we are, two years later. I was planning on getting a hair cut at the beginning of December, but that little omicron bitch came along and messed that up. I know I have three vaccine shots and everyone will be masked up, but I still don’t want to risk getting something and passing it on to the kids and screwing up their plans. Once Harry moves back to school I’ll get a hair cut. Until then… super shaggy Covid hair. Again.

There is only one other item of blog-worthy note today. It feels like it’s kicking off quite a bit early this year but…

I’ve signed up already.

Prepare yourself for the obnoxiously boring posts.