Tag: Rpm Challenge

Finished

The 2013 RPM Challenge album is finished.  Or at least as finished as it will ever be.  I’m done, I’m toast, I’m fried.

I was debating on whether or not to drop one of the 14 songs.  I came close.  Last year I actually dropped two.  This year… ah screw it, I’ll keep ’em all.

I kinda think its kinda cute that you have to wait until track three to hear 4/4 time.  Neat, huh?

Here’s the soundcloud.com playlist:

Here’s a link to what I consider the “official” home of all of my stuff, alonetone.com.  Unfortunately the WordPress.com police won’t let me embed alonetone’s playlist.  If they did, you’d never see a soundcloud playlist ever.

(just for snitzengiggle’s let’s try embedding it and see what happens…  Nothing, just as I expected)

I need to head out tonight and get a disc in a jewel case and a padded envelope so I can mail this sucker into headquarters tomorrow.  I also need to find the design a CD cover website I used last year and then print it out at work tomorrow (when no one is looking).  Then if I can drop it in a mailbox tomorrow it will be on its way.

RPM Day 27

I have officially finished FAWM.  I have recorded the last note, mixed the last song, uploaded it all to alonetone.com, and declared FAWM done.

The RPM Challenge still needs a quick cover, I need to put the songs in some sort of order, burn a CD, and mail the sucker off.

Insert the satisfied sigh of relief right here.

RPM Day 26

I know it’s late for this, but I’ve had a busy day.  Deal, okay?

I added the final lead guitar parts to four of the remaining six songs.  I haven’t made a final mix of any of them yet.  I might do that tonight, or I might wait until tomorrow.  I’m so close to finishing that I can almost taste it.  I should probably start thinking of a cover, and maybe a title.  What do you think of Rock Music for Old People?

Two More

I’m up to eight songs completed now.  I just finished both of the songs that I had to go back and rerecord the vocals for.  Both songs have really been frustrating to me.  I thought I had the vocals done a week ago, but after a later listen I just couldn’t live with them… and give how bad most of the crap I leave in can be, that is really saying something.

This one needed the most work of the two.  It’s kind of a snooze.  I didn’t do a 12-bar blues this year, so this sort of takes the place of a slow blues tune.  I guess.

This next song was titled “So Frustrating” before it became a frustrating mess.  Sort of prophetic of me, eh?  Almost like I knew what was come.  I didn’t, but it seems that way now.  This is one of a couple of attempts this year to make 6/8 time rock.  I like this one, except for all the clipping.  Urgh.

I’m packing up for now.  It’s 5:22, I’ve been at this since about 7:00 or so.  My head is pounding, possibly from the headphones, and just as possibly from the fact that I have not had any caffeine today, and my fingers won’t play the guitar the way I want them to anymore.  I might sneak in another one later tonight, and I will definitely try to get one or two done tomorrow before work.  Only three days left.

I’m cautiously optimistic.

RPM Day 25

My head is pounding.  I have a five alarm headache to say the least.  Why?  From all the yelling, that’s why.  I wrote and recorded vocal parts for seven songs today, and completed recording the vocals for two others.  That’s it, kids, all of the RPM/FAWM vocalizin’ is done with.  Nothing but lead guitars left to record.

I even finished the big 10 minute piece of prog rock crap today.  That makes six songs complete.  Eight more to go to finish FAWM, four more to go to finish RPM.

RPM Day 24

Holy crap!  It’s the 24th already??

I finished two more songs today.  Aren’t you pleased?  I bet you all can’t wait for March 1st, right?

This song was declared finished, then yesterday was declared unfinished, and then after a remix today is again declared finished.  I was going to redo the vocals, but I decided I probably couldn’t do any better on the next attempt so I just fixed some things that I didn’t like about the previous mix.

This next one is actually one that is finished for the first and last time.  Please don’t be scared off by the very long fade in.  Sometimes the prog nerd in me takes over when I least expect it.  There is a song there somewhere, I promise.  Also, I told myself that I was going to keep this as a guitar/bass/drums/vocal project with the occasional keyboard part thrown in as an exception.  Well, this one sort of centers on an electric piano (although it sort of gets pushed around by the bass on the right side and the rhythm guitar on the left) and it has a sax solo.  Yup, I was listening to this on the way to the grocery store this morning and I sort of sighed reluctantly when I realized that I had to put some sax on this one.  My days of being a competent sax player are long, long past me.  The pitch is a little suspect, but what are you going to do?

I might try to sneak in more lead guitar tonight.  I have two more songs that are ready for it.  We’ll see what the day brings.  My fingers aren’t feeling all that great right now and I need a break.

RPM Day 23

It’s almost 8:00pm here and I haven’t done my stupid daily update that is boring all of you to tears.  Never fear.  In the words of the Yardbirds, Here’s ‘Tis.

Earlier this week I had announced that this particular song:

was complete and done and finished.  Today I changed my mind.  I remixed it.  It’s not much different, just a little more care was taken with it.  Oh, and I put some seriously retarded goofiness into it as well.  Gotta love idiots who put flangers onto drums, right?  Am I right?

This little song:

Was not finished, but now it is.  I used a fuzz box.  How have I made it this far into life without owning a real fuzz box?  Fuzz boxes and Phasers are the big overused stomp box gimmicks for this year’s project.

This particular little ditty:

Was also not finished, but now it is.  This holds the distinction of being the only song in the batch of 14 that did not have any work done on an iOS device.  This was all done on the full GarageBand on my MacBook Pro.  I think you can hear the difference.  I am a little sad that I didn’t do the whole thing on a computer now.  The iPad and the iPhone are just so damn convenient   I mean it would have been tough to have written a song in the car in a parking lot waiting for a take out order to be ready if I had to do it all on an actual computer, right?  Am I right?

So that’s three songs that are finished, finished, finished.  There is one other that used to be finished but I have decided it will get a new vocal take on Monday.  There are two other songs that have vocals that I want to re-record, at least in part, that still need lead guitar parts.  Then there are seven (7) more that don’t have any vocals yet.  RPM requires 10 songs.  FAWM requires 14.  I have 14 in progress, I could call FAWM done now but I won’t.  Finishing the vocals for a total of 10 songs on Monday is definitely doable.  Getting up to a total of 14?  That’s a little more difficult.

We shall see.

RPM Day 22

Nothing new to report.  My last music post last night is still the most recent information.  I haven’t had time to do anything since then, and I probably won’t have any time for the rest of today either.  There are non-music (aka, real life) things going on that need to be taken care of.  Monday is still the sing-till-I-puke day.

What else is going on.  Well, the Bruins continued their ass kicking with another win last night.  The Red Sox had their annual start of spring training games against Boston College and Northeastern University last night.  John Lackey is starting the first real game of the spring this weekend.  Be afraid… be very afraid.

We’re supposed to get another big snow storm this weekend.  I have decided that it’s going to skip us.  Yeah, it’s just going to go around Methuen and give us a miss.  Right.  Right?

Anyway… I’ll try to get some guitar playing done this weekend, but I might be off the project until Monday.  I hope to have both RPM and FAWM finished, but there might not be enough time for both.  If I finish 10 songs then I can declare RPM complete.  I have to finish all 14 for FAWM.  We’ll see.