I have now completed five mixes for this year’s RPM Challenge. Five songs down and anywhere from five to 15 still to go.
When I get to this stage in an album-in-a-month project I start sorting the finished songs into three buckets. A-list, B-list, and Dropped. A-list songs are good enough to make the final album. B-list songs are on the fence. Dropped songs are too awful to use. Right now, with five songs finished, I have two in the A-list bucket, and three in the B-list. I suspect most of the remaining 15 songs will end up in the B-list or the Dropped list. I think this one is on the A-list.
I’ve been home from this morning’s car music for about 15 minutes and I’m still frozen solid. It was 15 degrees out when I left the house and I sat in the car recording my dumb ass self singing (badly) for a touch over an hour. By the time I finished I was so cold, I can’t even tell you.
Despite the frigidness, car music was a success. I put vocals on all five songs that needed them. That means all 20 songs in this year’s RPM Challenge pipeline have their vocal tracks down. Holy shit snacks, Batman! 20 songs!
Now I just need to add lead guitars to 11 of those songs and mix 17 of them… with only four-plus days remaining. Crud.
Pics!
The view from my “studio.”
The obligatory clock pic from the drive home, Hipstamatic style.
And just for funzies, a bonus zoomed in clock pic.
178/365
And as an added bonus, Lily exploring our newly bare shelves, pre-kitchen remodel.
The IKEA kitchen deliveries are happening on Monday and Tuesday. A few boxes on Monday and almost 200 on Tuesday. The plumber is coming to disconnect everything on Monday. Demolition of the current kitchen is Friday and installation of the new kitchen is Saturday. They are telling us they only need one day to install but that seems crazy to me. The plumbing hookups, electrical work, and the addition of the backsplash all happen at some point after the install. When? We don’t know yet.
Both of my step kids are going on trips over spring break. They are coming home the week after the kitchen install. I have to take a day off to drive them both to the airport. We have Harry’s flight information already but not Bellana’s. Not yet at least. The following week we’ll pick them back up at the airport but as of now it doesn’t look like I’ll need to take time off from work for that.
I also have five days to finish the RPM Challenge. I have three songs finished, six ready to mix, six ready for lead guitars, and five waiting for vocals. Two of those five have lyrics and a melody written. I did those earlier today. I am hoping to get to the other three before I sleep tonight so I can get them all recorded tomorrow morning. If I can’t get through it all tomorrow I’ll have to finish up before work on Monday. Then I just have a ton of lead guitars to record and multiple tons of mixing to do. I can get to it all, but it’s going to be tough. I have some late nights and early mornings in my near future.
There are so many things to do in the coming weeks. So very, very many things. It’s going to be pretty crazy around these parts. I’ll post lots of pictures as things progress.
Two songs down, somewhere between eight and 18 still to go.
I don’t hate this one. I don’t love it either. I’m still feeling okay with the really wet mix. It is possible that I am just telling myself I am okay with it when really I am not okay with it. I don’t know.
I played my ES-335 today with it’s new frets and it felt good. I still don’t have any calluses on the finger tips on my left hand so it was still painful as can be, but other than that it felt good. I put rhythm guitars onto the final two songs for the RPM Challenge and then I put leads on three songs. The third song was bad as I was reaching the point where the pain and rust were too much to get around. I hope to sneak in some more playing later today. I took a vacation day so I should be able to find some time. We’ll see.
One RPM Challenge song down, somewhere between nine and 19 still to go.
I am in the mood for a really wet, reverby mix tonight. I’m guessing I will not be in the same mood tomorrow and will end up remixing this turd.
I hate to admit this publicly, but I suspect this waste of time and energy is going to end up being the best song of the whole bunch this year. That’s pretty depressing, but the point is to turn off the internal censors and just see what happens… and this is what happened.
I don’t think I’ve ever used Flickr to host a video here. Does it work? I had this idea of a post about me driving somewhere for some early morning car music today but then I didn’t post it until I got home after finishing the car music. Oh well.
I put vocals on four songs today. That means there are only five songs left to write and record the vocal parts for. 15 songs have their vocal tracks finished. Excellent!
No pics of the clock downtown today. I didn’t take the long way home, I took the fastest route possible. There are tons of things going on today and I didn’t want to delay my return home for even a minute or two.
Things unrelated to music projects that were in the planning, semi-hypothetical stage 24 hours ago have ramped up to the imminent and stressful stage. Bring it on! Roll with the changes, as the song goes.
Today is February 20th. For me, personally, in RPM Challenge terms, the 20th is officially the day that I start to panic. Enjoy!
The 20th is the day where the end suddenly feels very close. We get an extra day this year, thank you leap year, so it’s not quite as bad as usual, but I definitely feel a sudden need to get off my ass and get shit done. I have nine days left after today. I need to get busy.
I put rhythm guitars onto one song and lead guitars onto another this morning before work. My playing was terrible. Absolutely awful. I am so rusty it’s silly, and what playing I have done in the last couple of weeks has not been enough to shake off any of that rust. I feel like I am getting worse… probably because I am.
Where do we stand with the album in a month project as a whole? There are 20 songs in the pipeline. I have not mixed anything yet, so no songs are 100% finished. Six have been completely recorded and are ready to mix. Five have their vocals done and are ready for lead guitars. Two have lyrics and melodies written and are ready for vocals. Five have rhythm guitars done and are ready for lyrics and melodies. Finally, two have their song forms worked out and are ready for rhythm guitars. In addition, the song that I put the rhythm guitar tracks on this morning needs to have the bass guitar (MIDI) rewritten because the bass and the guitar don’t really work well together. I need to change something so they lock in. That sort of goes against the RPM Challenge ethos (is that the right word?) as I don’t like going back and redoing anything. It takes time that I don’t have. In this case though, it sounds worse than dog shit so I have to change the bass.
There you have it. The state of the RPM Challenge project at this point in time. The minimum goal is 10 songs or 35 minutes of music. I am shooting for 20 songs, and then I’ll pick the 10 best and use them as the album I “submit” to the RPM website. Just as a heads up for the future, I really don’t think there are any good songs this year. The best of the best is very much meh. This is not going to be a good album. It’s feeling like my worst ever. Blah, indeed.
Logically I think I am an a good place to finish everything off by midnight on March 1st. Logic does not really apply here though, so my feeling is that I am currently buried under an avalanche of things still to finish. Oh good.
Anyway, here are a few pics that I took as I was listening to a playback of a terrible sounding guitar solo this morning. Ugh.
I’ve used my Les Paul Custom for every note of guitar that I have recorded this month. There’s a good chance that everything I put down after I get home from the guitar shop tomorrow will be played on my ES-335. We’ll see. I might sneak my Les Paul Standard into a few things too, if I can.
Inside the Red Head's Head 