Tag: rpm2021

#RPM2021 Song Number One

I jumped the gun when I posted the day 18 update. I snuck in the first mix of the project. It’s too long and too repetitive and most of the songs in the pipeline sound exactly like it, but it’s done.

I’m writing this on my iPad and I’m not sure the audio player will post correctly, but let’s hit Publish and see what happens, shall we?

#RPM2021 DAY 18

Another day with minimal progress. I put lead guitars onto two songs. I used a fuzz box for a lot of it, and the new Wampler Plexi Drive Mini for some. I ran the Plexi Drive without the Klon Klone in front of it and it was much less squashy than it was yesterday. I’m going to want to find a happy place with the Klone though because that needs to be on 24/7/365.

Three songs completely tracked. I still have to write lyrics for two songs. I can’t forget about that. Lots of vocals planned for this weekend. Fingers crossed.

The current workspace
A cheesy faux artsy guitar picture

#RPM2021 Day 17

Not much to report today. I put the lead guitar onto one song. That’s it. I used my new Wampler Plexi Drive Mini overdrive pedal in place of the Malaise Forever Black Lives Matter. I think I prefer the BLM. It’s only a very small use sample, but the Plexi Drive being pushed by the Ryra The Klone resulted in a bit of an over compressed blob of flub. It wasn’t terrible, it just wasn’t as good as I was hoping. I bet if I removed the Ryra from the equation it would be better. I think the Plexi can take 18 volts instead of the 9 volts I’m giving it. That should improve things, but I don’t have that option with the setup I have in place right now.

Spaghetti and all

No car vocals tomorrow. My car is blocked in and I don’t want to worry about swapping with my step son. There is supposed to be snow for Friday morning too, so no car vocals on Friday either. I’m banking on Saturday and Sunday to finish the eight I have left to do, and probably redo some of the six I have already. I listened back to two of them tonight, including the song that got the guitar leads, and they were okay, but those two were the ones I knew would be okay. It’s the other four that scare me.

Hopefully a few more leads and maybe a mix will come tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

#RPM2021 Day 16

Lots of progress today. I put vocals on six songs. I fear one of those six needs to be completely rewritten because it sucked so bad. Another two or three just didn’t come out too well. I’ll have to see if time changes my mind, but my throat was scratchy and phlegmy and my ears were having a hard time picking out the right notes, and my voice was having a hard time hitting pitches. It was a rough morning. I’m hoping to do another round of car vocals tomorrow. Here’s hoping for better results.

The other good news is that I finished the rhythm guitar parts. They are all done. Most of the songs are simple with just one take on two tracks all the way through. Some songs are more complicated. One song has three rhythm parts (on two tracks each) jumping in and out, all using different tones. There is enough there that I might actually drop some of the parts. It was fun to piece it all together.

So the current count is 14 songs in progress, all of them have guitars, all but two have lyrics, and six have vocals. I was hoping to sneak in a lead guitar part or two before bed but Jen and I ate ice cream and watched Property Brothers instead… because home renovations are our thing these days.

And that is where the RPM Challenge stands tonight. It’s 9:00, I’m almost 50 years old, and that means it’s bed time. G’night, moon.

Car Music 2021

Today was my first car music of the new year. Crazy.

It was awful. Just totally and utterly awful. I worked on six songs and I think I have to redo four of them an possibly rewrite one of them. Crud.

#RPM2021 Day 15

When I woke up there was one song that had not been worked into a full song form yet. I took care of that today including sketching out an idea for a guitar part in midi, and adding a melody and lyrics. I also added melody and lyrics to two other songs as well.

I didn’t record anything, but I am pretty well set up for a good day tomorrow, starting with some car vocals in the morning. Fingers crossed.

#RPM2021 Day 14

Hello and welcome to the half way point. 14 days down, 14 days to go.

I did a lot today. I also kind of lost track of what I did.

  • I wrote lyrics for two songs.
  • I finished the song form for one of the two remaining songs that were just a single phrase or two. I also wrote the melody and lyrics for that one.
  • I added rhythm guitars to three songs.

I think that was everything.

I haven’t updated my works in progress playlist with any of today’s changes. I might do that in the morning. I thought about doing some early morning car vocals tomorrow but my step son’s car is blocking my car in the driveway so that will wait until Tuesday.

So where do the 14 songs stand at this time?

  • Six songs have rhythm guitar, melody, and lyrics and are ready for vocals.
  • Two songs have rhythm guitars but no lyrics or melody yet.
  • Five songs are ready for rhythm guitars. Of those five, three have melody and lyrics, and one has just melody.
  • One song is still just a pair of eight bar bass/drum phrases without a song form.

That’s 14 songs and 14 songs is enough for a complete RPM Challenge album and a complete FAWM project. I’m hoping that within the next couple of days the rhythm guitars and a good chunk of the vocals will be done. If time permits I might try to finish some of the leftover January songs that I never got around to. I would have to redo the bass and drum parts in order to qualify for RPM, and they wouldn’t qualify for FAWM at all, so I won’t even look at them until the 14 in the pipe now are done.

And there you have it, the state of RPM at the midway point.