Tag: Rpmchallenge

Time Off Timing

I get a certain amount of personal time off from work each year. We accrue one 12th of that total amount of annual time each month. We can carry over some of that personal time off from month to month, but we do have a cap on how much we can have stored up at any given time. The cap is higher than the annual allotment, but it is pretty easy to accrue up to the cap on any given month. With today being the first of the month, our accrual numbers were updated today and sure enough I have hit the cap. Shit. I got a friendly reminder to make sure I book enough time off this month to get back down below the cap so that I don’t fail to accrue any more time next month.

I already had one day off booked in February. My beloved wife and I both took her birthday off. I need to take two more days to ensure that I get far enough below the cap to not have a problem in March. I booked those two days for later in the month. Interesting that this comes up in February… the one month out of the year where I go absolutely bonkers crazy working on writing and recording an album’s worth of music. Sure I do album-in-a-month things throughout the year, but February is the only one that really counts. February, also known as the RPM Challenge, is the one that matters to me. As silly as it is, I get super invested in this thing every year. I am not really sure why it is so important to me, but it is… and now I have a four day weekend near the end of the month where I can cram in tons of music project work.

We are 11 hours into February now. Was I able to get anything done this morning?

Why yes, yes I did.

After finishing my exercise and my breakfast and my daily writing prompt blog post, I picked up my guitar and noodled out three (3) new song ideas. Three of them. Already! Crazy right? Sure is, especially when you realize that just before I punched into work I noodled out a fourth new idea in GarageBand on my iPhone. It’s just a bass riff for now, but it’s there and that means I have FOUR songs in progress already.

I also have two potential album cover photos. Not that these are really in the running, but just expect to see lots of square format pic over the next four weeks. One of them is bound to end up as the cover.

154/365 - February 1st
154/365

In closing, allow me to summarize the progress made in the pre-work hours of day one…

WOOOHOOO!

Three Songs Down

I think I like this one. In fact this might be my favorite of the bunch. That’s not saying much. My heart hasn’t been in it this year and I’ve been just going through the motions and as a result everything sucks even more than usual. So I guess this is in the running for song that sucks the least? I don’t know. It doesn’t have a “track ” vibe to me though. It might end up as track #2. Maybe? We’ll see. There’s still a long long way to go before I have to worry about stuff like running order.

What Next Musicwise?

All of the music for the RPM Challenge is complete. I need to burn a cd. Do I have a cd? I need to find a cd, then burn a cd, and then print out the cover (front and back! Fancy!). This year my beloved wife, the love of my life and woman of my dreams (I will never get tired of calling her those things. Swooooon) and I are going to drive to headquarters in Portsmouth, NH and hand deliver.

That leads to the inevitable post February musical question: What next?

Well for starters, I’m not going to do an RPM a month for the rest of the year, like I did last year. I’m also probably not going to take part in 50/90 again, though the jury is still out on that. What I was thinking of doing next is a little more complicated. First and foremost, the band takes precedence from this point on. No more recording when I’m supposed to be practicing. That doesn’t mean I’m done recording, it just means I’ll do it after practicing is done.

Second, I think it’s time to upgrade from GarageBand to Logic Pro X. It’s expensive, but it just seems time for something new, and being a total Apple nerd, that’s where I want to go next.

Finally, is it time to collect the highlights from 8+ years of home recording and make a best of album? Maybe, but it has to be something different. I figure 15–20 songs. I’ll record them the way I normally do, with midi bass, drums, and keys, and simulated amplifiers, but those will be scratch tracks. After everything is arranged correctly I’d bring my Marshal amp home after practices and replace the guitars with actual amplified noise. Next, maybe it’s time to bring Mike the Bass Player into the fold and let him replace the midi bass parts with the real thing. Maybe I could do the same with Greg the Lizardfish Singer. That would leave drums. I’d like to have Kevin the Lizardfish drummer replace the midi parts, but recording real drums is an absolute bitch of a process, not to mention the overwhelming majority of drummers puke at the thought of overdubbing drums onto an existing track. Neil Peart does it all the time, but he’s part genius, part human metronome, and part god on Earth. He’s the exception to say the least. I’m not sure that I’m up to the challenge of live drums. Technologically I know I’m not right now because I don’t have enough microphones, and I’d probably need a bigger USB audio interface.

Anyway, that’s what I’m thinking about.

Originally published at robj2112.wordpress.com on February 28, 2015.