I said in the last post that I was going to play guitar tonight but I decided to mix a song instead. The Great 2015 Re-recording Project only has two more songs outstanding after this one. They both need lead guitars and a mix, but after that the whole shebang is done.
Which means that after RPM is done I’m going to have to think of something new to do to waste my time.
When I say that the sixth and final round of The Great 2015 Re-recording project is scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as available songs is concerned, this is what I am talking about.
Not bad. Not good. Just, meh. I probably should have left this one off.
The only song from last year’s RPM Challenge to be added to The Great 2015 Re-recording project is this little sucker. I think this version is better than last year’s, which is nice. Mission accomplished. I also think this needs to be played loud. It doesn’t seem to land as well at a lower volume. That’s probably a sign that the mix is shitty, but I don’t care. It’s done. Again.
Ouch.
I did the last vocal parts for The Great 2015 Re-recording Project this morning. I had two songs remaining, an easy one and a hard one. I started with the easy one and quickly learned that it wasn’t very easy. It may have been easy back in 2014 but it sure ain’t easy now. Maybe I’ll get lucky, thought I, and the hard one will turn out to be not so hard. Nope. The hard one turned out to be really hard.
My throat hurts.
It’s done though, so that’s really good. Happy Happy.
Pics:
Here’s the view from my mobile recording studio window…
And here’s a pointless clock picture, again.
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.
Right, so I did four rounds of re-recording old songs, then a round of re-recording recent songs, and now one more round of old songs. I am absolutely scraping the bottom of the barrel here, and the barrel isn’t exactly what you’d call deep.
This one comes from the failed 2010 RPM Challenge, which wasn’t finished until late summer 2011, along with the failed 2011 RPM Challenge. It’s slow, it’s dumb, and it’s ridiculously simple, but it’s got a lot of fuzz on it so it’s okay in my book.
I chased this morning’s car vocals with some guitar playing. Bad guitar playing, but better than my usual crap. Well… maybe not that much better. Whatever.
I put leads on three songs. Volume six of the Great 2015 Re-Recording Project now has four songs ready to mix and only two more in the pipeline that aren’t ready to mix. Maybe I’ll mix a song tonight. That’d be fun, wouldn’t it?
Pictures!
Compared to the last two days, this morning was a downright balmy 17 degrees when I went outside for some singing in the car. Just like yesterday I managed two songs. That leaves two for tomorrow. One song was a mellow guy in a register that’s really easy for me to sing. The other was very shouty and a smidge too high for comfort. Fortunately it only had one part.
I did the mellow song first to warm up. It went pretty simple. Two part harmony, but nothing too taxing. Then on to the harder song where I did the thing I keep doing. I only had one part to sing, right? So I added a harmony part that runs all the way through. That means I doubled the amount of shouty stuff I had to do. Dumb ass.
By the time I was done I was done. It was still early, I still had battery, I still had an empty bladder. It was my voice that sent me home. Hoping for some more guitar tonight… or maybe within the next few minutes or so, then some more vocal fun tomorrow? One of the two songs that remain has a lot of three part harmony. That should be painful and awkward as hell.
Rock on!
The secret to a successful car music turns out to be my glasses. Who knew?
I thought I’d switch things up on the drive home pics too and show you my town’s gigantic city hall.
…then I took a clock pic anyway, just because.
I played some guitar tonight. I wasn’t going to but I did and it made me happy.
I redid a couple of rhythm guitar tracks that I didn’t like the sound of and then I put leads on one of the songs that got vocals this morning. I used my new wah pedal a lot. It’s a Real McCoy Custom RMC10 and it is killer. The sweep on it is gigantic. It starts on Monday and ends on Thursday. That’s how gigantic the sweep is. It’s actually so much wider than I’m used to that I think it is going to take some time to adjust my brain to it. It sounds great though.
I started putting leads on the other song that got vocals this morning but I had to stop before I finished. I used my Fuzz Face again but this time I stuck a Klon copy after it as a boost and it was gnarly and bitchin and mean and nasty and wonderful.
Fuzz Face pedals and wah-wahs are notorious for not working well together. I haven’t tried the combo yet with the new wah, but I will.
I hope to get in some more car music tomorrow. We’ll see. For now though, I am feeling pretty good about the little bit that I accomplished tonight.
Just doing a little RPM prep today.
Inside the Red Head's Head 