Backward

Untitled

My new Klone pedal has been added to the May music project.  I put rhythm guitars on three songs and used my birthday-present-to-myself on all of them.  It sounds so good it’s silly.  I needed to goose the treble knob up a little higher than I do on the KTR to get a nice sweet spot, but I haven’t been able to use it on a high watt amp at volume.  It will all change when I use it for real.

I did something else with one of the songs that’s also silly… and fun… and awesome.

The rhythm part is just hit a chord and let it ring for two bars, more or less over and over.  After I finished the actual recording (double tracked, one panned left and one panned right) I added the first of two extra tracks.  First I recorded an additional take of the last eight bars of the song.  I then reversed the track.  That was a guide.  Next I muted the bass and actual guitar tracks so that all I could hear was drums and the backward guitar.  After that I used the second extra track to record myself trying to play along with the backward track.  It wasn’t easy and it came out pretty wrong, but at least I had the same chords playing on the two tracks.  One was forward and the other was backward but they more or less rang out correctly.

The last step was to delete the first of the two tracks, reverse the second track, and pan it right in the middle and unmute all the muted tracks.  Now when I play it back I have the normal parts and an additional backward part kinda playing along with each other.

It didn’t work out as I had planned it but…….

Coolest thing I’ve ever done.

COVID Blues

246/365

Three songs in the pipeline right now. I put guitars on all of them. Two of the songs seem okay so far. The third is a sloppy awful mess. It’s a 12-bar blues. Should I call it The Covid-19 Blues?

May Gear

I finished my April music project last night so obviously I’m sitting here thinking about what gear to use for May.

In February I used all three of my Gibson guitars, both Bassbreaker amps, and my full Lizardfish gigging pedal board.  Basically I used everything I had in the house.  In March I restricted myself to just the SG and the 15 watt amp.  No pedals.  It was awful (not really, just being an overly dramatic pedal nerd).  For April it was the 15 watt amp for everything with the SG and the low gain side of the D&M Drive for rhythm parts and the Les Paul and the high gain side of the D&M for leads.

I think I might be tired of overly restricting myself.  For May I want to use the gigging pedal board again.  I miss my wah pedal.  For the amp… I don’t think I can get the 18/30 watt Bassbreaker to play quiet enough to not annoy the crap out of everyone in the house.  I might try it though.  I think I might plan to use the 30 watt channel until someone complains, then switch to the 18 watt channel until someone complains, then switch back to the 15 watt amp.  Either that or I’ll just use the 15 watt amp.  I’m starting to really miss my Deluxe Reverb.  It’s at Mike’s house and it would sure be fun to play with right now.

I’m going to have to change my strings on both guitars at some point too.  Yikes.

April Tracking is Done

Tracking for the April Bonus RPM Challenge is done.  Sort of.  I have seven songs mixed and complete and three more ready to mix.  I say sort of because there is an 11th song.  It has a melody and lyrics but I didn’t record the vocals and frankly I’m not gonna.  If time allows I am going to record the melody with a guitar (or two… or three) and call it an instrumental.

For now though, I have everything I need to finish the COVID-19 RPM Bonus Challenge thingie.

Untitled

Untitled

From Bad to Worse

I’m not a good singer.  We all know that.  I know it more than anyone because… well… it’s me, you know?

This morning I took my MacBook and a microphone and an audio interface and drove over to the mall and found a parking spot and started singing…

It wasn’t my usual bad…

It was so much worse.

So. Much. Worse.

I had six songs ready to go but I only got to five of them.  The last song was a bonus.  I only needed five more to get to the required 10.  When I finished the fifth song my battery was low, my throat hurt from yelling, my bladder was full (TMI, and not actually related to singing), and my brain was fried, so I went home.  Song #11 will probably be dropped.  Maybe.

At some point tonight I’ll start lead guitars and then I’ll start mixing and then April will be finished and it will be time to start thinking about May.