Just in case you were wondering if I owned a wah wah pedal or not. Once again, I’m not sure about the mix here. What I need to do is line up all of these suckers in a play list and then drive somewhere that’s 2-3 hours away. Listening to mixes in the car is pretty much the source of truth for the entire recording industry. I’m actually a little bit serious here.
Tag: the great 2015 re-recording project
Quarantine Tunes Volume 2 is Happening
The first song from Quarantine Tunes Volume 2 is done! Hooray, babie!
Back in 2016 I wrote a bunch of songs for the RPM Challenge that questioned the mental abilities of flat Earthers. Someone listening commented that I was being closed minded. Really. This song was my subtle response.
I’m not sure I have the mix just right. There are four tracks of rhythm guitar and I was worried I’d get carried away and overpower everything else. I wonder if I over compensated by backing them off too much. I’ll listen back in a couple of days and decide.
One down, eight to go.
Two Days Worth of Music
Lots of progress on the second round of The Great 2015 Re-Recording Project.
Yesterday I finished the rhythm guitars for the last three songs and added lead guitar to one. Today I added vocals to four songs. That makes nine with rhythm guitar, seven with vocals, and one with leads. I actually want to re-do most of the MIDI tracks, bass guitar and drums. A couple of songs have keyboard parts and those are more or less finished too.
My first car singing session was odd in that everything was much harder than I remembered it from the first time I recorded the three songs I worked on. Today it wasn’t so much the songs that were the problem, it was me. I did four songs but I probably should have stopped after two. My voice got tired really fast today. I brought up the first song and cranked most of the sections out in one or two tries. By the time I was wrapping it up though my voice was starting to crack and get a little froggie. The second song was more challenging, but by the end I was croaking on at least a few words on every other take. I don’t think that’s ever happened to me before.
I was hoping to get through three songs but I forced myself to do four. I’m guessing when it’s all said and done you’ll be able to pick that fourth song out without me hinting. I was at it for more than an hour and a half or so, not quite two hours, and my throat is sore from yelling. Do real singers go through shit like this, or are they just trained to avoid it.
Ribbit.
Musical Progress
I did some singing in the car this morning. I’m working on part two of The Great Re-Recording Project of 2015. I put down vocals for three songs. The goal with this project is to make it sound slightly better than the demo quality I usually shoot for. Part of that is there is no copy/paste allowed. That means if a song runs through the chorus section more than once, I sing it more than once. I also doubled almost everything. I’m not sure if I’ll keep both takes in the mix or if I’ll comp them together. It could go either way at this point. Strangely, the three songs I worked on today didn’t have any vocal harmonies in the original versions. I added a little into one song but I didn’t double that. I’m stuck with it as is. I also may have changed one line of the lyrics to one song. I did it on the fly, but it was on purpose. I didn’t screw something up and then decide to keep it because I didn’t want to go back and fix it. I’ve done that before, but not today.
The weird thing was how difficult it all was. When I did part one of this dumb project I was pleased how easy it was to crank out vocals for all of the old songs. Almost as if I was a terrible singer and an amateurish song writer and I purposely made the vocal parts easy. I didn’t, but that’s how it felt. Today was just tough. Literally everything was near the top of my range (which could be a lot smaller than it used to be, I’ll admit it) and I had to pretty much scream to get it all out. There were times when I was incapable of keeping my eyes open because I was belting so hard. Worse, there was one time where I seriously thought I yelled hard enough to make myself throw up. I didn’t, but it was a close call for a second or two.
I had six songs ready to go but in 90 minutes or so I only got to three. If this were the usual album in a month thing I probably would have finished them all. Instead I was adding extra takes and not using copy/paste and just in general being a lot pickier with what I kept. Hopefully that will lead to a better end result but realistically… probably not.
When I started this up again in June I had songs lined up in four groups of eight. After all of the album in a month craziness I have added two more from this year’s batch of crap. I was going to make part 2 be 10 songs but instead I shuffled some things around and now parts 2 and 3 are nine songs each. What does that mean?
Absolutely nothing.
Bad
Worked on the Great Re-Recording Project of 2015 today.
I wrote these friggin’ songs, why can’t I play them? What the hell is wrong with me? I mean, clearly if they came outa my head they aren’t hard to play. Why the constant screw ups?
I’m up to four songs ready for vocals though, so that’s not so bad.
Hard Songs are Hard
I did two rhythm guitar parts for 50/90 today. One was the one I did a couple of days ago that was too fast for me. I slowed the tempo and re-recorded the part. The other song was the only song in the pipeline that I hadn’t gotten to yet. There are only six songs. That’s not enough on day seven.
I also did one of the two remaining re-recording project songs. I don’t think I purposely saved the two hard songs for last, but it looks like it ended up that way. The one that’s done isn’t very good. The other one was only just started but I scrapped the little bit I did and will go back to it after taking a break.
Hard songs are hard to play.
Metal
If the kids on the playground ever ask you if you can write a metal song in 3/4 time, play them this song.
I mean, the answer is no… but this is in the ballpark I guess, if you squint a little… maybe.
I Wrote Something Too Hard for Me
It happens now and then, but I seem to have written something that’s too hard for me to actually play.
50/90 has six songs in progress right now. I put rhythm guitars on five of them today. I would have done six but my battery was down to 2%.
Song #2 started out with me noodling a bass guitar part in GarageBand on my iPad. I tried to play along with it today and it’s too fast for me to pick it in time. My left hand can do it. My right hand cannot. Not only that, but there are two sections to the song that are beyond me. It would be pathetic enough if it was just one phrase, but no… it’s two. Damn it.
Anyway, on top of the five rhythm guitar parts I recorded for 50/90, I also did two leads for the re-recording thing. Both of them triggered whatever it is that makes my hands hurt like hell when I play sometimes, and I ended up dumbing things down on both of them. One has a nice nasty fuzz box tone though, so there’s that at least.
Here’s the obligatory post-guitar-playing photo.
Another Song
I’m hoping to use my vacation day today to make a dent in the remaining Great 2015 Re-Recording Project today. I also hope to get some work done on the 50/90 front. Here’s a new mix of a song from 2014.
Two Music Projects
So many music projects!
50/90 started yesterday. I haven’t done a lot, but I have worked on it. I started a file with a couple of bass riffs yesterday, then first thing this morning I started another one, and then during one of my back-resting-lawn-mowing breaks I stared a third. Nothing special, and nothing really there to work with yet, but tiny progress has been made.
As for the re-recording project. There is one song that isn’t exactly re-recorded. When I added it to the project last year I took the original GarageBand file from the 2014 50/90 and just started redoing some of the tracks. The two MIDI instruments, the drums and bass, were actually still the same as the original recording. Today changed the drummer. I still need to re-record the bass. I also just put lead guitar onto that song and one other.
The cool thing about these two takes are that I am back to using two amplifiers. The 15 watt Fender Bassbreaker and the 15 watt Vox AC15 are both working together now. This was literally the reason I wanted to buy the AC15. It sounded pretty good to me.
Unfortunately, playing these lead parts set off whatever it is that is wrong with my left hand. Arthritis? Something like that. It hurt a lot and I had to take a break. When I came back I felt like it had slowed me down a little. Usually when that happens I just stomp on the wah and start strumming a lot. Rock and Roll, eh?
Inside the Red Head's Head 