Members babablowfish Posted February 10, 2007 Members Share Posted February 10, 2007 I hold a PhD in RecTard. Today I loaded up on some kind of cold pills and went for it. I did exactly the same thing Knock noted about reaching the very end - literally at the last chord - and used the wrong one. I gave up after 15 attempts - one the victim of a passing train - and decided I gave it an honest go. I already have some stuff ready to give to whomever is going to compile this cd. I just wanted to get this new one down. If it makes you feel any better, there are mistakes on all of the cuts I sent to Whale. On the best take of one song I seriously screwed up the lyrics and I wrote the damn lyrics! What the heck. I just want to share some of our stuff. Simon Cowell won't be listening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cripes Posted February 10, 2007 Members Share Posted February 10, 2007 I know Baba. I just need to relax a little. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JasmineTea Posted February 10, 2007 Members Share Posted February 10, 2007 Be patient, all. Part of the fun of it will be having as many of us as we can get on there. I don't think it'd be nice if we leave someone out because they were'nt ready. ...like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members knockwood Posted February 11, 2007 Members Share Posted February 11, 2007 I can feel your pain. I came up with the tune below while noodling away on my old L-03. I thought it sound pretty good, so I decided to record it and work on it later. During the recording, my wife walked in the room coughed and walked out (thanks honey). At the end of the track, my dog runs in the room (hardwood floors) and barks. All of it happens in less than a minute. No telling what will show up if I record a 4 minute clip. http://media.putfile.com/Summer-Breezin-rough-cut Dude, that is hilarious. I really like the tune, btw, and hope you get it down. But if your wife and the dog show up three minutes in, I think you should still use that take - priceless!Cripes,Isn't that the absolute {censored}s? You do 84 takes, getting increasingly annoyed with each one, and finally have to say to hell with it. I seem to get about three or four takes before I'm so irritated that I'm completely out of the zone and there's no joy in it anymore - it's just a battle of wills between me and retardation. Or maybe I'll finally hit it after take 400, but when I listen to it later it sounds cold and mechanical and {censored}ty. And angry. Imagine "Her Majesty" being sung by some infuriated guy with a dog barking maniacally in the background... The best takes I get are the ones where I just say {censored} it and leave the mistakes... worth it for the right feel. And I don't know why I get so uptight, anyway. Not like I'll ever do this for a living. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members knockwood Posted February 11, 2007 Members Share Posted February 11, 2007 Be patient, all. Part of the fun of it will be having as many of us as we can get on there. I don't think it'd be nice if we leave someone out because they were'nt ready....like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir... ...like a naugahyde suitcase on a suede couch oh yes, there will be muffins... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kwakatak Posted February 11, 2007 Author Members Share Posted February 11, 2007 What I like to do is wait until I have no distractions, which is usually after midnight. My son goes to bed between 8-9, my wife goes to bed by 10 but the cat decides that it's "her time" and will tear through the house yowling. She usually calms down by midnight which leaves me with only about 1-2 hours of time where I can play softly and try to get something audible. For fingerstyle pieces it's OK but if I want to flatpick I have to try and do it during the day when my son's up and in a quiet mood. I'm hoping to get something down tonight. It ain't looking good though. Oh well, at least I was able to write some chords and some lyric ideas down into my journal. I can at least work on that tonight with a live mic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cripes Posted February 11, 2007 Members Share Posted February 11, 2007 Kwak, you keep a journal? I used to. Now I use a clipboard with copy paper for jotting lyrics down. Then, I enter them into MS Word so I can space them out and put the chords in at the right places. Plus, you can re-size the font to make it easier. What I need is a tele-prompter because I never, never remember my own lyrics. By the time I do I frickin' hate the dang song I've sung it so much. I think after I get back from Chicago I'll be settled down and relaxed enough to do some recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JasmineTea Posted February 11, 2007 Members Share Posted February 11, 2007 I need a secretary/nurse/mother/girlfriend to follow me around and take my notes for me. edit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kwakatak Posted February 11, 2007 Author Members Share Posted February 11, 2007 Kwak, you keep a journal? I used to. Now I use a clipboard with copy paper for jotting lyrics down. Then, I enter them into MS Word so I can space them out and put the chords in at the right places. Plus, you can re-size the font to make it easier. What I need is a tele-prompter because I never, never remember my own lyrics. By the time I do I frickin' hate the dang song I've sung it so much.I think after I get back from Chicago I'll be settled down and relaxed enough to do some recording. I just started keeping a journal. I figure it can't hurt. Back in high school and college I kept a notepad for free writing which helped me to my narrative writing classes. they taught us that it just helped to create a stream of thought. I also kept a sketch pad for doing "gesture drawings" and "thumbnails" for my visual arts classes. Even though they were just mostly doodles it helped to build on the basic ideas. This is sort of the same idea: get anything down and maybe use it as a piece toward the finished product. Beside the basic ideas that I've had for a little while, after today I've now got chord names, a basic song structure, a lyrical outline and some odd lines of text that may become lyrics. This is all on top of some ideas that I've already recorded on prior occasions. By themselves they're not much, but this afternoon I had something firm enough to build on and even revise the original idea and even come up with a couple of variations that may potentially be "B" and "C" sections of the song. We'll see what I can come up with tonight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cripes Posted February 11, 2007 Members Share Posted February 11, 2007 Couple days ago I was playing an old unfinished piece when I realized I could stitch it into another old unfinished piece and now I have one finished piece. I was watching an interview with Justin Hayward (Moody Blues) some years ago and he mentioned something I remember from time-to-time. He said that when he noodles around (my words) he records it. Then he listens and looks for ways to get one good thing from the various recordings. That's how the song Question was written. When I start in on a new idea it's usually for the purpose of creating and developing something new. Since completing that one piece from two I think I'm going to keep myself less focused and try to stay more aware of what one short piece can do for another. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kwakatak Posted February 11, 2007 Author Members Share Posted February 11, 2007 OT: OK, I'm ditching Audacity and switching to Reaper. I've also installed the Free Amp 2 plugin to continue my electric guitar (dark side ) dabblings. So now I have a couple of learning curves to overcome in addition to this deadline. Am I biting off more than I can chew or what? It's like I'm learning Photoshop all over again! In my defense though, I really want to do a multitrack recording using everything that makes noise in my house that I can get my hands on. For example, during the course of my musings I wanted to add a couple of electric guitar tracks and maybe even a drum loop. Audacity can do it but frankly it sucks at it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members knockwood Posted February 11, 2007 Members Share Posted February 11, 2007 OT: OK, I'm ditching Audacity and switching to Reaper. I've also installed the Free Amp 2 plugin to continue my electric guitar (dark side ) dabblings. So now I have a couple of learning curves to overcome in addition to this deadline. Am I biting off more than I can chew or what? It's like I'm learning Photoshop all over again! In my defense though, I really want to do a multitrack recording using everything that makes noise in my house that I can get my hands on. For example, during the course of my musings I wanted to add a couple of electric guitar tracks and maybe even a drum loop. Audacity can do it but frankly it sucks at it. Just downloaded Audacity but haven't touched it. I'm afraid to touch my wee digital recorder again until I've uploaded today's track somewhere, lest I hose myself up again by recording over another good track... But the freakin' Micro BR did not come with a USB cable so I'll have to pick one up tomorrow or Monday... Man, I know just a few volumes less than absolutely nothing about recording...The link you posted earlier to LB's home recording tutorial is awesome. Put that sucker in favorites. I may not be able to apply much of it by March considering the recording equipment at my disposal, but that is some invaluable info to have for future. Thanks, man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kwakatak Posted February 11, 2007 Author Members Share Posted February 11, 2007 Just downloaded Audacity but haven't touched it. I'm afraid to touch my wee digital recorder again until I've uploaded today's track somewhere, lest I hose myself up again by recording over another good track... But the freakin' Micro BR did not come with a USB cable so I'll have to pick one up tomorrow or Monday... Man, I know just a few volumes less than absolutely nothing about recording... The link you posted earlier to LB's home recording tutorial is awesome. Put that sucker in favorites. I may not be able to apply much of it by March considering the recording equipment at my disposal, but that is some invaluable info to have for future. Thanks, man. OK, here's an initial impression about Reaper: Audacity Schmaudacity! This is a great program! At least with the Free Amp plug in. I've been happily wanking away on my electric plugged directly into my laptop without any need of the amp, a mic or the mixer. I just need to download the lame dll to export to MP3 and I'll be golden! Now to try it with the mic/mixer/acoustic... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted February 11, 2007 Members Share Posted February 11, 2007 Just downloaded Audacity but haven't touched it. I'm afraid to touch my wee digital recorder again until I've uploaded today's track somewhere, lest I hose myself up again by recording over another good track... But the freakin' Micro BR did not come with a USB cable so I'll have to pick one up tomorrow or Monday... Man, I know just a few volumes less than absolutely nothing about recording... Knock, the little bit I know about this is that Audacity is really cool to convert your wav file into an mp3. It also has a neat feature to reduce noise in your recording - if your record about three seconds with out playing then look at the little graph in Audacity you will see the noise. Select that part of the recording with your mouse, go to Effect/Noise removal, Get Noice Profile, Edit/Select/All, Effect/Noise Removal, click Remove Noise (I'm reading this from my notes so it may be slightly different). You can also amplify it and export as an mp3. The first time you do that it will prompt you for some dll, go to your web browser and find it (free download), save it to your PC and point Audacity to it. From then on you can do the mp3 thing. I upload from the memory in my Boss with their software, then use Audacity for the conversion. You can also, of course, use Audacity as your PC recorder but your little Micro should be a lot more convenient. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Hudman Posted February 11, 2007 Members Share Posted February 11, 2007 OT: OK, I'm ditching Audacity and switching to Reaper. I've also installed the Free Amp 2 plugin to continue my electric guitar (dark side ) dabblings. So now I have a couple of learning curves to overcome in addition to this deadline. Am I biting off more than I can chew or what? It's like I'm learning Photoshop all over again! In my defense though, I really want to do a multitrack recording using everything that makes noise in my house that I can get my hands on. For example, during the course of my musings I wanted to add a couple of electric guitar tracks and maybe even a drum loop. Audacity can do it but frankly it sucks at it. How long is the Reaper free trial period? Did you buy the $39.99 license? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kwakatak Posted February 11, 2007 Author Members Share Posted February 11, 2007 I was under the impression that it was shareware but so far it's worth the $$$ IMO. I didn't realize how crappily (is that a word?) Audacity handled plugins. Only after using Reaper did I realize that my reverb plugin had a graphic interface that I can tweak and apply either in realtime or after recording the track. Pretty slick! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarist21 Posted February 11, 2007 Members Share Posted February 11, 2007 I didn't realize how crappily (is that a word?) Audacity handled plugins. I've had a couple of bad plugin experiences and Audacity was the culprit of one of them. A lot of relatively simple plugins don't work to their full capacity/potential or don't even work at all in Audacity. I've also had some trouble with Cakewalk, but I think if I would just buy the newer version I wouldn't have the same problems. Ellen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cldplytkmn Posted February 11, 2007 Members Share Posted February 11, 2007 ...like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir... are you doing that tune, JT? freaking love cohen. i'm on the fence about what to record for this... maybe some inspiration will strike... I can relate to both red light fever and to getting sick of something by the time its done. I generally can't do more than 5-6 takes before i'm just completely over it... BUT... i try to keep this in mind, you can get it wrong a million times. You only have to get it right once. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Dan Hall Posted February 12, 2007 Members Share Posted February 12, 2007 are you doing that tune, JT? freaking love cohen. Ya know somethin' Clip. I was gonna bring up that connection with regards to one of your songs but now I forget which one. Not by any means in a derivative sense but just kinda like an echo. Kinda like the way George Straight puts that little warble in his voice when he mentions Merle Haggard in a song. Hmmm I'll bet that makes a lot of sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JasmineTea Posted February 12, 2007 Members Share Posted February 12, 2007 are you doing that tune, JT? freaking love cohen.Naw, I heard it and decided it would make a nice sideways remark at the time. I'm gonna do an original and a cover of a song I heard in a Marx Bros movie. I don't know the name of it or who wrote it. It's in the movie Horse Feathers. Both will be fingerstyle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Dan Hall Posted February 12, 2007 Members Share Posted February 12, 2007 Naw, I heard it and decided it would make a nice sideways remark at the time. I'm gonna do an original and a cover of a song I heard in a Marx Bros movie. I don't know the name of it or who wrote it. It's in the movie Horse Feathers. Both will be fingerstyle. Not Lydia?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JasmineTea Posted February 12, 2007 Members Share Posted February 12, 2007 When I start in on a new idea it's usually for the purpose of creating and developing something new. Since completing that one piece from two I think I'm going to keep myself less focused and try to stay more aware of what one short piece can do for another.I think that's a good idea. I'm always recycling old ideas in with new ones. But I think it's best to just let it happen as it does rather than rummaging around through old ideas trying to find pieces that will fit together. IMO, of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JasmineTea Posted February 12, 2007 Members Share Posted February 12, 2007 Not Lydia?!Nope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cldplytkmn Posted February 12, 2007 Members Share Posted February 12, 2007 Ya know somethin' Clip. I was gonna bring up that connection with regards to one of your songs but now I forget which one. Not by any means in a derivative sense but just kinda like an echo. Kinda like the way George Straight puts that little warble in his voice when he mentions Merle Haggard in a song. Hmmm I'll bet that makes a lot of sense. I love that he sings down in his natural voice, and you'll rarely hear him strain to make something sound 'powerful'... the power is in his lyrics... anybody who's never heard "Famous Blue Raincoat" should definitely, definitely check it out... it redefined honest songwriting for me. It's four in the morning, the end of December I'm writing you now just to see if you're better New York is cold, but I like where I'm living There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening. I hear that you're building your little house deep in the desert You're living for nothing now, I hope you're keeping some kind of record. Yes, and Jane came by with a lock of your hair She said that you gave it to her That night that you planned to go clear Did you ever go clear? Ah, the last time we saw you you looked so much older Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder You'd been to the station to meet every train And you came home without Lili Marlene And you treated my woman to a flake of your life And when she came back she was nobody's wife. Well I see you there with the rose in your teeth One more thin gypsy thief Well I see Jane's awake -- She sends her regards. And what can I tell you my brother, my killer What can I possibly say? I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you I'm glad you stood in my way. If you ever come by here, for Jane or for me Your enemy is sleeping, and his woman is free. Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes I thought it was there for good so I never tried. And Jane came by with a lock of your hair She said that you gave it to her That night that you planned to go clear -- Sincerely, L. Cohen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Greymuzzle Posted February 12, 2007 Members Share Posted February 12, 2007 Nil Desperandum guysalways remember" All Gods creatures got a place in the choirSome sing low and some sing higherSome sing out loud on the telephone wireand some just clap their handsor feet or paws or anything they got now"See, no worries about dogs, spouses, kids or anything. You don't live in a vacuum, and music doesn't exist in one.Make your music loud, proud, inclusive and accessible - I mean it is supposed to reflect this forum, isn't it?Your're class acts all Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.