One thing that came out of last week's full band rehearsal is that Eric's upper range was working for him a lot better than lower down. This seems to be a bit of a rule of thumb for singers anyway: that a lot of people start off feeling "more comfortable" in the lower part of their range but SOUND better higher up. If you're not Johnny Cash or Stephin Merritt, don't go too low. I've had to learn the same thing myself. My first solo show featured several low-baritone songs as warmups and EVERYONE who commented on my singing said I was better later in the show.
So we took some time last night to work out some more vocal arrangements for Eric, so that he can do harmonies in a part of his range that works better for him and sounds better overall. And that came together quite well.
In fact, a couple of songs in which I consciously chose not to write too many lyrics for the choruses, concentrating on holding long notes and vowels, had been suffering from a bit of tedium with just my voice. With just one harmony, the choruses start to pop again. This is very yay.
There's another song in which the second verse is twice the length of the first and third, and what I've been trying to do is go up an octave in the second half of the verse, for dramatic effect. Problem is, my falsetto isn't robust enough to be reliable. I'm okay in rehearsals if it's one of the first things I sing, but if I've overextended myself at all, forget it. Well, guess who can sing the part? Indeed, he'd been thinking of suggesting to me that he take it, even as it had been occurring to me to pass it to him. If I can work on my chops to the point of getting up there myself, maybe we'll double. If not, I'll stay in the original octave and we'll harmonize. WIN.
Doug was going to try to make it later on but didn't show. No problem ... however, I happen to have heard Doug sing and I'm pretty sure he will add something very good when he gets the drum parts down and joins in vocally as well.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Audio Hardware
I posted a somewhat giddy note in my LiveJournal yesterday about the really nice rehearsal I had with a full band a couple of nights ago. The material works well in that setting and I'm looking forward to rehearsing them more.
THIS post is just a quick note that I ordered a piece of useful audio hardware the other day, and it arrived in the mail last night.
An old buddy of mine pointed out that some of my mixes suffer from being done on headphones; he noted that you get a false image of the stereo field that way. Thing is, my iMac outputs on a stereo 1/8 port (female) and the mixer I drive my monitors with take 1/4 or XLR inputs, mono. Guess what was hard to find in the shops? A cable with a 1/8" stereo male end that splits to two 1/4" outputs, male or female.
I'd have preferred a longish cable with two 1/4" male ends but settled for a short cable with 1/4" female ports to which I can plug standard cables. Haven't tested it out yet, but got TWO of them. Figure next time I mix, I can do an even better job.
THIS post is just a quick note that I ordered a piece of useful audio hardware the other day, and it arrived in the mail last night.
An old buddy of mine pointed out that some of my mixes suffer from being done on headphones; he noted that you get a false image of the stereo field that way. Thing is, my iMac outputs on a stereo 1/8 port (female) and the mixer I drive my monitors with take 1/4 or XLR inputs, mono. Guess what was hard to find in the shops? A cable with a 1/8" stereo male end that splits to two 1/4" outputs, male or female.
I'd have preferred a longish cable with two 1/4" male ends but settled for a short cable with 1/4" female ports to which I can plug standard cables. Haven't tested it out yet, but got TWO of them. Figure next time I mix, I can do an even better job.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Continuing MIDI Geekery
My comment to Alan this morning was "the simpler they make the software tools, the MORE enticing it is to spend entire days composing and arranging."
I forced myself to get out of the house yesterday and catch a film ("Iron Man," for future reference--enjoyed it) just so I wouldn't keep fiddling with new tracks that benefit from the new controller.
Besides the "Cuddleslut" song (which got a thumbs up from a buddy) I've been working on a backing track for the DE track "Land Line", which I've been promising both Eric and Ryan I would hash out better. That was yesterday's big effort.
This morning I've been working on a version of Book of Love's "Boy". Eric and I have both been wanting to cover that, and Eric may actually sing lead on it, to give me a break in the set.
Late last week, though, I was actually working on Numan's "Airlane," which is one of the close inspirations for "Cuddleslut."
That's four, count 'em four, pieces in the works in the last few days. None of which I worked on at the office. I've been busy enough with real work, there.
I keep meaning to get back to "Good Men" so I can give Ryan more ideas for lead riffs, too. He's been out of town the last few days and has said he probably won't have more parts worked out for this coming Tuesday. That's okay because we'll probably be breaking in a drummer ... but I feel as if I'm not getting enough done for my sidemen.
Yeah, even though I've worked out a full backing track and have a cover song half-tracked for my bass player. ;-)
The sun is shining and I am feeling noshy, so I think I will get myself OUT the house.
Because I'm spinning ABBA's The Visitors and the drum pattern for "Soldiers" is caaaaallllling me, begging to be stolen. MUST. RESIST.
I forced myself to get out of the house yesterday and catch a film ("Iron Man," for future reference--enjoyed it) just so I wouldn't keep fiddling with new tracks that benefit from the new controller.
Besides the "Cuddleslut" song (which got a thumbs up from a buddy) I've been working on a backing track for the DE track "Land Line", which I've been promising both Eric and Ryan I would hash out better. That was yesterday's big effort.
This morning I've been working on a version of Book of Love's "Boy". Eric and I have both been wanting to cover that, and Eric may actually sing lead on it, to give me a break in the set.
Late last week, though, I was actually working on Numan's "Airlane," which is one of the close inspirations for "Cuddleslut."
That's four, count 'em four, pieces in the works in the last few days. None of which I worked on at the office. I've been busy enough with real work, there.
I keep meaning to get back to "Good Men" so I can give Ryan more ideas for lead riffs, too. He's been out of town the last few days and has said he probably won't have more parts worked out for this coming Tuesday. That's okay because we'll probably be breaking in a drummer ... but I feel as if I'm not getting enough done for my sidemen.
Yeah, even though I've worked out a full backing track and have a cover song half-tracked for my bass player. ;-)
The sun is shining and I am feeling noshy, so I think I will get myself OUT the house.
Because I'm spinning ABBA's The Visitors and the drum pattern for "Soldiers" is caaaaallllling me, begging to be stolen. MUST. RESIST.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Numanoid
I referred to my new little synthpop ditty as "shit" the other day, but it was in the sense of "shit like that is easier to write with the new keyboard controller."
In fact, it's not shit at all. It is very simple, but that's what I was going for.
So many of my favorite pop songs are built on very simple foundations. I'm attracted to muso stuff where there's fifteen bazillion chord changes and modulations and whatnot, or a little bit of modal play, but then I go back to the Hunters and Collectors catalogue, or early synthpop, and hear how much musicality people can cram into a I-V progression.
I am loving this little piece. Mostly I-V, a little vi-IV. Not only could Gary Numan have written it, it's got those long drawn-out held synth notes a la early Icehouse, where I'm just playing with letting the timbres have at your ears. I wasn't deliberately going for a "Great Southern Land" vibe, but I got there. (YES all my references and touchstones are from 1977-1983). (Except Hunnas!)
After Themes For A Defunct Leather Bar I wasn't sure Dirigible Ego was going to do a lot more instrumentals (I have another project for experiments and instrumentals) but this is definitely a Dirigible Ego song. An instrumental. Maybe I should just have at least one an album, no matter what, kind of like Simple Minds in the early days.
Gotta work on the drum kit ... especially the snare sounds, which are a little too uniform and wimpy.
But overall, wow. I have surprised myself again. Can't stop listening to the damn thing.
Working title has been "Numanoid" but I think I will rename it "Cuddleslut." It just has a happy vibe like that.
In fact, it's not shit at all. It is very simple, but that's what I was going for.
So many of my favorite pop songs are built on very simple foundations. I'm attracted to muso stuff where there's fifteen bazillion chord changes and modulations and whatnot, or a little bit of modal play, but then I go back to the Hunters and Collectors catalogue, or early synthpop, and hear how much musicality people can cram into a I-V progression.
I am loving this little piece. Mostly I-V, a little vi-IV. Not only could Gary Numan have written it, it's got those long drawn-out held synth notes a la early Icehouse, where I'm just playing with letting the timbres have at your ears. I wasn't deliberately going for a "Great Southern Land" vibe, but I got there. (YES all my references and touchstones are from 1977-1983). (Except Hunnas!)
After Themes For A Defunct Leather Bar I wasn't sure Dirigible Ego was going to do a lot more instrumentals (I have another project for experiments and instrumentals) but this is definitely a Dirigible Ego song. An instrumental. Maybe I should just have at least one an album, no matter what, kind of like Simple Minds in the early days.
Gotta work on the drum kit ... especially the snare sounds, which are a little too uniform and wimpy.
But overall, wow. I have surprised myself again. Can't stop listening to the damn thing.
Working title has been "Numanoid" but I think I will rename it "Cuddleslut." It just has a happy vibe like that.
Monday, May 12, 2008
MIDI Controller
In all this time (about two years now) that I've been playing with GarageBand, I've never really used a regular piano-style keyboard to input musical notes. The little "piano" graphic window you can use the mouse with in GB is fundamentally useless, but the "musical typing" window is just useful enough that I went with it.
I'm pretty sure I could use my fancy, expensive Roland keyboard as a MIDI trigger source instead, but I don't think I ever have. The instruction manual for that thing is endless, even after three years I find it a bit daunting. When I want to use the Roland, I run it in as an *audio* source, not a *MIDI* source. I just don't want to have to keep another USB connector around and figure out which device to turn on first and all that crap. (My brain is oddly Luddite about such things.)
What I've wanted for a long time is a MIDI input keyboard. I saw one at about the same time that one of my professional colleagues gave me my first introduction to GarageBand (he raved about how good it was; I'd been assuming it must be a toy).
But every time I looked at the price tag on a MIDI keyboard, versus what I thought I needed to accomplish, I kept convincing myself it wasn't really going to be worth it. I could hack along with the "musical typing" function and then drag the notes around in the program window if the timing was off. Which it always is, I'm far from a great keyboard player.
A recent conversation with Shannon Grady convinced me to give the M-Audio product line another look. What could be simpler than walking into an Apple Store and just getting a two-octave MIDI keyboard?
I really really should have done this long ago. My compositions just took another little quantum jump.
Here's the thing. I've gotten much more fluid about using looping to rehearse draft ideas for songs and then lay them down. But although the Roland can loop, if the major part of the song is in GB and then I have to attach the Roland to start practicing keyboard parts on top of that ... too many steps for my Luddite brain.
I mean, frankly, the programming interface on the Roland is just clunky. Compared to a full fledged GUI like GarageBand. I know there are GUI tools for the Roland (I've even loaded them, once, in the distant past, despite being a Luddite) but my dim recollection is that GB is still superior.
So here I am with my new toy and it makes it EVER so much easier to rehearse keyboard lines and then record them RIGHT into the program when basically satisfied. The only drawback (and it is a real one) is that I can only trigger the sounds native to GB. The Roland does have 768 nice sounds, about 150 of which I think I actually LIKE. So there is more to do with the interface.
But the M-Audio unit has semi-weighted keys (which the Roland does NOT), and it collects genuine MIDI attack and aftertouch information (which the Roland does, but then it dumps it to that little information window which is SO difficult to use fluidly).
I got a great deal more done just yesterday than I have in a while.
******
Now it may be time for a little more discipline.
Part of the reason I'm doing all this composing at home is that rehearsing a band is time consuming. When we go into the studio, it quickly becomes apparent that even *I* don't recall all the chord changes and melody lines for my songs perfectly, and I live with the things much more fully than my sidemen do. It takes time to get everyone rehearsed, work things out, make choices about parts, and so on.
Meanwhile, although my creative burst from circa late March and April has been tailing off a little, the juices are still flowing. So I keep coming up with new song bits.
In addition to the two songs I blogged about last week and the week before (which now carry the titles "Monday Morning" and "Sun Breaks Through") I've got a couple more things in the crucible .... another one generated out of looping some fumbly acoustic guitar arpeggiating, like "MM" and "SBT"--and that one has some draft lyrics--and then a pure, simple synthpop song in a vaguely Gary Numan tradition, which is 100% an artifact of this new MIDI keyboard, which allows me to compose that kind of shit EVEN faster than before.
Thing is, I could speed up the process of band rehearsals if I didn't spend QUITE so much time hacking at new songs.
Ryan has come up with some great ideas for lead guitar parts, but that said, it's obviously a bit of a slog for him at times, and I think it's partly because I'm not giving enough guidance. He came up with a descending figure in the verses of "Good Men" that made me wet myself with glee. I think he also repeats it basically the same each time he hauls it out. Perhaps, as the composer, it's up to me to step in and say "here are some variations I want you to make on your brilliant riff."
What I *ought* to do with this new MIDI controller is work on some of those ideas.
Same with Eric's bass lines. He's pulling out some GREAT stuff. It's also clear that I need to give him more time to rehearse, and a better beat to play with. Our rehearsal last week featured NO drummer--because I still haven't talked to Doug--and NO beat track--because I forgot my Nano with the beat tracks at home, heading out to the studio in a rush.
This is my gig. I have to be more prepared. Hacking away on new material is fabulous and great, but not if I set things up so that my sidemen don't get enough attention from my for the stuff I'm asking them to do.
So there's a bit of planning and preparation remaining to do.
I'm pretty sure I could use my fancy, expensive Roland keyboard as a MIDI trigger source instead, but I don't think I ever have. The instruction manual for that thing is endless, even after three years I find it a bit daunting. When I want to use the Roland, I run it in as an *audio* source, not a *MIDI* source. I just don't want to have to keep another USB connector around and figure out which device to turn on first and all that crap. (My brain is oddly Luddite about such things.)
What I've wanted for a long time is a MIDI input keyboard. I saw one at about the same time that one of my professional colleagues gave me my first introduction to GarageBand (he raved about how good it was; I'd been assuming it must be a toy).
But every time I looked at the price tag on a MIDI keyboard, versus what I thought I needed to accomplish, I kept convincing myself it wasn't really going to be worth it. I could hack along with the "musical typing" function and then drag the notes around in the program window if the timing was off. Which it always is, I'm far from a great keyboard player.
A recent conversation with Shannon Grady convinced me to give the M-Audio product line another look. What could be simpler than walking into an Apple Store and just getting a two-octave MIDI keyboard?
I really really should have done this long ago. My compositions just took another little quantum jump.
Here's the thing. I've gotten much more fluid about using looping to rehearse draft ideas for songs and then lay them down. But although the Roland can loop, if the major part of the song is in GB and then I have to attach the Roland to start practicing keyboard parts on top of that ... too many steps for my Luddite brain.
I mean, frankly, the programming interface on the Roland is just clunky. Compared to a full fledged GUI like GarageBand. I know there are GUI tools for the Roland (I've even loaded them, once, in the distant past, despite being a Luddite) but my dim recollection is that GB is still superior.
So here I am with my new toy and it makes it EVER so much easier to rehearse keyboard lines and then record them RIGHT into the program when basically satisfied. The only drawback (and it is a real one) is that I can only trigger the sounds native to GB. The Roland does have 768 nice sounds, about 150 of which I think I actually LIKE. So there is more to do with the interface.
But the M-Audio unit has semi-weighted keys (which the Roland does NOT), and it collects genuine MIDI attack and aftertouch information (which the Roland does, but then it dumps it to that little information window which is SO difficult to use fluidly).
I got a great deal more done just yesterday than I have in a while.
******
Now it may be time for a little more discipline.
Part of the reason I'm doing all this composing at home is that rehearsing a band is time consuming. When we go into the studio, it quickly becomes apparent that even *I* don't recall all the chord changes and melody lines for my songs perfectly, and I live with the things much more fully than my sidemen do. It takes time to get everyone rehearsed, work things out, make choices about parts, and so on.
Meanwhile, although my creative burst from circa late March and April has been tailing off a little, the juices are still flowing. So I keep coming up with new song bits.
In addition to the two songs I blogged about last week and the week before (which now carry the titles "Monday Morning" and "Sun Breaks Through") I've got a couple more things in the crucible .... another one generated out of looping some fumbly acoustic guitar arpeggiating, like "MM" and "SBT"--and that one has some draft lyrics--and then a pure, simple synthpop song in a vaguely Gary Numan tradition, which is 100% an artifact of this new MIDI keyboard, which allows me to compose that kind of shit EVEN faster than before.
Thing is, I could speed up the process of band rehearsals if I didn't spend QUITE so much time hacking at new songs.
Ryan has come up with some great ideas for lead guitar parts, but that said, it's obviously a bit of a slog for him at times, and I think it's partly because I'm not giving enough guidance. He came up with a descending figure in the verses of "Good Men" that made me wet myself with glee. I think he also repeats it basically the same each time he hauls it out. Perhaps, as the composer, it's up to me to step in and say "here are some variations I want you to make on your brilliant riff."
What I *ought* to do with this new MIDI controller is work on some of those ideas.
Same with Eric's bass lines. He's pulling out some GREAT stuff. It's also clear that I need to give him more time to rehearse, and a better beat to play with. Our rehearsal last week featured NO drummer--because I still haven't talked to Doug--and NO beat track--because I forgot my Nano with the beat tracks at home, heading out to the studio in a rush.
This is my gig. I have to be more prepared. Hacking away on new material is fabulous and great, but not if I set things up so that my sidemen don't get enough attention from my for the stuff I'm asking them to do.
So there's a bit of planning and preparation remaining to do.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Rehearsal
Note to self: when putting your guitar on, don't whack yourself in the face with it. Emulating the "look" of the kid on the cover of War is dumb.
Don't exactly remember how or why I did that, toward the start of rehearsal; perhaps I was about to whack the mike stand with the guitar and pulled it back a little too hastily. In any case, ow, split lip. But rehearsal (which was just starting) carried on fine, once I got the bleeding stopped.
Rehearsed in a rather large, nicely appointed room at JamSpot tonight. Expensive room, it was all that was available, but it worked nicely. There was a floor monitor right by my mike ... no need, nor even a temptation, to oversing to be heard over the instruments. So my voice is fine.
Eric and Ryan are learning the material nicely and adding good things to it. A couple of these songs are going to kick ass when we've got more time and practice under our belts. Next step, I think, is to see if Doug will come in and do some drums.
Won't listen to the rehearsal CD until tomorrow at the earliest. I know there were plenty of flubs, many of them mine ... but let's leave this as a memory of a really strong rehearsal for now. Time enough to critique tomorrow.
Don't exactly remember how or why I did that, toward the start of rehearsal; perhaps I was about to whack the mike stand with the guitar and pulled it back a little too hastily. In any case, ow, split lip. But rehearsal (which was just starting) carried on fine, once I got the bleeding stopped.
Rehearsed in a rather large, nicely appointed room at JamSpot tonight. Expensive room, it was all that was available, but it worked nicely. There was a floor monitor right by my mike ... no need, nor even a temptation, to oversing to be heard over the instruments. So my voice is fine.
Eric and Ryan are learning the material nicely and adding good things to it. A couple of these songs are going to kick ass when we've got more time and practice under our belts. Next step, I think, is to see if Doug will come in and do some drums.
Won't listen to the rehearsal CD until tomorrow at the earliest. I know there were plenty of flubs, many of them mine ... but let's leave this as a memory of a really strong rehearsal for now. Time enough to critique tomorrow.
Sun Breaks Through
The signs and symptoms
Are breaking through
You thought you had this bird in hand
But it somehow got the best of you
The signs and symptoms
Break into life
And all the planets in your plan
Become the stuff that parts a man and wife
It can't be helped now
It's only luck
It can't be helped now
And I'm sorry but you're really fucked
Again
And then the sun breaks through
And you feel all right
The sun breaks through
Maybe it's all right
Ah, the sun
Ah, the sun
Breaks through
The signs and portents
Are spinning plates
You set your life on the edge of the knife
But you reached the fork a little too late
The signs and portents
Will have their way
You paid the clown to settle down
But he tells you that you cannot stay
It can't be helped now
You know it's true
It can't be helped now
And I'm sorry but you're really screwed
Again
And then the sun breaks through
And you feel all right
The sun breaks through
Maybe it's all right
Ah, the sun
Ah, the sun
Breaks through
It's a lie
Can you bear it?
It's a lie
If you share it
Again
The signs and symptoms
Are getting rough
You play your hand the best you can
But your partner finally calls your bluff
The signs and portents
They can't forgive
You wonder how you'll work it out
But somehow you're just gonna have to live
It can't be helped now
Heads or tails
It can't be helped now
And I'm sorry but it's epic fail
Again
And then the sun breaks through
And you feel all right
The sun breaks through
Maybe it's all right
Ah, the sun
Ah, the sun
Breaks through
copyright 2008 Pete Chvany
Are breaking through
You thought you had this bird in hand
But it somehow got the best of you
The signs and symptoms
Break into life
And all the planets in your plan
Become the stuff that parts a man and wife
It can't be helped now
It's only luck
It can't be helped now
And I'm sorry but you're really fucked
Again
And then the sun breaks through
And you feel all right
The sun breaks through
Maybe it's all right
Ah, the sun
Ah, the sun
Breaks through
The signs and portents
Are spinning plates
You set your life on the edge of the knife
But you reached the fork a little too late
The signs and portents
Will have their way
You paid the clown to settle down
But he tells you that you cannot stay
It can't be helped now
You know it's true
It can't be helped now
And I'm sorry but you're really screwed
Again
And then the sun breaks through
And you feel all right
The sun breaks through
Maybe it's all right
Ah, the sun
Ah, the sun
Breaks through
It's a lie
Can you bear it?
It's a lie
If you share it
Again
The signs and symptoms
Are getting rough
You play your hand the best you can
But your partner finally calls your bluff
The signs and portents
They can't forgive
You wonder how you'll work it out
But somehow you're just gonna have to live
It can't be helped now
Heads or tails
It can't be helped now
And I'm sorry but it's epic fail
Again
And then the sun breaks through
And you feel all right
The sun breaks through
Maybe it's all right
Ah, the sun
Ah, the sun
Breaks through
copyright 2008 Pete Chvany
Friday, May 2, 2008
Kludging
Regarding the last couple of posts: I've done a bit of playing around with running some different rhythm loops under the main loops in those two songs that sound too similar to one another.
I find that if I put a different rhythm on one of them, let it sit in the background, stereo-separated (hard-panned left and right on two different tracks), right from measure one .... and on the other song, run an additional rhythm loop ONLY during the first couple of measures before the guitar and bass kick in, then drop it out .... that the particular similarity of the songs' introductions is reduced, and the differences between them are highlighted a bit.
Haven't ripped the current versions to my Nano to let repeat listenings inform me whether it's really enough. But the next major thing would be to stop tweaking the production and get more backing instrument parts on them. And recut the vocals. The laptop mike is pretty awesome for rough takes, but I'm wondering about doing more fully-rehearsed vocals.
It's all VERY interesting, process-wise. And the amount of interest I have in process, rather than only in outcome as in my youth, continues to be a good aspect of all this.
I find that if I put a different rhythm on one of them, let it sit in the background, stereo-separated (hard-panned left and right on two different tracks), right from measure one .... and on the other song, run an additional rhythm loop ONLY during the first couple of measures before the guitar and bass kick in, then drop it out .... that the particular similarity of the songs' introductions is reduced, and the differences between them are highlighted a bit.
Haven't ripped the current versions to my Nano to let repeat listenings inform me whether it's really enough. But the next major thing would be to stop tweaking the production and get more backing instrument parts on them. And recut the vocals. The laptop mike is pretty awesome for rough takes, but I'm wondering about doing more fully-rehearsed vocals.
It's all VERY interesting, process-wise. And the amount of interest I have in process, rather than only in outcome as in my youth, continues to be a good aspect of all this.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Another
Got another "bedroom rock" track demoed last night. I'd had the verse chord progression sitting around for a while and a few lyrical bits. Hacked some lyrics together Tuesday evening.
A drawback is that it sounds rather too much like the earlier track. At work yesterday, during some downtime when I was caught up and nothing was happening, I scanned through some GarageBand rhythm loops to find something that felt appropriate. Damn if, when I laid the guitar track down over it, it didn't turn out that the rhythm and guitar patterns sounded WAY too close to the first. Slightly different rhythm, slightly different strum, but not different enough.
I think I've determined that my default strum tempo on an acoustic guitar, at this point, is 68-72 beats per minute. That's part of the problem right there: not enough tempo variation.
Gonna have to work on some different strum patterns, too.
And do more with picking and arpeggiating, not just hold down chords all the time.
I suppose the similarity of keys (one in C, the other in Em/G) doesn't help.
Once I realized this problem, I found another rhythm track that still works, but isn't quite as similar. Gives things a little different feel. They're still very close.
Of course, this is one reason to crank things out fast like this: find out where your default strengths AND default weaknesses are. It's still pretty cool that I knocked these things out so quickly. The sound quality through the little laptop mike, with the string muting and fret buzzing issues of my guitar playing (more obvious on an acoustic), and my singing so as not to peg the mike, give the tracks a quality we can charitably describe as "interesting."
But hey. Two years ago could I have banged out this much this fast? A year ago? No.
A drawback is that it sounds rather too much like the earlier track. At work yesterday, during some downtime when I was caught up and nothing was happening, I scanned through some GarageBand rhythm loops to find something that felt appropriate. Damn if, when I laid the guitar track down over it, it didn't turn out that the rhythm and guitar patterns sounded WAY too close to the first. Slightly different rhythm, slightly different strum, but not different enough.
I think I've determined that my default strum tempo on an acoustic guitar, at this point, is 68-72 beats per minute. That's part of the problem right there: not enough tempo variation.
Gonna have to work on some different strum patterns, too.
And do more with picking and arpeggiating, not just hold down chords all the time.
I suppose the similarity of keys (one in C, the other in Em/G) doesn't help.
Once I realized this problem, I found another rhythm track that still works, but isn't quite as similar. Gives things a little different feel. They're still very close.
Of course, this is one reason to crank things out fast like this: find out where your default strengths AND default weaknesses are. It's still pretty cool that I knocked these things out so quickly. The sound quality through the little laptop mike, with the string muting and fret buzzing issues of my guitar playing (more obvious on an acoustic), and my singing so as not to peg the mike, give the tracks a quality we can charitably describe as "interesting."
But hey. Two years ago could I have banged out this much this fast? A year ago? No.
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