Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Recording Notes
Monday May 23: Recorded a few 12-string guitar lines. This will take the place of the original 12 string track that was recorded to accompany the song in its entirety.
Sunday, May 22, 2016
Recording Notes
Sunday May 22: Transferred celesta track onto the organ track. Did some additional vocal takes.
Saturday, May 21, 2016
Recording Notes
Saturday May 21: Rerecorded the organ part I came up with yesterday. Drawbar settings 888000008. Tried rerecording a vocal part. Optimized song to save space. Song is virtually complete . Just need to add drums and perhaps fix a few minor vocal spots.
Friday, May 20, 2016
Recording Notes
Friday, May 20: Recorded an organ part for the ending buildup of the song. Did not come out just right so will do it over.
Thursday, May 19, 2016
Recording Notes
Today I rerecorded the 12 string acoustic guitar part from yesterday. Did not turn out as I hoped. There were some buzzing strings on some of the chords. I may or may not leave it in. Also added some celesta sounds in the intro and middle of song. Experimented with adding organ around the end of the song.
Recording Notes
I have a log book where I'm supposed to keep tracking of any and all recording that I do just for my own reference. But I haven't done the best job at keeping up with it. So I decided I'm going to start writing some details here. If anyone reads such posts they will most likely find them quite boring, so feel free to skip over these and go to the more interesting stuff. I will not link these posts to the Exit World Facebook page.
Tuesday, May 17: Re-recorded some vocal lines
Wednesday, May 18: Not much time to work with today; tried recording 12 string acoustic guitar on the track that has the 6 string capo'ed acoustic. I am leaning towards going with the 12 string sound but the take I did today was unsatisfactory. Will try again tomorrow.
Tuesday, May 17: Re-recorded some vocal lines
Wednesday, May 18: Not much time to work with today; tried recording 12 string acoustic guitar on the track that has the 6 string capo'ed acoustic. I am leaning towards going with the 12 string sound but the take I did today was unsatisfactory. Will try again tomorrow.
Thursday, May 12, 2016
'If I Told You' Recording Progress
Well, I am glad to say that recording of "If I Told You" has been well underway for the last several weeks. Yes, weeks. I wish I had what I needed to just spend hours at a time each day to record. I know for a fact that I would have a lot more recorded work and I would get my songs done a lot sooner. Like the Beatles, who would get songs done in day or 2. This business of recording 90 minutes today, 90 minutes tomorrow and then not the next day is just not cutting it. But that's what I have to work with now until things get better. And they will.
Regardless, I have some acoustic guitar tracks down, some electric guitar tracks finished and that's about it. Next on the agenda is bass and some piano. May add some synth later. Drums eventually. Vocals still need some tweaking. They were the first thing I started recording and still not satisfactory.
Today I will try to get the bass down. I'm hoping that goes smoothly. I don't have any special bass part planned out for this song. If I can get it done today I will revisit the vocals and try to redo some parts there. I need to get the vocals down as perfect as possible. When you're performing live it's OK if you sound out of pitch here and there but on studio recordings there is no real excuse for it. Of course, I have a real excuse and it's good, too. My excuse is that I'm just not a good singer and I struggle to stay on pitch. So I have to do take over take over take over days and weeks even to get not only the right pitch but the right delivery.
One thing I have noticed recently is that there are a lot of examples of some out-of-pitch vocal notes on professional recordings by big artists. I don't know if that's just a case of me looking out for bad notes or if I just have perfect pitch, which I know I do not have. It does make me wonder though whether I should leave some bad notes in my recordings or just keep doing hundreds of takes till I get them right. For the most part these out-of-tune notes I have heard by artists are minor and probably not noticeable to most listeners.
To give you an idea of what this new song I'm working on sounds like, here is a video I made of me playing a demo of it:
Inspiration for this song? As I wrote before, it is influenced by early Bee Gees material. I was just playing chords and singing some lines over them and it stuck. For a long time the song went largely unfinished. Just before I started recording it is when I wrote a second verse and settled on the chorus. It's not a very long song, but I managed to make the recording into about 3-and-a-half minutes. The recording itself will feature influences from the Bee Gees (again), U2, Phil Wickham, Charlie Rich & Gordon Lightfoot. Some people may be surprised at the idea that a song could be influenced by a pretty diverse selection of artists. Others may listen to the finished product and not hear any Charlie Rich or Phil Wickham (provided they are familiar with such artits). A long time ago someone asked me who I was influenced by and I answered The Beatles. He then told me my music sounded nothing like The Beatles. I guess there is a difference between being influenced by other artists and trying to copy other artists. I realize that in most of my music I never really tried copying anyone else. As much a fan as I am of The Beatles I do not like everything they put out there. I took the inspiration they gave me from their material that I did like and combined it with inspiration from other artists and put my own touch on it to create my own unique music. So I didn't mind that this person said my music sounded nothing like The Beatles. I never really tried to copy them. Then again some people have said some of my songs do sound like The Beatles. Again, it wasn't intentional. However, in the case of 'Paperback Writer' I may make a song which is heavily influenced by it and we'll see what people think!
Anyway it is time to go do some recording. Off I go!
Regardless, I have some acoustic guitar tracks down, some electric guitar tracks finished and that's about it. Next on the agenda is bass and some piano. May add some synth later. Drums eventually. Vocals still need some tweaking. They were the first thing I started recording and still not satisfactory.
Today I will try to get the bass down. I'm hoping that goes smoothly. I don't have any special bass part planned out for this song. If I can get it done today I will revisit the vocals and try to redo some parts there. I need to get the vocals down as perfect as possible. When you're performing live it's OK if you sound out of pitch here and there but on studio recordings there is no real excuse for it. Of course, I have a real excuse and it's good, too. My excuse is that I'm just not a good singer and I struggle to stay on pitch. So I have to do take over take over take over days and weeks even to get not only the right pitch but the right delivery.
One thing I have noticed recently is that there are a lot of examples of some out-of-pitch vocal notes on professional recordings by big artists. I don't know if that's just a case of me looking out for bad notes or if I just have perfect pitch, which I know I do not have. It does make me wonder though whether I should leave some bad notes in my recordings or just keep doing hundreds of takes till I get them right. For the most part these out-of-tune notes I have heard by artists are minor and probably not noticeable to most listeners.
To give you an idea of what this new song I'm working on sounds like, here is a video I made of me playing a demo of it:
Inspiration for this song? As I wrote before, it is influenced by early Bee Gees material. I was just playing chords and singing some lines over them and it stuck. For a long time the song went largely unfinished. Just before I started recording it is when I wrote a second verse and settled on the chorus. It's not a very long song, but I managed to make the recording into about 3-and-a-half minutes. The recording itself will feature influences from the Bee Gees (again), U2, Phil Wickham, Charlie Rich & Gordon Lightfoot. Some people may be surprised at the idea that a song could be influenced by a pretty diverse selection of artists. Others may listen to the finished product and not hear any Charlie Rich or Phil Wickham (provided they are familiar with such artits). A long time ago someone asked me who I was influenced by and I answered The Beatles. He then told me my music sounded nothing like The Beatles. I guess there is a difference between being influenced by other artists and trying to copy other artists. I realize that in most of my music I never really tried copying anyone else. As much a fan as I am of The Beatles I do not like everything they put out there. I took the inspiration they gave me from their material that I did like and combined it with inspiration from other artists and put my own touch on it to create my own unique music. So I didn't mind that this person said my music sounded nothing like The Beatles. I never really tried to copy them. Then again some people have said some of my songs do sound like The Beatles. Again, it wasn't intentional. However, in the case of 'Paperback Writer' I may make a song which is heavily influenced by it and we'll see what people think!
Anyway it is time to go do some recording. Off I go!
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