Holiday Music and Electronic Music

So three months after my last post and I am still working on that same one Christmas song. It's been rough. Too much stuff going on. (Although I must admit I also did waste some time unnecessarily). Am I ready to throw in the towel on my plan to have a holiday album out this year? No, not quite yet. But it isn't looking good. I may have to settle on another EP. At worst, I may have to settle on this one song, but that seems far-fetched. The good news is I have to do just a little more recording on this song and then put it all together. The bad news is I'm not sure how I will handle the drum track. Will I play actual drums or will I go with my Yamaha synth drum sounds? I do want to actually play but we'll see.

Sometime in April I took a break from the Xmas song to record something using my Minimoog. This is a pretty amazing instrument in that it is a whole band in itself. Couple some of the melodic tones with a delay pedal and you get some very out-there electronic sounds.

I put together about a 5 or 6 track piece of different Moog sounds and made up a little electronic song. After doing this for a few days I felt the inspiration to do a whole album of songs made only (or almost entirely) on the Minomoog. I'm not saying I've done that already but it is another project that will be in the works.

What I came up with is a type of music that I have been searching for but could not find. I realize there are tons of music out there that I have not yet heard and never will. But based on my searches I have not found what I've been looking for. It all started with a Chernobyl disaster I saw online a few years ago. It had stock footage of Soviet nuclear power films and some very Moog-ish music playing along. The song was undoubtedly electronic and was most likely created on keyboards exclusively. What I don't know is whether the music was part of the film or if it was newly created for the documentary. The film's era is very hard to tell but I would guess it to be somewhere from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. The music fits in perfectly with that era and makes me skeptical that it was newly made for the program. But I cannot find any info about it and there is nothing in the credits.

How do I describe this music? It's outer spacey. It's futuristic in a retro sort of way. It's unsettling. It's early shoe-gazing music. It's sparse. It makes everything seem slow motion. It sounds like it was recorded in wide open spaces, like the glaciers of Iceland. It's atmospheric. It's ambient. It has that lo-fi feel. It gives warning. It can be ominous.

That's what I want to make. I don't have all the synth sounds I would like to have in order to do this. In particular there is a vintage sound which resembles voices singing "ohs" or "ahs" and it sounds really great.

I've listened to artists such as Suzanne Ciani and Klaus Schulze but their electronic art tends to not be very musical. I have no problem with long, drawn-out pieces even if they're not in a static rhythm. But it has to have a feel of musicality and a pulse to drive it. The "I Robot" album by The Alan Parsons Project has a lot of aspects of what I'm looking for, particularly the instrumental passages. I thought Kraftwerk may have been a source but their music sounds too gleeful.

I would like to find some of what I'm looking for from the period of 1969-1977. It has to be out there. But I haven't found it so I will try to make my own. I uploaded a super lo-fi version to my phone from my monitors of the song I made has unofficial working titles of "Moog Song" and "The Day Will Come." Here it is from soundcloud:




That's rather a short piece but I plan to make it a lot longer. I'm envisioning about 4-5 songs for a 40-minute album. And this is a project I believe I can get done before the year is up even if I start a few months from now.

But I really do want to work on the Christmas music. It has not been difficult as I thought it would be. The song I've been working on is rather funky and it keeps me in the spirit of working on it. I don't think it's strange to work on holiday music throughout the year, and it doesn't feel weird telling others that's what I'm doing. So onward I go!

Something's Wrong

I've been working on recording a new song called "Something's Wrong" the last couple of weeks. It's all written out. I just have to make a few changes. I am going for a 60's garage rock sound on this song. The simplicity and lo-fi of some of those 60's recordings beat the over-production of many later recordings hands down.

This is going to be my shortest complete recording that features lyrics so far. Just under 3 minutes. There is no specific song that serves as an influence for this one. It's more of a sound thing that is the inspiration. As of right now I've got an arpeggio electric guitar track with tremolo and the electric bass track completed. Today I did a piano track just for effect and I may add another just to fill out the sound. Not quite sure yet. I am also looking to add an organ track and/or a minimoog one. Of course there will be vocal tracks--at least 2. And I will play real drums for this song.

Other than this song I have ideas for at least 3 other songs. I know musically what I want to do with them. I just have to write out the lyrics. At this point I am thinking they will all be relatively short songs at 3 minutes or less just to keep that 60's vibe going. Once I start to arrange the songs the times may change. I don't want to stray too much from that though because the longer the song the more time it takes to produce it. And if there's any chance I am to release another album this year I cannot spend a lot of time on long productions.

Ideally I think I can finish up this song in about another week or 2. There are 2 things which may not corroborate this. First, the vocals may take me a while to get right. Vocals are always a problem. Second, I'm not sure if I will record the drums as part of the sessions for this song or if I will wait until I have another song or 2 and then just record drums for all of them at the same time. I don't like keeping a song on the side that just needs one more component to it. If I could get a song done in a week or two then I wouldn't mind waiting to get drums recorded. But since I never have a certain timeline for getting a song done I could end up keeping an earlier one unreleased longer than I'd like.

Stayed tuned for updates.

'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!

Recording Done, Now Onto Mixing & Mastering

The weekend is officially over and the bad news is that my recording of "We Three Kings" is not ready. The good news is that I got a very good overall snare drum sound--probably the best I've ever recorded. Took me three sessions to get the final drum track I was pleased with.

There is still plenty of work that lies ahead. As I wrote in the last post, I used four separate tracks for the drums. I now need to combine those four into one. Not because I want to have it all on one track only but because I have used more tracks than I technically have available. My recorder is marketed as a 16 track but in practical reality it only offers 12 tracks; 8 mono tracks and 4 stereo tracks which are counted as 2 each. And one of the stereo tracks cannot be used for recording on because its purpose is to act as the track onto which the mixdown is bounced onto. At the moment I have 15 parts of which I will have to bounce some. Putting the 4 drum parts onto one track and the four horn/brass tracks onto only two should probably do the trick. Plus I also have to clean up any noise on some of the guitar tracks. After that I will make EQ adjustments and create a mix of all the tracks. Finally, after I have the perfect mix I will have it mastered. But to all of you who do your own home recordings you know how the process goes.

I'll be spending hours doing all this tomorrow with the intention of having the song ready on the following day. After that is all complete I will try to figure out what I will do next. Anyway here are a few photos of my drum recording setup:

Christmas Recording Progress

If you're a regular reader of this blog you already know that I've been working on a cover of a Christmas song. I'm pleased to say that it has been coming along well and I've been experimenting with some new things. But I have now arrived at the dreaded 'recording the drums' portion of the song. After initially being convinced that I would go with my trusty Yamaha synth's drum sounds, I have now decided that I need to play a real drum set for this song. The hard part will be, as always, getting a good snare drum sound.

I was experimenting a bit with the snare drum this evening and doing some test recordings with it. I achieved a very nice sound--still not perfect but it might just be the best sound I have ever recorded. What did it for me was three key things:

1. Tightening the top and bottom heads of the drum
2. Placing a mic near & just above the drum (and away from the hi hat)
3. Turning down the input recording level.

Tightening the heads gave me a higher pitched sound and one that cut through the mix with all the other instruments. The mic near the snare gives it extra volume and lets you hear its nuances from up close. Additionally, with the mic that close I don't have to hit the drum all that hard. Also, the mic is away from the hi hat which means it does not pick up all that hi hat noise and ended up giving me a very balanced sound. Finally, turning down the record input level got rid of the distorted drum sound that unfortunately has plagued many of my other recordings. It pays to try different things out! If it weren't so late in the evening when I was doing all this I would have recorded the whole drum set track tonight.

But as I mentioned it wasn't completely perfect. On the recording I was hearing a lot of the snare drum's overtones. I will try recording again with a drum ring on the head. But the problem with rings is that they tend to completely deaden the drum sound. I may try some other things if the desired sound is not achieved.

So when I do record the drum set part my plan is to use that one mic on the snare; an overhead to capture the toms & cymbals; and 2 for the kick drum, one on each end. I used to in the past mic the toms individually but I have found that the single overhead picks them up very well and I have even received  professional praise on their recorded sound using that technique. That's good enough for me. Ideally, if I had the space and additional mic stands I would go with mic'ing each tom and running each one through a separate channel of a mixer. But you make do with what you have because it beats getting into unnecessary debt.

The song I'm working on is "We Three Kings." This is a great, minor-key, public domain Christmas song. It's in 3/8 time and originally I was going to record it that way. But I had some other ideas for this song and I changed it to 4/4. Obviously I have not heard every version of this song ever recorded, but I believe I have come up with a unique arrangement and interpretation. I was going for a late 60's/early 70's sound on this, and in particular a vintage R&B feel. It is an instrumental with a minimoog voice taking the lead melody. This is the very first recording of mine to feature a cello. And I added a 4 piece horn section because, hey, it won't sound like some vintage, funky R&B without horns! I recorded trumpet, trombone, tenor sax & baritone sax. This is not the first time I have experimented with horns on a recording of mine. You might remember some horn action on my song "The Rain." Now, mind you, I do not have a cello or all those different horns nor would I be able to play them well enough at this time. But my Yamaha synth opens up worlds of sound for me. And these sounds are realistic-enough that I can use them and pass them off as the real deal on recordings. I will surely be using horn sounds a lot more in my future songs.

I'm really excited about finishing the recording process for this song. There are still some things to tweak and plenty of tracks to bounce in order to free up space. I anticipate completing this song in its entirety and releasing it during the coming weekend. At that time I will submit it to ChristmasSongsRadio.com where it will be in rotation with my three other holiday recordings. I will also send it to "The Basement Tapes with Nick & Bootsy."

Before I close out this post I want to give you an idea of the snare drum sound I'm looking to get for this recording. Such a great sound and cuts clearly through the mix. And there appears to be only an overhead mic. I'm pretty confident there are no other mics on those drums as that was back in the day when drum sets were not given mic'ing priority. By the way, this is also a great song by a great performer:

To Create or Not Create...That is the Question!

My last post here was over 3 months ago. Sadly I don't have any news regarding music. First of all because where I do my musical work is very hot during summer and not really conducive to spending hours being creative. Not safe either. And second because of general discouragement, disillusionment and disappointment.

Yes, making music is fun and great and rewarding if that is what one is passionate about, as I am. But I think one of the necessary elements of art is sharing it with others. Letting it be seen or heard. What's the point in painting portraits but keeping them all in your room and never allowing anyone else to see them? Or learning how to dance all the different dances there are but never performing them but to yourself in front of a mirror? Or creating music that no one else ever gets to hear, either because you don't share it or your options for sharing it prove futile? (And it does not even have to apply just to art. How about science? If you found a cure for something what is the point if you don't share it?)

Which brings me to YouTube. I am tempted to upload more of my songs on this website but I look at the number of video views and I say, "What's the point?" The numbers are pathetic. It seems people are more interested in watching other people's reactions to viral videos and video games. What is this? We have gone from doing things ourselves to watching other people do things to watching other people react to other people doing things. I don't understand this. Why would anyone want to watch anyone else's reactions while playing a video game? Where is the entertainment value in that? Why not just play the game yourself? God forbid I recommend that though seeing as how I believe video games in general are a curse upon young people (not to mention those not-so-young who still indulge).

But there is no way to compete with all the mindlessness out there. I can upload a new song today and it will have a negligible amount of views for most of its life. Every time I upload a new video I tell myself that this will be the one that does well. It's all bogus. No one's interested. Everyone is looking for something that is controversial, has shock value or is celebrity-related. Reverbnation, Bandcamp, soundcloud and other websites are really no different. I seriously don't believe anyone fans you on those websites for any reason other than wanting you to fan them back and increase their audience, or worse yet, trying to sell you a product or service. The only websites that have brought my music any exposure is this very blog where I write (discovered by The Basement Tapes) and also Podshow Music Network. Some of my songs have been picked up as a result of these 2 websites and have been played in various areas, including as far away as Germany.

I wish I had better news or a more optimistic outlook. If anything I still intend to release my full length album this year--this fall actually. It's still a major goal and I'll consider it a milestone for me when it does happen. And it will allow me to have my songs on Spotify and other music streaming websites, even if they're not played ever. But just knowing that they are there gives me a sense of accomplishment.

Before I sign off I do want to say that I have been fiddling around with my Christmas song a little. Just trying to improve it in time for the holidays. I have been trying to add a second snare drum track from my Yamaha S90 synth over my original one to make it stronger and more modern sounding. I'm not a huge fan of using 'fake' drums on my recordings but until I can figure out how to get a great recorded snare sound in my studio space I must use whatever resources I have at hand to make the best recordings I can. Also I had an idea for a tubular bells track to replace the original horns track but that has not gone very well.

In closing, I want to share this quote from an episode of "Night Gallery" which struck me from the first time I heard it and has come to signify reality more and more each time I hear it. Just to put this quote in context, it was uttered inside a funeral home in regards to the outside world:

"Out there is the graveyard! Out there--the slaughterhouse where they kill and bury dreams. A whole world full of lonely pallbearers."

 Yes, I see this manifesting itself on a daily basis.

Re-visiting Some Previously Recorded Tunes

What have I been up to lately? Well, revisiting some of my old tunes and re-working them so to speak. Last week I went back to "Another Morning (What a Drag)" and attempted to create a stripped-down mix of it for a special purpose. Recently the thought of going back to many of my older songs and just completely stripping them down to acoustic guitar and vocals has crossed my mind. I guess I feel like experimenting a bit. But even something like that can distract me from getting my album released as part of my springtime goal.  So in reality the reason I went back to "Another Morning" was for a very good reason and not just to kill time. Anyway, here is the mix that I came up with.




The last few days I have gone back to working on "Tomorrow." A music comrade had suggested I do a little more with the vocals so I added some extra layers of complimentary vocals. It was a great idea that I'm glad he suggested and I really like how the new version now sounds. I also took the liberty of moving around a few parts that for years I have left alone; reason being that I felt I had spent enough time on it already and needed to move on. So this new yet-unreleased version will sound different from the one I released on my EP in late 2011 which can be heard on Spotify if you look hard enough (or on my YouTube channel).

It was interesting going back to these recordings from 2009 and 2010. I realized I was quite reverb-happy during that time. I still love reverb but the amounts I used in these songs were pretty excessive. Additionally, I was using the built-in reverb which is very digital sounding. I exclusively now use reverb pedals or vocal pedals that have good-sounding reverb built into them. The reverb on these pedals don't sound so processed as does the one built into my 16 track Boss recorder.

So not only will "Tomorrow" sound different from the EP version but "Another Morning" will as well. Not as much however. But there will be reduced levels of reverb and I'm going to remix the drum track to mono. The current version features the drums really up front in the mix due to inadvertently recording the drums onto a stereo track. After having recorded the drums I played it back and noticed that the kick drum was panned all the way to one side while the rest of the drums were panned to the other. Needless to say that was not the effect I was going for. At the time I thought the only way to remedy that (without playing the drum part all over again) would be to double the drum track and pan it all the way left or right in order to balance out everything into the middle. But that resulted in a really in-your-face drum part. So I'm going to mix down that drum track into mono and take it from there.

In other news, I'm still working on the lyrics for the final song on the album. Stayed tuned.

My Ideal Band

I was just thinking earlier today--if I were ever to start a band, what would my ideal band be like? In terms of numbers, I think 5 members would be ideal. As far as instrumentation goes, it would be drums, bass, guitars and keyboards with occasional other instruments in the mix for good measure. There would be no one who only contributes vocals. That's not to belittle vocals by any means. Vocals are extremely important and I'll discuss that more later. But my band would not be a Rolling Stones-type band in that sense.

I enjoy a wide range of music from pop, rock, folk, R&B, funk, dance, country, blues, jazz, alternative, progressive, electronic and some of what is generically labelled as 'world' music. As a band performing original material I realize that we would most likely have to limit ourselves more specifically to one or two main genres only and then add touches of the others to our sound. So I guess we'd be pop rock, but the critics and fans would argue among each other whether we were really pop rock or folk rock or blues rock or alt rock or R&B or something else altogether. But we would definitely at times rock hard and loud or get funky and get the people dancing and at other times silence the audience with heartfelt, moving story songs.

Some of my most favourite bands include The Beatles, The Moody Blues, America, Three Dog Night and to a lesser extent, The Band. A common thread running among these bands is that they all had at least 3 lead singers. Having that many singers gave those bands varying textures of sound. I remember hearing Three Dog Night songs on oldies radio when I was a kid and being totally confused when I heard several completely different sounding songs by the band and hearing the DJ say it was them. For example, hearing "One," "Mama Told Me" and "Black and White" on separate occasions and being announced by the DJ as Three Dog Night on all occasions. The three unique voices gave their sound such diversity. America is another band that had three unique voices, albeit not as distinctive as Three Dog Night's. But they wrote all their own songs and were all excellent guitarists. The Moody Blues featured four excellent lead singers. My personal favorite being Justin Hayward with his uplifting vocals. Then there's Ray Thomas' rich baritone with vibrato. And Mike Pinder's dark and gloomy voice. And finally John Lodge's high falsetto. His is the voice I have the hardest time picking out because it's a bit similar to Justin's. But when I hear a soaring falsetto it is unquestionable John's. On their own, each voice gave each song its own finishing touch. When the four voices came together in harmony you'd have a perfectly woven textile.

The Beatles had three and sometimes four lead singers. The most distinguishable voice being that of Ringo's but the more famed ones being those of John, Paul and George. And they usually wrote most of their songs as well. The Band had three and sometimes four lead singers. In my opinion no other group had as many distinctive voices as The Band. I'm not the biggest Band fan but I appreciate their styles and what they did. Levon Helm, the drummer, was a frequent lead singer and had the unmistakable southern drawl which came out in speech and in song. Rick Danko had a strange, almost tearful voice which is still taking me time to get used to, though I really enjoy his singing on their Christmas song, "Christmas Must Be Tonight". And then there's Richard Manuel with his sometimes tenor sometimes falsetto vocal which continues to confuse me with Rick's. To me both of them have similar qualities in their vocal deliveries and tones and I have a hard time figuring out who's who on their songs. In fact I initially thought it was Richard who sang their Christmas tune. Finally, there's Robbie Robertson who wrote most of their songs but sang lead on only a handful. If you search on the 'net you will find that he was often criticized as being a pretty bad singer. But if you listen to "Out of the Blue" from The Last Waltz soundtrack you just may be convinced--as I am--that reports of bad singing on his part are greatly exaggerated.

So all this brings me to a very important point: that having multiple lead singers in a band--in my ideal band, that is--is something I would deem essential. I would want to have at least 3 members who could sing lead and contribute songwriting. Four would be even better but three would suffice. Songs on albums would be equally divided up among the 3 or 4 writers. And each writer would sing their own songs, unless any one of the writers felt their song would be better suited to one of the other voices. One of the things I liked about The Band and Three Dog Night is that on some of their songs different parts were sung by different members--We Can Talk, The Weight, Family of Man. That was done on some America and Beatles songs, too. Thus, in essence the ideal model for my band would be The Moody Blues (though it would have been nice if Ray would have played second guitar or something) and again, to a lesser degree, The Band (though it would have been nice if the singers actually contributed more to the songwriting). America was great, too, but they were always a 3-man band and never had a steady drummer and bassist. And The Beatles never usually allowed George more than one song per album side.

To recap, my ideal band would have 5 members with a basic instrumentation lineup of drums, bass, 1 or 2 guitars and 1 or 2 keyboards with other instruments as needed. The band would have at least 3 capable singers and songwriters. And under the generic term of rock we would perform both acoustic and electric, quiet and loud, dance-able and reflective, modern and classic-sounding. And we would cover a lot of musical territory. All we would need is a name.

It's Christmas!

One of the hardest things about recording under not-so-ideal conditions and with not-so-ideal gear is coming up with a mixdown of the song which sounds satisfactory.That's the trouble I'm having once again. I usually end up making several mixdowns because after mastering each one they usually all end up sounding bad on one playback source or another.

I've already made a couple of mixes/masters of my new holiday song, "It's Christmas," and have not been pleased. I will try once again tonight. Have I mentioned how difficult it is to get a good recorded drum sound? Of course I have. But it's also pretty hard getting a solid recording of an upright bass. On a whim I decided to play my upright for this song to give it a little more of an acoustic sound and feel--a kind of 60's folk/jazz vibe if you will. I'm more of an electric bass player so playing this huge acoustic bass is completely different and physically demanding. This is the first song with vocals that I played upright bass on.

The bass track came out sounding pretty nice but quite weak on some notes. Even going back to some 60's tunes such as Roger Miller's "King of the Road" and Ian & Sylvia's "Rocks & Gravel" which both begin with upright bass intros and continue throughout, I don't hear any weak notes but rather solid consistency throughout. On the other hand, I did listen to "Stay" by Astrud Gilberto which also features upright bass and noticed some less audible bass notes being played. And when I say less audible what I mean is that there are certain notes that don't have that deep, booming quality. And the bass playing on "Stay" is a lot busier than on "King of the Road" and "Rocks & Gravel," so perhaps there are a lot more weaker bass notes being played. I just don't know what it is. I'm going to try working on tweaking that track a little more and see what I come up with. Not only for that reason but also because the bass overall is a bit too booming compared to those older recordings.

There are a few more things I'm going to play around with the attempt to come up with a final version that is most sonically pleasing to my musical ear. That will be later on tonight. For the time being, I have uploaded the 2nd version to Soundcloud and YouTube and it happens to be the version that will be featured on the "Justin Sane Show Christmas Special" tonight at 7pm CT on CNEU Radio; Christmas Eve on Insane Realm Radio at 5pm CT; day after Christmas at 10am CT on Digital Mayhem Radio; Friday at 3pm CT on Digital Revolution Radio; and a few other places after that.

Here it is on Soundcloud:



And here it is on YouTube:



Hoping I will have the final, best-sounding version ready tonight.

The Christmas Songs

OK, definitely waited too long to do this. Should have started back in October. I guess that's why some recording artists start making their Christmas albums in the summertime. But then again, they have the best of everything--the best equipment, the best singers, the best musicians, etc. They could roll out a full length album in a week start to end. I'm doing everything by myself with my limited skills and gear (and I'm very grateful for what skills and gear I do have). And the idea to do this didn't come to me until Thanksgiving which was rather late on the calendar this year.

Anyway, I tried recording the drum tracks for both "Silent Night" and "It's Christmas" last night and they just came out horrible sounding! I don't know what happened from the time I recorded drums for "Blow Your Mind" and "Call On Me" to now. I was very disappointed and don't have much time left to work on this before I send the songs off to "The Basement Tapes" show with Nick and Bootsy for their Christmas show tomorrow (Sunday) evening.

The drum track for Silent Night came out a lot worse sounding than the one for It's Christmas. I went back and listened to the drums on It's Christmas and I was able to tweak it to where it sounds okay. Plus I'm considering adding hand-clapping in rhythm to the song in order to give it somewhat of a live feel and cover up the weak drum sound. Also planning to add a few other sounds on top of the 6 and 12 string acoustics, upright bass and vocal that are already there. Maybe some harmony vocals here and there. I'm actually really excited about this song and the way it's turning out. I wrote it pretty quick and the arrangement is just kind of falling into place.

As I mentioned, I may have to settle for my Yamaha S90 keyboard drum sounds for the drum track to Silent Night. I tried tweaking the drum track that I did record for it but I made adjustments to the snare drum at the time and it just turned out worse. There is no hope for this track. If I had all day today to work on it I would try again. But my time is limited and I'm going to devote most of it to finishing up my very own "It's Christmas." Once both songs are done I will have them here. Off I go....

Early Percussion Instruments

Here are some photos of my early percussion instruments. These are the things I used on recordings during junior high and high school and before I ever touched a real drum set. I hadn't seen this items in years as they had been stored away in the garage after our move.

The plastic-reels-with-the-pencil-sticking-up-thing was my 'cymbal' stand. The reels were from 8-track tape cartridges. The actual symbol is not shown because I do not know where it is. It was never mine anyway. It was part of my mother's fancy crystal candy and confection dish. I used to borrow the metallic lid to use for recordings because it was the closest thing I had that sounded like a cymbal, even though it sounded nothing like a cymbal. But hey, it was round and remained suspended on the tip of the pencil. So it looked cool.

Those things are from trees that have pods that fall to the ground in the fall or spring or whenever it is. When they're dry the seeds inside are loose and they make a nice shaker sound. I used them as maracas and as snares underneath my 'snare' drum.

This was my tambourine made from little holiday jingle bells. Gave every recording an instant Christmas feel. Hence, I did not overly use it.

Here is my snare drum. Made from an old, red Fannie May (?) candy can. The bottom was cut out and I tried using cardboard, sheets of paper and plastic as the drum head. As you can tell, by the time I last used this thing I had settled on a sheet of plastic as the drum head. I also added those seed pods underneath to give the snare sound. My drum sticks were markers that no longer worked and a couple of paint brushes for that 'jazz brush' sound.

Finally, as far as my percussion instruments go, these were my toms. Just two coffee cans with plastic lids on top. The brown (or dark) one had just the top metal lid removed. The green one had both the top and bottom metal lids cut and were replaced by the plastic lid. This can also doubled as my bass drum. When I wanted to record bass drum parts I would play it with another non-working marker that had a lot of cloth wrapped around it to give a nice deep sound. Had to be recorded separately though. Could not play the snare, toms, cymbal and bass at the same time. Didn't have the proper set up. In my early recordings I didn't even use the bass drum option. It was just snare, toms and cymbal. Later is when I started using the bass in the way described. In the final stages of using this equipment I was just alternating between playing the snare and the bass just to keep it all in one whole track. When you're doing analog recording--and especially with cheap cassettes--quality starts going down very quickly as you add more and more layers of tracks.

So those items are part of my music history. I still have them and want to keep them as a reminder of what I used to do with much of my spare time when I was in school. Maybe they'll end up in a museum someday?

There is some other gear which I no longer have and others which I do. I'll have to post photos of them when I come across them.

Now Until Then

I have an upright string bass (or double bass) that I don't use much in my recordings because I haven't gotten down how to play without frets yet. It is my own fault because I rarely practice playing it. But occasionally I do use it and there are at least 2 recordings of mine that feature it. It is also a very hard instrument to record well. I hear these modern jazz recordings and the double bass just sounds so rich and deep. Of course, it could have something to do with the fact that mine is an $800 Chinese made instrument, while theirs are most likely vintage and cost thousands of dollars.

Here is a song titled, "Now Until Then," which I made in 2011. I was just fingerpicking away at my nylon string classical guitar and I came up with something I thought interesting so I recorded it and used it as the basis for this song. It features 2 classical guitar parts, a drum track and a double bass track. (I don't like referring to it as 'double bass' because drummers also have something they call a 'double bass.' So in order to avoid any confusion from here on out I will refer to the 4 string acoustic double bass as upright acoustic bass or just upright bass.)

This song has elements of jazz, folk and even classical. I wouldn't know how to categorize it. Actually most of my music is very hard to categorize. This one is no exception. Listen to it and decide for yourself:




I am leaning towards more instrumental music not only because it is more universal but also because it is very difficult for me to sing and whenever I do vocal tracks I end up doing so many takes and edits. It requires the most amount of time compared to any other instrument I record.

Well, here is another similar type recording. This one was made several years ago and pretty much fits the same arrangement as "Now Until Then." The exception being that steel string acoustic guitar tracks replace the nylon string guitar ones. Drums and upright bass are both here as well. This recording was really just an improvisation. I did not set out to make an actual song. I was just laying down some ideas, especially concerning the rhythm acoustic guitar. So the songs starts off well but really breaks down about midway through or later. I don't even really have an official title for it. But I will record an official version of it at some point.

This is one of those recordings that would not normally see the light of day, but I include it here because it has some interesting elements:




I am interested in acoustic music and would like to record a whole album just of acoustic string instruments. Would be nice to have a resonator guitar and also a banjo. But I'll make do with what I have for now.

Next Song: Thank You (For Loving Me)

This is the first recording I made that I actually was pleased with the overall sound and balance of instrument mix. Even to this day I can listen to it and feel that the sound quality is pretty high. One of the measures for me of how good the quality of a recording is is the sound of the drums. In this song, the drums sound very good, from the snare to the bass to the toms to the cymbals. A badly recorded drum set sound can turn a great song into something pretty awful. I don't remember how many mic's I used to record the drums. Seeing how this is another one of the songs I recorded on the Boss BR-8 it is very possible that I only used 2 mics. The BR-8 has a 2 mic input capability and unless I used a mixer which would allow a greater number of mic's to be used (which I really doubt), that's all it was. It's not impossible to get a very good drum set sound with only 2 mics. I can to this day get a pretty solid recording of drums with only 2 mics as long as the drums are tuned well. I recorded this song sometime around 2002 and the drum sound still impresses me. To be honest, I'm pleased with all the instrument tracks. The vocal tracks needed some more work.

So this song was my second attempt at a gospel song. I called it "Thank You (For Loving Me)." I do believe this one was a lot better than "God of Love and Peace" in every way. It definitely showed progress on many levels. And it didn't sound country. Well, maybe still a little. But I blame that on the vocals. I don't think any of the instrumentation or guitar playing sounds country.

The guitar solo in this song is quite different from the solo in "God of Love & Peace." It's clean and loaded with reverb and delay. The electric guitar used for most if not the entire song was an Ibanez Artcore AF75 hollowbody guitar, which I no longer have. Here is a photo of it:

The instrument tracks include: a couple of electric guitar tracks; an acoustic guitar; electric bass; drums; electronic keyboard (organ sound); tambourine; and some vocal tracks.




This song placed in the top 1500 and won an honorable mention in the 12th Annual Billboard World Songwriting Contest.