SaW #2: I Believe

Song For: Sunday April 20, 2008

Background: I wrote this song in Febuary of last year. I'm still not sure if it's a happy or a sad song, I guess it depends on your mood. It's about someone who's had a crappy go of it, but still feels like things are bound to turn around.

This song turned out to be a nightmare to record. I spent 3 hours working on it, only to have my Sequel crap out on me and lose all of the changes.I don't like how the chorus turned out, but I really do like the way the verse and prechorus sound. I plan on going back and fixing the chorus and some of the jarring transitions for verse to chorus.

Update: A wise man once told me, if you can't go deep, bang the hell out of the sides. I couldn't make the chorus work, so I made the prechorus the chorus and let it ride. I'm happier with the end results
Lyrics / Tab:
Verse and Prechorus - A Fm D G, A Fm Bm A

V1
There's nothing more that I can say,
I'm not surprised it went that way.
I've been waiting for it all to come undone

One plus one came out to three,
at lease that's now what I believe.
The clouds came out to blot away the sun

Prechorus
but I.... still believe

V2
I guess I'll just wait and see,
this can't be how it's meant to be.
I have to think things are bound to go my way

Until then I'll just laugh and joke,
and hope you can't see inside I'm broke.
It couldn't get worse than yesterday

Repeat Chorus

SaW #2 Diary

4/14 - Monday: Just trying to figure out what's next. I've got 6 or 7 songs that have been rattling around my head, I'm just not sure which one to make this weeks song. I'm leaning towards a little hip hop number I never got around to recording called "Belly Dancer". I think it'll be a fun change of pace from the normal folksy sound my songs tend to have. I also think calling it a "hip hop number" really shows how truly uncool I am.

4/15 - Tuesday: Took the plunge and bought the full version of Sequel, I don't expect to see if for awhile, I took the free shipping. I think that means the box will hitchhike through the mountains and arrive much like teenage runaways. Older, wiser, and perhaps dead inside.

4/17 - Thursday: Played around a bit trying to find a good rhythm for this weeks song. I'm still not fully convinced I'll be doing Belly Dancer. I'm going to try and record it tomorrow, if I'm not happy with what's coming out, I'll call an audible and do one of the simpler songs.

4/18 - Friday: Sequel arrived today, much faster than I would have thought. The box of software came in a box that could have fit a cadaver. I'm no genius, but that may be the definition of dead space. Unless my presence is needed in partying circles, I'll be recording tonight, and laying white hot fire onto a track.

4/19 - Saturday: Stupid software... installing ended up taking an inordinate amount of time. Turns out the license program is not vista compatible (yay!), so I had to download a new one from their site. I should be getting the song up soon, I'm going to end up doing a song I wrote a year back. The hip hop song will have to wait, as I'm terrible with that style of music.

SaW #1: K.I.S.S.I.N.G

Song For: Sunday, April 13, 2008

Song Background: This is a cover of a Flight of the Conchords song. With learning a new piece of software, I didn't want to pile working on an original song on top of it.

The FoC version song is a bit longer, I honestly forgot a section, and didn't realize it until I listened to the original again to see how close I got, but hey close enough for government work :)

Lyrics/Tab:

Verse: G, C, D
Chorus: Em, D, C, B7, C

A kiss is not a contract,
but it's very nice... very nice.
Just because you've been exploring my mouth,
doesn't mean you get to take an expedition further south, no.

A kiss is not a contract,
but it's very nice, very nice.
Just because we've been playing tonsil hockey,
doesn't mean you get to score the goal, that's in my jockeys.

Just because I'm in a rock band,
doesn't mean it's all about poontang.
I can't go around loving everyone,
I just wouldn't get anything done, because...

I'm only one man, baby... pretty baby.
I'm only one man, baby... pretty baby.

Song #1 Diary

4/6 - Sunday: Technical difficulties kept me from recording anything. Mike swung by and figured out that my 1/4 to 1/8th inch adapter was wonky. When I was finally able to record, I had a horrible hissing sound. I'm hoping it's the adapter. I'll try to pick up a replacement on Monday.

4/7 - Monday: I have a pretty good idea what the song is going to sound like, and I have a verse and the chorus written out. We'll see how much of that stays in the final product.

I went to Best Buy to buy a 4 dollar adapter... and ended up buying an electronic drum set. A smart person would have researched that sort of thing before buying one, but I never claimed to be very bright. I got caught up in the college bball championship, so I didn't much other than build the thing, and whack away at the drums for a couple minutes.

4/8 - Tuesday: Managed to figure out the cause of the hiss was a combination of microphone boost being turned on in the laptop, and some bad wiring. There is still a very subtle hiss that might be the mics picking up ambient noise. My stumputer room is not very quiet. With all these technical hiccups, this weeks song may end up being a cover. We'll see.

4/9 - Wednesday: Recorded a cover of "K.I.S.S.I.N.G" by Flight of the Conchords. Not bad, considering. If I can clean it up well enough, it just might be SAW #1. I'll need to redo the drums, and rerecord the backup voice for the chorus.

5/11 - Friday: I downloaded Steinberg's Sequel program, it's basically Cubase light, and works on Vista. So far it's exactly what I need. I'll try learning this program by rerecording the FoC song I recorded in Cubase.

5/12 - Saturday: Redid "Kissing", it's like night and day. Cubase was way more program than I need right now. Maybe in time I'll need the advanced features, but as of right now I'm ecstatic with Sequel. I'll be putting up the MP3 tomorrow. I'm really happy with the final mix of the song.

The countdown begins...

...and off to a bad start. I can't get my laptop to recognize my sound source. I wanted to record a sample to test out the best way to get mp3s up here, but no dice. Stupid computers with their little hands and beady eyes.

Studio is back to functional

I had a bit of an accident a month back, that caused my computer / studio (stumputer room?) to flood. This forced me to unplug all of my musical equipment, and it's been in disarray ever since. Well, I'm proud to say that situation has now been remedied.

Some of the things take care of:

• My version of Cubase does not work in Vista, so I've installed it on my laptop. This has the unintended side effect of giving me the option of editing when on the train.
• Mic is connected to the mixer. Guitar is going through a looping pedal, effects pedal, and finally to the amp. The amp is recorded via a directional mic. Mixer connects to the laptop.
• General Stumputer room cleanup.

I'm considering adding some sort of cheap sound proofing. I'll be doing some research on that today, I reckon.

Well, Here I am

So here I am, all blogged up and nothing to write. The purpose of this little corner of the web is to keep track of my "song a week" experiment. This is inspired by one of my favorite artist jonthan coulton, who decided to force himself to create a song every week for a full year.

I've found that I'm extremely lazy unless given the proper motivation, so I've challenged myself to try to keep a schedule, and record a song once a week. I don't expect these songs to be good, but I do hope that in 52 weeks I'll have at least a few that I can be proud of. I also don't expect anyone other than myself to visit this site, as I won't be linking to it from anywhere. This is more for me to keep track. If you happen to have stumbled here, have a listen to anything I have up, if you like it, stay awhile. If you don't, no hard feelings.

So, ground rules. Starting 12:01am on April 7, I will have exactly 7 days to record a song of some sort. I'm going to try to make original songs as often as possible, but it doesn't have to be. These songs may just be little ol' me and an acoustic guitar, but I hope to get better at producing and embellishing as I go along. My hope is that I'll see an upward trend in quality.

The home studio is little more than a couple mics and a couple guitars, but if I can stick with this I'll invest in making things a little better as I go along.

So I'll be taking this week to get the studio in recording shape (right now I've got a mass of wires, mikes, and mixers all jumbled up). I'll post my progress if I have anything interesting to share.

Edit:
A friend suggested I make a penalty for missing my song deadlines, and it makes a lot of sense. So as a penalty, I will not allow myself to watch any TV until I post the song for that week. TV includes video games as well as normal tv watching (even internet tv). So there you have it, a little more motivation to stay on the ball.