For my second decent recording of the year I went back to one of my favorite songs from the 2010 self imposed Song-A-Week challenge. The second song written for that challenge, Desert Rain. This is the original guitar, bass, and lead tracks but with a new vocal and a new mix. Please let me know if you have any critiques as I'm still hearing things I'd like to tweak.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
It's Raining - The Recording Challenge 2014
My good friend, Helen Robertson, has started a recording challenge
in which she is going to record and E.P. every month for the year of
2014. I've decided to piggy back on her motivation and try to do a
recording challenge as well. My goal is to make a decent recording every
week for 2014 (with the possible exception of two vacation weeks.) I
will be aiming for new recordings, but I may revisit older recordings
and touch them up or re-mix them or junk them and use parts for new
recordings or re-recordings. But I'll be sure to give some information
about the recording process for each song.
This is the first day of the new year and I've already made my first recording. I actually spent about two hours listening to my back catalog of songs but, honestly, it was overwhelming. With over 600 songs to choose from I had no idea where to start. So I took a break and watched the Levon Helm documentary "Ain't In It For My Health" which I highly recommend and a song melody just kind of blurted out of my mouth. I had the lyric done in about fifteen minutes and the music to go with it in less time than that. I spent the rest of the day recording.
I started with a click track on my Roland BR-900CD and recorded two passes of acoustic guitar. I used two mics, an AT2020 and Superlux 241. I scrapped the first one, but the second sounded decent. While recording I just kind of fell into the arrangement as far as structure goes. It is a fairly quick tempo at 147 bpm and with only three minutes I put in two instrumental breaks and a repeat of the first verse at the end. That got it over the 2:00 mark (which I wasn't sure about until after the recording was done.)
I then recorded a guitalele part. Two more passes using the same mic set up as with the acoustic, but only keeping one take. I then recorded the bass. I recorded the bass straight into the BR-900. This took six or seven passes and I finally just stuck with the last one. I experimented with different tones and settings and even bass-lines. The basic pattern was easy, but I tried a pick, fingers (which I'm not much good at) and longer notes instead of the faster rhythm. Ultimately I used a pick and a faster rhythm and just chose the last take. The take before it might have been better, but I didn't hear anything glaringly wrong so it is what it is at this point.
Then I used EZDrummer to get a drum track which didn't take as long as I thought it would. After a couple of hours of mixing, a dinner break and a return to some tweaking, I'm satisfied with what I have today. Of course, when I listen back tomorrow I may change my mind. Oh, and I have a slight head cold that's been coming on for a day or two. So my hearing is kind of clear/not clear depending on the amount of congestion I have at the moment.
Here is the first track of the year: It's Raining. Feel free to leave me feedback or comments as I'm sure I need lots of input to improve the recording/mixing process. Thanks for listening.
This is the first day of the new year and I've already made my first recording. I actually spent about two hours listening to my back catalog of songs but, honestly, it was overwhelming. With over 600 songs to choose from I had no idea where to start. So I took a break and watched the Levon Helm documentary "Ain't In It For My Health" which I highly recommend and a song melody just kind of blurted out of my mouth. I had the lyric done in about fifteen minutes and the music to go with it in less time than that. I spent the rest of the day recording.
I started with a click track on my Roland BR-900CD and recorded two passes of acoustic guitar. I used two mics, an AT2020 and Superlux 241. I scrapped the first one, but the second sounded decent. While recording I just kind of fell into the arrangement as far as structure goes. It is a fairly quick tempo at 147 bpm and with only three minutes I put in two instrumental breaks and a repeat of the first verse at the end. That got it over the 2:00 mark (which I wasn't sure about until after the recording was done.)
I then recorded a guitalele part. Two more passes using the same mic set up as with the acoustic, but only keeping one take. I then recorded the bass. I recorded the bass straight into the BR-900. This took six or seven passes and I finally just stuck with the last one. I experimented with different tones and settings and even bass-lines. The basic pattern was easy, but I tried a pick, fingers (which I'm not much good at) and longer notes instead of the faster rhythm. Ultimately I used a pick and a faster rhythm and just chose the last take. The take before it might have been better, but I didn't hear anything glaringly wrong so it is what it is at this point.
Then I used EZDrummer to get a drum track which didn't take as long as I thought it would. After a couple of hours of mixing, a dinner break and a return to some tweaking, I'm satisfied with what I have today. Of course, when I listen back tomorrow I may change my mind. Oh, and I have a slight head cold that's been coming on for a day or two. So my hearing is kind of clear/not clear depending on the amount of congestion I have at the moment.
Here is the first track of the year: It's Raining. Feel free to leave me feedback or comments as I'm sure I need lots of input to improve the recording/mixing process. Thanks for listening.
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