I am continuing to press forward with the finishing of my CD. At this point, I have all the parts for all the songs recorded save for vocals and flute on a couple of the pieces.
Vocals are not a problem, I have been singing for forever it seems. The flute, on the other hand, is giving me a few more difficulties. I suppose that if I had really spent a decent amount of time on the instrument, that would help. I am still a punk musician in some sense: I want to see what I can do with my limited chops and still come up with something that works for me for the song. Its really not about being the best whatever player in the world, its what works for the song.
Fortunately I have some pretty decent tools to do this with. Sonar comes with a nice comping feature, which basically means I can just set an area of the song to loop, and I can do as many takes as I want, and each take will be on a separate track. Once I have done several, lets say several several takes, I finally have enough to piece together something that works.
But its not just the playing that is tough. I am finding that recording a flute, as opposed to say my trumpet or sax, is rough work. Unlike those nice and loud instruments, where your mouth is at some distance from where the sound comes out, the noise end of the flute is right where you are blowing. This makes it some difficult to try and find a position at the mic where you are still being clear with your tone and yet not getting that whooshy breath thing. Plus I am finding that it is more difficult to control the volume when switching octaves on the flute than on the other wind instruments. Once again, I am forced to cheat a bit and reduce some of the volume, post recording, on some notes. I really hate to do this, since one of my goals is to have the wind instruments are live as possible, but unless I spend the next several months just playing the flute (wow, just think if I could actually DO that!) I have to go with the chops I got. I need to finish this CD before, well, before I get too much older.
Technical difficulties aside, once again I am feeling very fortunate to have lived long enough where I can actually record myself and have it sound good in my own basement. What a far cry from reel to reel four tracks!
I have been remiss in writing in the blog of late, due to several reasons; you can more accurately read that as work and work and work and at home, trying to finish my CD.
I have been written already that I am trying to get the project done. At this point, it is at least progressing. I have tried, unlike me, to be organized in this endeavor.
The first and very important thing is that I have finally replaced my old reliable PC with a brand new one: 64 bit Athlon, 2 gigs of RAM, 200 gig hard drive. It’s a whole new ballgame. Now I can use all the effects and features of the programs that I already own. Or to be honest about it, I have the machine capable of using all this high quality software. The skills needed for all this…..well, I am always learning.
I have, in my geeky way, made a spreadsheet for the project so that I can track my progress. It’s a good way to keep track of what I am doing so that I know that I am after all making progress. I have the titles, the BPB, length, and a couple of columns to indicate if I have recorded all the audio parts, vocal parts, and done the mix.
Here is the method: all the songs are written, but not all have all the synth parts recorded, so first thing is to get that all done. This is pretty time consuming, especially since in many of the songs I am using Battery to replace the drum samples from the XL7. That’s not too hard, but it still takes time.
One some songs too I have found that my original drum parts just plain suck. On some I just tart them up a bit, but on others I have to resort to wholesale replacement.
I did this the other day on a tune. My normal method: try and write something by hand, or with the ERA sequencer, and get really frustrated, then go and look for a midi drum loop to base my drum parts on.
Lately I have been using the GrooveMonkee midi loops, and I must say these are just great. Usually I only need a couple or three little one bar patterns, and I can improvise and modify from there. Like most midi drum patterns, these are arranged by type, like different schools of funk or rock patterns. What I try and do is not use any more than one pattern from any group, and just try several from various styles until I have a basis for what I am going after. I find this makes the sound fresher and more interesting.
I am still pissed that with the exception of electronic beats I write on the ER1, I still can’t write a drum loop that I really like. Modify an existing loop, no problem. So I am still not a real drummer, but what can you do?
Battery is also a great help in this. I have lots of kits for this, including the Battery Studio Drums, and all these kits have some snare fills and rolls in them, and you can do quite creative mashing with these if you just spend some time with them. And being VSTis, there is nothing at all to recording them, Sonar will just write the parts out. Easy.
In fact yesterday I manage to completely rewrite the drums for an entire song I am working on in about five hours! For me, this is nothing short of amazing, since I have in the past worked for weeks and weeks to get drums that I thought sounded like they were played by a human and not a drum machine.
One other thing that is a great help is the preamp I bought last year. This is so easy to use, and while this may not be the best way, here is what I do:
I run the synth thru the preamp, then while I am soloing the part, I will just twist the knobs for the preset profiles and the gain and output until I hear something I like. Not at all scientific, but I figure if my ears are lying to me about this, what can I trust? I have found that the virtual analog synths actually aren’t helped much by the preamp, but certainly the XL7, which is a sample playback synth, is greatly enhanced by this little bit of signal processing.
Two other reasons to get this record finished: I still want to play out live, and out of the blue my old band mate, Jeff Rees from Fade to Black, called me and wants to work together. He has been playing in the Gypsy Caravan belly dance troupe for years now, honing his hand drum and especially wind instrument skills on a ton of different Middle Eastern wind instruments. Now he wants to branch out blending that with electronic sounds. It just seems to fit. I don’t know where it will lead, but I am certainly curious to find out.
Stay tuned……..