And my fingers show it! As I type this blog, my left fingers are feeling the computer buttons. Why doesn't Mac make a computer for guitar players where the keys your left hand types are cushiony and covered in lotion?
I digress.
Today I added Acoustic Guitar to Gotta Get Out and Sing So Loud. Both are songs where the acoustic part is going to be largely covered by the electric guitars, but I wanted the texture and added rhythmic specificity that only an acoustic guitar can provide.
Here's the same sample of Gotta Get Out that I posted earlier on the blog (I think), but now with Acoustic guitar mostly in the right ear.
Gotta Get Out with Acoustic Gutiar
Off to work now.
M
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Two days in a ROW!
Can you believe it?!
THIS is what I INTENDED to have happen with my blog. It is entirely possible that I will have MORE to post TOMORROW!
I'm excited about it.
So today I am reposting a similar section of Is This My Life because, after listening, I decided that the guitar wasn't punchy enough. I spent this morning redoing that guitar and also adding acoustic guitar to So Long My Love. Just a few more acoustic tracks to add and then I can add ELECTRICS! I'm excited about that as well.
So, for your listening pleasure, Is This My Life with fixed up guitar:
Is This My Life
Thanks!
Enjoy,
M
THIS is what I INTENDED to have happen with my blog. It is entirely possible that I will have MORE to post TOMORROW!
I'm excited about it.
So today I am reposting a similar section of Is This My Life because, after listening, I decided that the guitar wasn't punchy enough. I spent this morning redoing that guitar and also adding acoustic guitar to So Long My Love. Just a few more acoustic tracks to add and then I can add ELECTRICS! I'm excited about that as well.
So, for your listening pleasure, Is This My Life with fixed up guitar:
Is This My Life
Thanks!
Enjoy,
M
Friday, March 12, 2010
More work today - and more coming!
Yay, finally some time to record!
Unfortunately, the two hours I had this morning were not as fruitful and productive as I had hoped. I had a long drive last night to think about backing vocals and electric guitar parts and other exciting additions, but instead I decided to focus on the Bass part for Is This My Life this morning. I thought I could knock it out quickly and move on to something else, but the part I have been playing with the band just does not sound right to me here. Either it's the drums that are different, or I'm just finally listening with a critical ear and realizing that paralleling the guitar part for the whole song is kind of boring and not particularly idiomatically suitable. So I decided to try to change my bass part, but now I'm worried that it sounds strange. Maybe it doesn't sound strange to YOU, but only to ME because I'm used to the old part.
What do you think?
Is This My Life with new bass
It was frustrating not to get more done, but hopefully on my way to work this afternoon I'll listen to the new bass part and love it a bit more. My plan is to spend a few more hours recording tomorrow morning, then use Sunday morning for some other design work I need to do.
I also have been in touch with Sarah Gensert (www.stumpdesign.com) about starting the design process for the t-shirt/website. THAT will be fun.
Thanks for listening,
Mara
Unfortunately, the two hours I had this morning were not as fruitful and productive as I had hoped. I had a long drive last night to think about backing vocals and electric guitar parts and other exciting additions, but instead I decided to focus on the Bass part for Is This My Life this morning. I thought I could knock it out quickly and move on to something else, but the part I have been playing with the band just does not sound right to me here. Either it's the drums that are different, or I'm just finally listening with a critical ear and realizing that paralleling the guitar part for the whole song is kind of boring and not particularly idiomatically suitable. So I decided to try to change my bass part, but now I'm worried that it sounds strange. Maybe it doesn't sound strange to YOU, but only to ME because I'm used to the old part.
What do you think?
Is This My Life with new bass
It was frustrating not to get more done, but hopefully on my way to work this afternoon I'll listen to the new bass part and love it a bit more. My plan is to spend a few more hours recording tomorrow morning, then use Sunday morning for some other design work I need to do.
I also have been in touch with Sarah Gensert (www.stumpdesign.com) about starting the design process for the t-shirt/website. THAT will be fun.
Thanks for listening,
Mara
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
DMV Day
Ever have one of those days that is as frustrating as spending 2 hours in line at the DMV only to find out that you don't have the right papers and you have to come back and wait in line again another day?
Yesterday was that day for me. I actually DID have the DMV experience, followed by a return home to find that the dog had made a mess of the house (again). Feeling defeated, I decided to scrap my other homework and do some recording. I had been wanting to get rid of the scratch electric guitars on several tracks, but hadn't had time to set up the mics for the acoustic.
So, I did the setup, changed my guitar strings, downloaded an update to ProTools so that it would actually start playing from the MIDDLE of the song instead of only the beginning, and then got to work.
By the time I started, I only had about 4 hours left of good recording time, so I started with Tired Lonely Fools. For some reason, I was really happy with the first several takes, but when I went back to edit them together, I couldn't find a take I liked for the beginning of the song (which is probably just going to be guitar and voice). I proceeded to spend the next hour trying to perform those first 15 seconds well, and I finally SUCCEEDED! Somehow, even after my frustrating morning, I knew that it would be worth pushing through and coming up with a take I was happy with.
After a bit of editing, I moved on to the acoustic guitar on a new song (tentatively called Friends and Fools, but I think that's 3 songs on this album that talk about fools, so clearly I need a different name) and Is This My Life. Props to Nancy Eddy who has been playing guitar on that far more often than I do. I had forgotten how hard it is on your forearm and shoulder! I had to do it in 2 separate takes, going about 1 verse per take, then going back a bit and starting the second take so that they overlapped a bit, but so that I got breaks for my arm in between takes. I believe that's what the French call time-to-get-off-of-your-butt-and-work-out-Mara.
SO, by the end of my 4 hours, I had comped together all 3 of those guitar tracks AND was feeling far less frustrated than when I was at the DMV earlier in the day. For your listening pleasure today, here's something from the middle of Tired Lonely Fools. Sorry most of the sample is a fade-up. I was in a hurry. The fun of this section of the song is that it's going to have LOTS going on - this is just the skeleton. I'm excited to add bass, lots of backing vocals, and probably some other silly instruments to this section. But here's the foundation:
Tired Lonely Fools Sample
**note: It takes a couple of seconds for the sound to start bc the fade up was long for some reason (some reason is that I accidentally made the fade too long).
Feeling energized and hoping to have more recording time tonight. Maybe it's time to add bass to a few of these.
Yesterday was that day for me. I actually DID have the DMV experience, followed by a return home to find that the dog had made a mess of the house (again). Feeling defeated, I decided to scrap my other homework and do some recording. I had been wanting to get rid of the scratch electric guitars on several tracks, but hadn't had time to set up the mics for the acoustic.
So, I did the setup, changed my guitar strings, downloaded an update to ProTools so that it would actually start playing from the MIDDLE of the song instead of only the beginning, and then got to work.
By the time I started, I only had about 4 hours left of good recording time, so I started with Tired Lonely Fools. For some reason, I was really happy with the first several takes, but when I went back to edit them together, I couldn't find a take I liked for the beginning of the song (which is probably just going to be guitar and voice). I proceeded to spend the next hour trying to perform those first 15 seconds well, and I finally SUCCEEDED! Somehow, even after my frustrating morning, I knew that it would be worth pushing through and coming up with a take I was happy with.
After a bit of editing, I moved on to the acoustic guitar on a new song (tentatively called Friends and Fools, but I think that's 3 songs on this album that talk about fools, so clearly I need a different name) and Is This My Life. Props to Nancy Eddy who has been playing guitar on that far more often than I do. I had forgotten how hard it is on your forearm and shoulder! I had to do it in 2 separate takes, going about 1 verse per take, then going back a bit and starting the second take so that they overlapped a bit, but so that I got breaks for my arm in between takes. I believe that's what the French call time-to-get-off-of-your-butt-and-work-out-Mara.
SO, by the end of my 4 hours, I had comped together all 3 of those guitar tracks AND was feeling far less frustrated than when I was at the DMV earlier in the day. For your listening pleasure today, here's something from the middle of Tired Lonely Fools. Sorry most of the sample is a fade-up. I was in a hurry. The fun of this section of the song is that it's going to have LOTS going on - this is just the skeleton. I'm excited to add bass, lots of backing vocals, and probably some other silly instruments to this section. But here's the foundation:
Tired Lonely Fools Sample
**note: It takes a couple of seconds for the sound to start bc the fade up was long for some reason (some reason is that I accidentally made the fade too long).
Feeling energized and hoping to have more recording time tonight. Maybe it's time to add bass to a few of these.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
I HAVE been working on things
I have been working feverishly to learn how to make every coffee drink under the sun this week, and have also been polishing my SAT-taking skills, but in my free time I HAVE done some great editing work on some of the songs on the album. I spent a big block of time working on the drums and bass for Sing So Loud, the song that is in 5-4. The drums came out so so well, but I needed to edit a couple of takes together (the engineer laid out the session so that each take was NEXT to the one before instead of creating new playlists. I know this is faster for him, but it made it really hard for me to cut and paste between drum tracks!).
I'm happy with the drums now, but am having trouble getting the bass to be an appropriate mix of pop, funk, and background. As a bass player, sometimes I want it to be fancier than it should...
ALSO, I got in touch with my friend Sarah who is a fabulous designer, and is going to help me with the icon/t-shirt/web design for the project. The goal for the T-shirts, since they are going to BE the album art, is for them to be informative, but also something people really want to wear. Any suggestions? Ideas? Know of a great deal on awesome bulk t-shirts?
In other news, there really IS a blizzard in New York tonight. It has been threatening to blizzard for days and days, but the snow gods have finally delivered, and there is about a foot of snow piled on top of everything outside. I was walking to work at 6 this morning, and found the city quite peaceful (if a little chilly).
Sooner,
Mara
I'm happy with the drums now, but am having trouble getting the bass to be an appropriate mix of pop, funk, and background. As a bass player, sometimes I want it to be fancier than it should...
ALSO, I got in touch with my friend Sarah who is a fabulous designer, and is going to help me with the icon/t-shirt/web design for the project. The goal for the T-shirts, since they are going to BE the album art, is for them to be informative, but also something people really want to wear. Any suggestions? Ideas? Know of a great deal on awesome bulk t-shirts?
In other news, there really IS a blizzard in New York tonight. It has been threatening to blizzard for days and days, but the snow gods have finally delivered, and there is about a foot of snow piled on top of everything outside. I was walking to work at 6 this morning, and found the city quite peaceful (if a little chilly).
Sooner,
Mara
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
How it's sounding WITH bass
SO!
I have actually figured out both the technology to record the bass AND the technology to upload songs successfully. For the sake of comparison I'm uploading the same section of Gotta Get Out, but with bass today. See what you think - this is without any effects or compression or fanciness. Still, I think it sounds lots cooler.
I'm about to add bass to a couple of other songs as well - it took 2 hours to do Gotta Get Out, but I recorded AND edited the bass part, so now it's all fixed and perfect and ready to go. So if you don't like it, keep it to yourself!
NEW SAMPLE of GOTTA GET OUT HERE.
note: if you are listening on the crappy speakers that come on your laptop, you may not be able to hear the bass. Try headphones, earphones, fancy speakers, or blasting it in your car.
See ya soon!
I have actually figured out both the technology to record the bass AND the technology to upload songs successfully. For the sake of comparison I'm uploading the same section of Gotta Get Out, but with bass today. See what you think - this is without any effects or compression or fanciness. Still, I think it sounds lots cooler.
I'm about to add bass to a couple of other songs as well - it took 2 hours to do Gotta Get Out, but I recorded AND edited the bass part, so now it's all fixed and perfect and ready to go. So if you don't like it, keep it to yourself!
NEW SAMPLE of GOTTA GET OUT HERE.
note: if you are listening on the crappy speakers that come on your laptop, you may not be able to hear the bass. Try headphones, earphones, fancy speakers, or blasting it in your car.
See ya soon!
Monday, February 1, 2010
How it's sounding!
I'm hoping this works.
I'm feeling particularly technologically inadequate today, yet I KNOW that somewhere on the Internet, there is a sample of one of my songs for you to hear.
You should be able to hear it if you click here.
Here's the info on it:
This is a sample of Gotta Get Out, one of the new songs I recorded last week. What you hear:
Drums (final version)
3 guitars (probably not final versions)
vocals (DEFINITELY not final version)
Piano (final version).
If it's not the final version of something, that means I'm planning to edit, redo, or replace that sound with something else. Just thought you'd all like to know that while I'm not blogging every day, I'm WORKING on things!
My plan tomorrow is to add bass to lots of tracks. I'll start with this one and upload it so you can hear the difference!
Enjoy,
Mara
I'm feeling particularly technologically inadequate today, yet I KNOW that somewhere on the Internet, there is a sample of one of my songs for you to hear.
You should be able to hear it if you click here.
Here's the info on it:
This is a sample of Gotta Get Out, one of the new songs I recorded last week. What you hear:
Drums (final version)
3 guitars (probably not final versions)
vocals (DEFINITELY not final version)
Piano (final version).
If it's not the final version of something, that means I'm planning to edit, redo, or replace that sound with something else. Just thought you'd all like to know that while I'm not blogging every day, I'm WORKING on things!
My plan tomorrow is to add bass to lots of tracks. I'll start with this one and upload it so you can hear the difference!
Enjoy,
Mara
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