Rummaging Again
A couple of weeks ago, when I started cleaning out some stuff to create a little "me space" in the basement, I ran across some old tapes of stuff I did in college. In trying to work out how - or if - I was going to digitize and preserve this stuff, I ran across an old tune I'd written that I hadn't played in years. Well, I've found my next recording project... for good or ill.
I managed to spend a little time on it both last weekened and this weekend. Here are the steps I've accomplished:
First, I fired up good ol' Audacity and my cheap-o laptop mic and laid down a bare-bones demo track with guitar and vocals. I just played the song. One difference this time out is I used the Click Track feature to play along with a metronome. and this got me thinking.
See, there's two tempo and rhythm changes in the song, so that was problematic. It was good, because it forced me to think about structure... how many measures, at what tempo. So I sat down in front of the Yamaha keyboard and messed around with the metronome on there. I fooled around until I decided that the body of the song works best at 120 on the metronome, the break at 160, then back to 120.
I counted up the measures... handy feature on the keyboard - just play along and it counts them for you... in each section and was able to splice together a click track/mentronome in Audacity to match the song. Now I could begin laying in other tracks with some hope of sync'ing them up. So far, I've got a fairly clean, simple acoustic guitar track and added a bass line with the guitar setting on the Yamaha keyboard. I'm no keyboard player, so it's real basic but adds a little something.
Next, I fired up Drum Station and began the laborious task (for a relative novice) of writing and programming the drum track. I got two of the three sections complete and still need to work out the close. So, I've got the basic structure in place. Here's what it sounds like so far (coming soon). Rough, but edges are good to a point.
So. I've got something to play with on the recording side again, too. My intent is to be much more methodical with this one. I really want to see how good I can make it sound. Stay tuned for how it porgresses.
I managed to spend a little time on it both last weekened and this weekend. Here are the steps I've accomplished:
First, I fired up good ol' Audacity and my cheap-o laptop mic and laid down a bare-bones demo track with guitar and vocals. I just played the song. One difference this time out is I used the Click Track feature to play along with a metronome. and this got me thinking.
See, there's two tempo and rhythm changes in the song, so that was problematic. It was good, because it forced me to think about structure... how many measures, at what tempo. So I sat down in front of the Yamaha keyboard and messed around with the metronome on there. I fooled around until I decided that the body of the song works best at 120 on the metronome, the break at 160, then back to 120.
I counted up the measures... handy feature on the keyboard - just play along and it counts them for you... in each section and was able to splice together a click track/mentronome in Audacity to match the song. Now I could begin laying in other tracks with some hope of sync'ing them up. So far, I've got a fairly clean, simple acoustic guitar track and added a bass line with the guitar setting on the Yamaha keyboard. I'm no keyboard player, so it's real basic but adds a little something.
Next, I fired up Drum Station and began the laborious task (for a relative novice) of writing and programming the drum track. I got two of the three sections complete and still need to work out the close. So, I've got the basic structure in place. Here's what it sounds like so far (coming soon). Rough, but edges are good to a point.
So. I've got something to play with on the recording side again, too. My intent is to be much more methodical with this one. I really want to see how good I can make it sound. Stay tuned for how it porgresses.
posted by Brian Meeley at 11:53 PM
1 Comments:
Good for people to know.
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