Recording: Day 2

Last night I was able to track some drums through the keyboard input.  This is a pretty boring process because you’re just kind of sitting there clicking away on one key throughout the whole song.  But, by the end it sounds pretty good and now I can add effects individually to each drum piece.  There is actually no snare yet, so I’m still trying to decide if it needs any.  Right now it’s just a bass drum and high hat, which I’m pretty satisfied with.

Secondly, I toyed around with some different guitar sounds and effects, and finally settled on a dirty sounding amp with a touch of fast tremolo for the lead part.  I came up with a little riff that repeats throughout the entire song except for the chorus, where I transition to a picking part over the chord changes.  I think it came together quite nicely.

I have to say it’s pretty cool – this record is going to be full of dissonance, particularly in the guitar parts.  I’m working on a bunch of new ideas, all of which feature a bunch of notes close together in the main guitar parts.  As far as I’m concerned, the more of that I can get on the album, the better.  I also love experimenting with vocal harmonies that don’t just sound like a regular harmony that you would expect.  I really think what I added to “These Hands” gives it such a unique flavor.  To me, that’s the whole fun of recording, since you can’t layer your voice when you sing live (at least not yet).

Experimenting with different sounds and creating the finished product is the best of part of recording.  So far, I’m loving it!  The only downside is that I usually lose track of time and end up staying up way too late, so I’m exhausted the next day.  But it’s been worth it so far.

Thanks for following me on this journey.  Even though I won’t be releasing full versions of my songs until the whole thing is finished, I will upload some clips here and there to get some feedback.  And maybe, when it’s almost done, if I have to decide between 2 songs, I’ll ask for your help.

Recording: Day 1

YES!!!!!!!!!!!

The looong awaited process of recording my music has finally begun.  Last night, I started demo-ing a song, “These Hands“, which I wrote back in October of 2008.  I laid down the scratch tracks for guitar and vocals, then started working on some string arrangements as well as some other sounds.  I found some cool stuff in GarageBand to add to the mix, which I will reevaluate tonight and decide if I still like it for the song.

GB is so much fun to start messing around with mixes and adding different tones, it’s easy to become addicted and forget what you are actually doing.  I spent some time working on a harmony part that I’m really happy with.  I think doing sparse harmonies in different places can really add a lot of subtle nuance to a song’s arrangement.

Finally, I added a simple bass part to round out the spectrum of sound.  I also tried out a few beats, but didn’t record any of it.  So, my goal for tonight is to decide on the percussion for the song and lay down some ideas.  It will be mostly sparse shaker, high hat, and tamborine sounds with a few parts that will use the full set.  If I have time, I’ll break out the electric as I’ve already gotten a few ideas for some picking parts throughout the day today.

The song builds and plays off of a few different melodies that I came up with on the spot when playing with string parts.  Needless to say, I’m really happy with the progress so far and excited about getting this song into production.  The only bummer of the night was when I started tuning down my Taylor to record a better guitar track, my high E string broke instantly.  So, I just used my cheapo acoustic and it actually fit in kind of nicely.  I think I’ll still use the Taylor for the final cut, but might leave in the original stuff to add some layers.  I find using less than perfect quality instruments and effects makes for a much “realer” sound, which is what I’m going for on my solo stuff.

Ready To Fall, Take 2

I finally got a chance to record the vocals and do some mixing on Saturday.  The song is done!  It’s on my iLike page for free download so check it out!

http://www.ilike.com/artist/Craig+Allen/songs

Take 1: Ready To Fall

Recording in Garageband is awesome. I finally had a chance to lay down some tracks so I decided to work on my new song, Ready To Fall, which I previously posted the lyrics for. I found a decent drum beat and looped it for a few minutes. Then I recorded my acoustic directly into the laptop using the internal mic. Unbelievable! It was so clear and picked up my tone great.

So then I layed down the bass using the keyboard to play the notes, which is a great featuer in GB. The bass sound isn’t great but it’s good enough for a demo. On to the strings, using the keyboard again, I put down a few tracks and mixed them together.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time for the vocals. But what it allowed me to do was hear a full arrangement of the song so I could figure out what I wanted to change or add to it. I also realized the tempo needs be increased about 10 bpm. Anyway, as soon as I get a chance to lay down the vocals I’ll do a rough mix and upload it to my music sites. Until then, it’s back to the drawing board to write some more songs…