Well, before I posted my initial efforts a while back, I made sure they were as free of unintended blemishes as I could manage – and that seems a useful discipline to maintain, so I will occasionally post some more: it’s to keep me honest, rather than in the hope that anyone will enjoy them.
First up is “Showdown in Cimarron”, which sounds – to me, at least – like incidental music for a Western (a film genre I can no longer stand, oddly enough). It’s little more than a series of chord progressions played in a jangly, fingerstyle fashion on my old Telecaster, with a few crunchy strums, drums and filmic strings added. Doesn’t go anywhere in particular, but I enjoy it.
The next one is 'Chuck It!", a pure Chuck Berry-style jam, along the lines of those he used to fill out his LPs with back in the Sixties. Bass is probably too loud, and the endlessly-repeated tinkly piano figure will drive you mad well before the end. I’m quite pleased with the lead guitar parts – I cheated by recording them at a slower tempo and speeding them up afterwards, a process which works well unless there’s heavy delay, which tends to sound comical at altered speeds. Drums are good, too.
Next up is a version of the old Chantay’s classic, “Pipeline” – the greatest of all surf singles. This was musically unchallenging, but mine is still a horribly pale imitation of the original – the rapid descending guitar runs, the lovely warm electric piano sound and the extempore drumming all defeated me. Trying to recreate old singles doesn’t half make you realize how much excitement live ensemble performances can generate - even in a studio - and how brilliant the technicians and producers were in capturing atmosphere and verve with ridiculously limited resources.
Finally, there’s some cod classical music with "Dives and Lazarus" – a very dumbed-down version of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s achingly beautiful Five Variants of Dives & Lazarus. Due to a lack of musical ability, I confine myself to one variant (the basic tune of the original folk song) and repeat it five times, merely changing the instruments around to try to lend it an entirely spurious sense of progression. (The strummed classical acoustic guitar is real, while the individually plucked notes were done via a keyboard and a software instrument – the fake instrument is far more convincing than the real thing.)
In case there are other music-making enthusiasts reading this, can you help with my voice? I have, I have been led to believe, a pleasant, deepish speaking voice. When I sing, I can hit some correct notes. But recordings of my voice all sound horrible! Should I admit defeat and give up the attempt? Or is there some secret to making even ropey voices sound okay? (In return for any help, I will promise - absolutely - never to post anything with my voice on it.)
One other thing: I know that many producers, especially back in the 1960s, used to test out their singles on a transistor radio, as that’s how every potential buyer would first hear them. When I put my stuff on a CD and play it on the Sony radio/CD player in the kitchen, it sounds atrocious - the drums are always too loud, for a start. Is there a simple way of testing this beforehand?
Any advice would be gratefully received.
Autotune has a free download which you ought to be able to marry up with Garage Band. Compressing the vocal also rounds out some of the rough edges. Logic Pro and similar programmes have patches that can add reverb, automatic double tracking etc to your voice to add a bit of glitter to the dry vocal. But there is really no substitute for practice and a good mic.
ReplyDeleteSunday, September 5, 2010 - 12:26 PM
Mixing your final track is tricky if you are working with a basic programme like Garage Band. You can really only adjust instruments for volume or pan them L,R or centre. On the more sophisticated programmes, you can fiddle around for hours with presence, dry and wet sounds and enhancers and then decide whether you want a mix for radio or your stereo. What are you mixing it on? If it sounds OK coming out of the speakers of your lap top, it should be right for your radio and it's a question of trial and error.
ReplyDeleteSunday, September 5, 2010 - 12:44 PM
Thanks for the advice re my voice - I'll try what you suggest. The problem is it sounds bad whether dry or treated. If I sing certain songs dee, add some reverb and a bit of echo and double-track it becomes bearable - maybe I just have a fantastically limited range! As for lack of volume, it seems to have affected only one project so far - generally, it's not so bad. The Sony CD/radio downstairs is just rubbish - if I dub songs onto CD and play them through the MacBook's tinny speakers, they sound fine. I think what I'm looking for is some general radio-style background "atmos" behind the music to fill in the gaps and give it some verve - at the moment, everything sounds a bit dry and spare, no matter how many tracks I pile on, or how I mix them. That'll require a lot more experimentation, I suspect - in the old days, drums and cymbals were used a lot to fill in the gaps, but when I try that, it just sounds comic! Thanks v. much for the advice - much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteThursday, September 9, 2010 - 12:46 PM