Rain

You can't put the words guitar and flood in the same sentence and expect me not to make the connection... Man, he was on FIRE that night.

I know a lot of adult women who are into the Hello Kitty stuff. Actually, I've always thought they were the demographic HK was marketing to. But I'm really out of touch. The good thing is that Fender won't even have to worry about selling those, anyway - gear manufacturers go out of their way to endorse ladies, regardless of their talent (or lack thereof). Forgive my cynicism, here... Not that there aren't some great, young female guitarists - Gretchen Menn comes to mind, and I know a few here on the local scene too. Japan has a lot of metal girl bands too. Usually quite "kawaii" too.

Even if like me you have no interest in using AI to generate music, it's still interesting to see that in theory, as long as your music's out there on the web, you may be affected eventually.

Thank you guys. I don't often get the opportunity to receive feedback, so I really appreciate. (Big fan of Assemblage 23, too - it's been a while since I checked out the newer releases though, but Failure still gets played relatively often). I've managed NOT to re-record any vocals this weekend (so far). I think I will simply try to comp something and move on. If nothing else, I've learned a lot in the process. I've also started working on my own arrangement for the song - I challenged myself to use nothing but Logic's own synths and plugins for this one. The reasoning being that I suck at mixing but when I come up with something that's my own, I do a little better - as I did for that Billy Idol cover. And that one was done almost entirely with Logic synths (but built around a few key components imported from an old Sonar mix which made abundant use of Zeta and Dimension). In parallel, I've rebuilt the other mix in Luna, which I'm demoing. The reasoning for that is that I won't be as tempted to re-do this and re-record that, and to instead try to draw the line and approach it as an entirely different step and relying mostly on the built-in processing, thereby limiting my options. And, man, that virtual console looks and sounds incredible. I wish I had the talent to really take advantage of it.

Thanks guys. I've decided I'd try to make the best of what's recorded. I must have 6 or 7 takes of each part I've not deleted, and I will try to comp something up using those. Even though I could clearly use it, I refuse to use Autotune/Melodyne. But I should be able to salvage a somewhat ok performance. In the meantime, I was curious to try and see how far I could get just using one of the 'live" takes and pushing a couple of others underneath to reinforce it, adding a bit of compression and such. I've never really mixed vocals (not that I've properly mixed anything, mind you), so that too is a challenge. Apologies for the sour bits. The song's a cover of Covenant's Like Tears in Rain. Since this was about learning, I tried to remain faithful to their arrangement. I might put together a different version with my own twist on it because I have a few ideas for it. Again, it's just a rough balance, I'll work on the actual mix once I'm done with the vocals. There's a few things I'd like to overdubs, bits of synth and whatnot. Here's the original.

Agreed wholeheartedly. As a musician of course, I do have a certain curiosity. Whether it's Justice, or albums like Black Sabbath's Born Again or KISS' Hotter Than Hell - I would love to be able to hear the raw tracks. Every time I hear those two, I try to deconstruct them and understand what went wrong, how did they get that sound. It's become sort of a mild obsession. HTH almost sounds like they recorded part of the mix from the speakers in the studio... In other news though, after letting it cool off for a bit and listening to the previous attempts, and keeping this discussion in mind, I managed to put things in perspective. I went for a few more attempts this morning but remained very reasonable about it. I believe it has more to do with the energy and also the pronunciation (and that part is made all the more complex by the fact that the original was sung by a Swede and that I am dealing with my own French Canadian accent). And then sometimes some words and sentences are difficult to push through or bite into - the soft parts are in all the wrong places, you just can't lean into them properly. The chorus of that song is particularly difficult (to me) because of that. A lot of it is kind of slurred. The whole thing is a learning experience, though. That's not something I usually do. Typically when I do a cover, it takes off in an entirely different direction. This one I am trying to stick to the original arrangement as much as I can - and that part has taught me a lot. Which was the point. Ultimately, that's why I am making music. To learn things. At my age, and considering that most of it will go unheard except by my cat, there's really no other motivation. It's what I do, that's all.

I'm struggling with that addiction. 😁

This. I have a few songs that I have allowed myself to go back to and completely rebuild from my old Sonar archives. To be honest, in most cases, I've lived with them for so long that no matter what I try and how much "better" they should be, they rarely sound right. For all their flaws, I've become used to those so much that something's missing in the better mix. They just feel a little flat and unexciting. But there are 2 or 3 which actually ended up significantly better - although in each case, the process stretched over years and multiple attempts. One of those is a cover for Billy Idol's Flesh for Fantasy that I really dig. The original dates from 2007, but I re-made it in 2013 and again in 2017 I think. The problem is that it's still instrumental, and I would love to record vocals for it, but it's not in a key that works for me. And there's no way I'm spending another 15 years to rebuilt it in the right key. A friend who's actually a real singer offered to help me finish it, and I might ask her to. Sometimes I do miss the days when I didn't know better than to have every synth rendered to stereo with reverb and delay and things masking each other, and I would just shove everything through the stereo bus and call that my mix. And if the kick drum got buried, I would just add yet another track of a different kick... Now I have better gear, a better room to work in, and I pretend that I know just a little better, but I really don't. lol

Thanks for asking. Actually, I only did a few tests but my voice didn't seem to cooperate, so I quickly called it a night. But I did listen to a few takes from the previous week and I think I'm almost there - to a point where I can live with my voice without being particularly fond of it. Part of it is just a matter of singing more. And warming up. Which I've been trying to do a little more regularly. But there's something that's still locked in.

Well, at least there's SOME development. I bought the UAD Studio bundle this morning. And went back for the SSL bundle tonight.

I took me only two years but I finally figured out that I could cut that huge one in smaller pieces and add it to the side walls, instead of just having it taking place in the studio closet. My padded cell is complete. I can go insane now.

I didn't really realize it until I called it a day and sat down and realized that I'd been standing up all night. My feet were killing me.

Not all their stuff was bad. Amusingly enough, I stumbled upon this last week: https://cherryaudio.com/products/surrealistic-mg-1-plus

Being poor sure helped me not to forget the word realistic when I started playing electric guitar. This was my first "amp". We also had a über cheap Realistic keyboard with drum patterns that I used to cut some of my very first "demos". On our Realistic stereo combo, of course.

I'm drinking my "morning" coffee and getting ready for yet another session, and I figured I would re-read this and try to let some of that wisdom seep through that thick skull of mine. I just started the demo period UAD Spark and I'd really like to have time to actually play with those plugins - it's be great not to waste the entire night singing (what little I've tested this morning already compelled me to add the studio ed bundle to my cart).

I guess there's a reason I like instrumental electronic music so much... Yeah, that's take #382. And it wasn't even the last one. I recorded another 54 takes in Pro Tools afterwards (I needed a change of scenery). That's a whole night spent recording vocals for one song. Starting at around 11 pm and finally giving up at around 9 am. Not the harmonies, not overdubs, just the lead vocal - 2 verses, 2 choruses. I had gone through the same process a week earlier. And I will probably spend hours on it again this weekend. Granted, I'm not a singer, but that wouldn't make a difference. Same thing happens when I record guitars... It's just a case of me going - nah, I can do better. Then hitting undo and recording a new take, most of the time without even listening to the previous one. In 90% of the cases, there's nothing terribly wrong, no sour note, no error in the lyrics... I just want to do better. I also seem to feel that punching in would be cheating. It's not as if I were recording in a studio with an engineer and felt pressured. I have no deadline and no pressure, and I can record one verse at a time. So the least I can do is get it right. And that in itself is a curse I guess. Having been married to a phenomenal singer for a decade and being constantly surrounded by other extraordinarily talented vocalists is also a double edged sword. I can hear things I would have never noticed before when listening to vocalists - but the ability to hear and identify weaknesses and quirks doesn't mean that I have the talent to avoid or fix them. So it's often a case of - the vibrato on that note is a little off, or the enunciation is off, or that note doesn't "close" properly. Pretty soon, you're pulled into the realm of the microscopic. But I hear it, and I know that any singer will hear it too. Also, I have a perfect excuse. I haven't really sang in years. After I quit smoking the first time, I suddenly seemed to lose control over my voice, which was extraordinarily embarrassing. At least, now that's behind me, but I feel like I'm still finding my voice. So it does seem to improve a little, week after week. Sometimes I wish I could do what a lot of people working in electronic music do - just run my voice through a distortion and let it be. There are tons of bands that I like who do just that. I wouldn't want to hear what Front Line Assembly or Hocico sound like with regular vocals. But I can't seem to let myself do it. Maybe what I'm missing is a nice tube preamp, a great outboard compressor, or a channel strip. Or a better mic. Maybe I can buy my way out of that rabbit hole... So yeah... This is my office for the weekend again.

An old friend of mine said that without it, life would be a mistake.

Having a dedicated space is fantastic, and I really hope I never have to go without. But I have written a lot of music when my "studio" was essentially a desk in a corner of the living room or right next to my bed. Forget dedicated studio - I didn't have access to a dedicated computer, nor even just a dedicated hard drive. Here I have the whole house to myself and a dedicated room, but sometimes I grab a laptop and a midi keyboard and head downstairs to the living room - sometimes not being "in the studio" helps, as I don't feel the pressure of having to come up with something. That old MacBook is from 2010 and runs an old copy of Logic 9, with only a few instruments, but even that can be inspiring. Most of the time I don't even bother hooking up an audio interface and monitors, I just use the laptop's. I also get a disproportionate number of my ideas in the bathroom, usually when I'm in the shower. Fixing food also seems to be a source of inspiration. The good thing is that with smartphones nowadays, one can just record the basic idea on the spot. I remember getting an idea for a melody at the beginning of a 12 hour shift working security on a construction site and trying to hold it for the rest of my shift. Well, I failed. That was over 20 years ago and I'm still bitter about it. 😁

Ozzy has such a unique voice... I've heard amazing vocalists ruin his songs. They should have gotten our fellow forumite Leadfoot.

Same. There's no denying that The Number of the Beast is incredible, and Dickinson is probably the better singer technically, but those first 2 records with Di'Anno captured an edge that they lost when he left. I also feel that he had a wider stylistic and emotional range than Dickinson, who's essentially approaching every song from the same angle. Martin Birch's production and Adrian Smith's presence always gave some sort of edge to Killers for me, but in terms of songs, that first album is flawless. I can't really pick one.

Only 66... https://www.metalsucks.net/2024/10/21/ex-iron-maiden-frontman-paul-dianno-dead-at-66/

Guitar Player too... GP was the first guitar-related publication I bought, a few months after I got my first electric on Christmas 1984. I knew the name Eric Clapton but I'd never heard him - but that didn't matter. In fact, the only cat I knew in the entire issue was on the back of the magazine (man, I wanted one of those Kramers)... I couldn't read music and there were no tablatures, I barely understood a word of English but even if I could have read the articles, that stuff was beyond anything I could understand... But there were cool pictures. Those mags were quite expensive for little 12 year old me back then. $3.40 plus taxes… I bought a lot of Computer Magazines (the French edition) when I transitioned to digital audio. Those were exciting days - Steinberg had just launched Neon and a little later Model-E, introducing the first VSTi's, but trackers were still going strong. They always came with a bunch of free plugins that I couldn't use because Cakewalk didn't want to implement ASIO and VST and stuck with Direct X. Those were the days... lol It was a great way to learn about software back in those days before the internet became as big as it is.

I'm not sure how random, but there was a drive-by just down the street from here a few years ago - a couple hundred ft from my doorstep. And this is a very quiet neighborhood. So I have remained very much aware that this can happen. I've seen pictures of stray bullets in walls and appliances on Nextdoor in nearby parts of town. One guy had a bullet that went through a wall and lodged itself in the fridge door. Imagine going to the bathroom during the night then making a quick stop to grab a glass of milk from the fridge - and poof, you are no more... I don't worry about it, but it wasn't really a shock to read about Lee. It is a crazy world. Also reminded me of another rock guitar great/fellow Las Vegan who got hit a few decades ago in L.A. https://ultimateclassicrock.com/kiss-bruce-kulick-shot/

Well, not literally, but, close enough... https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/entertainment-columns/kats/rock-icon-injured-in-las-vegas-shooting-3190085/ I often go out to take pictures of the night sky in the middle of the night, or jogging just before dawn and think something like that could happen - just a random drive by, and poof, you're gone. Who'll feed my cat? Anyway, I am glad to know that Lee will recover fully.

I believe that's where I got mine from! I don't have the receipt but according to the Fedex info, they were shipped from Macomb, MI. Not that I would normally remember but I ordered them exactly 10 years ago after I repainted the room and that popped up in my Facebook memories. I got a bunch of those square ones that I placed on the side walls, a few of their bass/broadband absorbers, and a large piece (6 x 4 ish) that I placed behind the desk. I had thick black curtains hanging on the front and back walls and every few feet on the side walls, and the floor was carpeted, so the room was not that bright to begin with. Anyway, I was happy with the result, but I'm no Ethan Winer. In 2021 a few months before moving out, my ex brought this huge panel that she'd inherited from a customer. She left it behind because she had no room for it in her new home, so I agreed to keep it for her with some of her stuff in the garage. But every time I went downstairs and saw it it felt like such a waste. Seeing that it's unlikely that she'll have room for it any time soon, we agreed that I could use it for as long as I need it, although it technically remains hers. It weights a ton and it was a pain to carry this thing through tiny corridors and upstairs all by myself and then to install it, in the July heat, but after a couple of hours and a few splinters in my fingers, it was finally in its rightful place, replacing the large bit of acoustic foam. And it does a good job of absorbing frequencies. (You can see a few of those broadband absorbers above it. I couldn't fit them in the corners anymore so I decided to put them wherever - there is no actual reasoning behind their placement).