Thursday, April 06, 2006
What Kinda Man part one
This is a song of the week thing. I normally don't post those here. They're usually done in one shot (just about) and posted at edshugeo.com and the internet archive. Aside from the first one, they've all been recorded in Windows XP with Audacity. Inspired by the great a cappella-ist, Dokaka, I've decided that I would write four songs with nothing but my voice. Over the past few weeks, I've done some limited multi-tracking with Audacity, but for this task, it was best that I use Ardour.
My drums, so far, consists of bass drum, snare (sorta), and high hats. I recorded each separately on mono tracks, using a click track as a guide. My timing was still a bit shakey, but I didn't really mind too much.
I probably should'a isolated the best 4 bars out of the 16-ish I recorded, but instead I kept just about the whole thing and divided it into two eight bar loops (for each track). I repeated the loops enough times for a nearly five minute song. There's a fill track option, but I couldn't get it to work right with both eight bar loops. I copied both by selecting the first with a (left) mouse click and the second with shift/mouse click, then Ctrl-C (copy). I move the edit cursor to the mouse at the next position by pressing "E" on the keyboard, so I can Ctrl-V to paste. Etc., etc..
Bassline was next. I hummed a simple little something to myself and quickly came up with a little bit of a structure and recorded it straight through.
The next bit was a bit tricky. I "ooh"ed a melody to hopefully form the basis of a chord structure. This was recorded straight through as well. I think the first chorus is a little different from the ones that follow.
About three or four (maybe four or five) harmonies were recorded. Not really four or five part harmony, as my ears are easily tricked and I end up playing in unison for about two tracks or so. Except for the first, which was recorded straight through, only one verse and chorus was done for each track. These were then cut up and then placed in the appropiate spots in the song.
I still have lyrics to write and then to sing and I'll see where I go from there.
What I have so far...
edit: wrote the song, but recorded the lead vocals in Audacity (WinXP) instead of switching to Agnula and doing it in Ardour. The song demo is here.
My drums, so far, consists of bass drum, snare (sorta), and high hats. I recorded each separately on mono tracks, using a click track as a guide. My timing was still a bit shakey, but I didn't really mind too much.
I probably should'a isolated the best 4 bars out of the 16-ish I recorded, but instead I kept just about the whole thing and divided it into two eight bar loops (for each track). I repeated the loops enough times for a nearly five minute song. There's a fill track option, but I couldn't get it to work right with both eight bar loops. I copied both by selecting the first with a (left) mouse click and the second with shift/mouse click, then Ctrl-C (copy). I move the edit cursor to the mouse at the next position by pressing "E" on the keyboard, so I can Ctrl-V to paste. Etc., etc..
Bassline was next. I hummed a simple little something to myself and quickly came up with a little bit of a structure and recorded it straight through.
The next bit was a bit tricky. I "ooh"ed a melody to hopefully form the basis of a chord structure. This was recorded straight through as well. I think the first chorus is a little different from the ones that follow.
About three or four (maybe four or five) harmonies were recorded. Not really four or five part harmony, as my ears are easily tricked and I end up playing in unison for about two tracks or so. Except for the first, which was recorded straight through, only one verse and chorus was done for each track. These were then cut up and then placed in the appropiate spots in the song.
I still have lyrics to write and then to sing and I'll see where I go from there.
What I have so far...
edit: wrote the song, but recorded the lead vocals in Audacity (WinXP) instead of switching to Agnula and doing it in Ardour. The song demo is here.
