Rockin' The House on Paddy's Day

Yours truly on the mic on Paddy's day, wearing the obligatory green (in this case, a Guinness t-shirt). I was again playing Lindsey Boullt's Musician's Showcase (that's Lindsey in the background, handing out shots of Jameson to the band). This is such a cool event. There is none of the competitiveness you can often find at standard gigs, just a fantastic atmosphere of support and camaraderie. This is my third showcase, and the best part is hanging out with folks I don't get to see the rest of the year. I think this photo was taken while I was playing one of my own songs "Outside Looking In." I posted some MP3s on the blog last year, but you can download the final mastered version here.

Warning guitar geekery ahead:
For those interested, the guitar I am playing is a Line 6 Variax, a totally new type of digital guitar. It has an on board computer and can model twenty two classic guitars. For example, it can sound like a 58 Les Paul, the original of which wouldn't leave much change out of $30k - if you could find one. And this guitar cost me $400! The sound modelling is spot on, and it seems to have already revolutionised the guitar world. Mind you, it doesn't look nearly as cool as a 58 Les Paul, but I am never going to own one so...

What's The Story Frank ?

I spent a lot of time recording over the last five years. At the end of it all, I have nine songs. It might not seem like a very productive five years, but the process was somewhat interrupted by having 3 children, buying and renovating a house, and starting a new and demanding job. There is also the fact that the limited time I have for music is split between occasionally playing live shows, guitar lessons and the practice time that involves, and jamming with other musicians.

I had planned on releasing an album, putting it up on itunes and CDbaby, and playing some shows around it, but the energy required for getting and keeping a band together, rehearsing and finding shows is just too much at the moment. In fact,if it wasn't for the getting gigs part, I'd probably give it a go. That takes considerable time and effort when you are performing original material.

I joined the online A&R organisation Taxi. They let members know of opportunities: movies and TV shows that need music, performers looking for songs, labels looking for artists, publishers looking for music etc. One of the great and humbling benefits of this is that you get feedback from industry professionals. They don't hold back, so it can be fatal to the fragile artist's ego, but if you can handle it, and incorporate it, it's incredibly helpful. I have gotten generally positive feedback, but mostly I am told that my songs are not suitable for any given opportunity, or are not commercial enough, or don't fit any genre easily. The latter is a common theme. That's fair enough, they are looking for commercial music, (that doesn't necessarily mean Britney type pop, they look for a very wide variety of stuff), and I understand if I want to follow this route I need to tailor towards it. Also my music was recorded over a long period during which I was learning the recording process, so it's stylistically inconsistent. The way I look at it, it's 90% of the way there. I have already started a new project, and I am really working on making the quality 100%. The one thing I will do differently this time, is have it mixed by someone else. I love mixing, but I am too close to my own work to be subjective. I have noticed when I have mixed other peoples music, I do a better job.

I have decided to post some of my songs on the blog. The first one is called "Whats The Story Frank?" You can listen to it by clicking here, or right click and "save as" if you want to download it. The title comes from a saying a college friend had. We were both from Limerick, and we had this theory that most Limerick males were either named, Ger, or Frank. Every time I would meet my friend, he would put on a thick Limerick accent and say "Whats the story, Frank?" I always thought it would be a good title for a song. That said, the song has nothing to do with this story. Have a listen, tell me what you think.

Outside Looking In - done and dusted.

I think I may be finished - not just this song but the whole album. I brought it to Paul Stubblebine Mastering last night, where Michael Romanowski did his magic, (his link has a picture of the room where we did this), and made my mixes sound a lot better. Mastering is an art, something the general public probably has no clue about. If you mention that you are mixing a song, most people understand the general idea of what mixing is, although many would be surprised at how intricate it is. Mastering is a whole 'nother ball of wax. Basically it’s where the engineer makes all the songs sounds as good as possible. More to the point mastering makes the songs sound cohesive as a whole in terms of loudness and equalization. Like I said this is equal parts science and art, and being in possession of what is known in the industry as a pair of "Golden Ears" is essential. After all this the songs are sequenced into the final running order.

Wikipedia has a much better if incomplete description here

The final mixed and mastered Outside Looking In is here:
Click here to play music

If you compared it to the earlier mixes here, and here , (10 second delay before sound), you will notice how dramatic the change has been over time.

Outside Looking In - Mix 1

As promised the first mix of the new song. This is a very rough mix. I spent less than 20 minutes on it, just enough to get an idea of how I need to progress. The vocals are scratch vocals. What this means, is that they are recorded just to guide the other instruments. They are not the final take. I didn't spend much time on getting all the settings correct, I just wanted to convey the energy of the song so the drummer could react accordingly. There are a few bum notes! I am not sure about the falsetto at the end. The drummer likes it, my wife doesn't , I kinda do. At least, enough to work at it.
I also haven't applied equalization to any of the tracks. For example, a standard EQ setting would be to lower the mid range frequencies of the guitar to allow other instruments or the vocals some space, or the remove the lower frequences from the bass drum to prevent the bass guitar and bass drum from muddying each others sound.
The drums were recorded with a set of Roland V Drums. These are pretty amazing. Roland digitally modeled hundreds of drum kits, and it saves an amateur engineer like me a lot of headaches, when recording. Micing up a live drum kit is an art, I've done it but it takes a lot of skill. We recorded the V drums as MIDI data. This means instead of recording an actual audio track, we record a track of digital triggers, how hard the snare was hit etc. As long as the drum brain is attached to my system, we can send the MIDI data to it and it will play what the drummer originally played. The great advantage of this, is that right up to the final mix, we can tap into the drum kits brain, and change any of the drums sounds or settings. For example, I am not that happy with the cymbals on the current mix, they are too wimpy. I intend changing the sound to a larger or darker sounding cymbal. When I am happy with the drums, I can send each individual part of the drum kit back into my system, and record each on a seperate audio track. Then I can do the mix down, (I had to do this to make the mix below).

The guitars were recorded with the amazing Line 6 POD. This is my favourite guitar toy. Like the drums, it is a digital modeling tool. In a piece of equipment not much bigger than my hand, Line 6 have digital models of all the top guitar amps. Again it makes dialing in the guitar tone a breeze, and recording guitar very easy. My only bitch is that the model of my favorite amp, the original 60's AC/30 with Top Boost, doesn't sound that great. I have a perfectly preserved AC/30, and the digital model is completely lacking the shimmery top end that makes the amp so famous.

As I see it the next steps are:
Editing the drum sounds, and doing some suble editing where the drummer sped up a little, ( this is pretty normal when recording live without a click track). Recording the lead vocals, and adding harmonies. I might throw on some acoustic guitar, or maybe some organ sounds on the chorus. Then I will have to re-evaluate. I'll post the new mix.

You can download the mix below. I'd love feedback, especially from recording engineers and musicians - talk about asking for punishment!

FYI there are 10 seconds of silence at the start of the song.

Outside Looking In Mix 1