Missed that one
The (former) band got together Friday night - I couldn't make it, due to the choir concert. It was gonna be a jam, but I called over after the concert, Carl's son said they went out to the bar. Probably a karaoke bar - Fred and Luke used to go a lot. Sorry I missed it, though it woulda taken a LOT of drinks to get me up there, I think...
Friday, April 25, 2003
Another semester gone
Choir concerts tonight and Sunday. Prof loved my term paper on pre-1950 music technology. Think I did okay on the final. Choir's an "A" as long as I show up. Music History's floating along at about an "A-" right now.
That leaves Organ. I completely hosed up "Wachet Auf" at juries. My other piece, Foote's "Pater Noster", went okay. Ah well, public humiliation is an excellent opportunity for personal growth...
Choir concerts tonight and Sunday. Prof loved my term paper on pre-1950 music technology. Think I did okay on the final. Choir's an "A" as long as I show up. Music History's floating along at about an "A-" right now.
That leaves Organ. I completely hosed up "Wachet Auf" at juries. My other piece, Foote's "Pater Noster", went okay. Ah well, public humiliation is an excellent opportunity for personal growth...
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
Monday, March 31, 2003
Check out fatsarah's reaction to last night's weirdness in EL.
Days like this make me glad I can say "my degree's from Wayne State," or "I attend Madonna." Usually, I'd bring up my three years at MSU if asked, and I really think their James Madison College was an excellent program, but MAN! What a bunch of morons!
Days like this make me glad I can say "my degree's from Wayne State," or "I attend Madonna." Usually, I'd bring up my three years at MSU if asked, and I really think their James Madison College was an excellent program, but MAN! What a bunch of morons!
Wednesday, March 26, 2003
Still Here
But not much to say. Not doing much studio work now, concentrating on mastering Bach's "Wachet Auf" Schubler Chorale. So far Bach's winning. My height (6'4") seems to be a factor in my difficulties: quoting myself from another forum, I look something like "Ichabod Crane riding a unicycle playing a calliope" when I play this piece. So, in addition to my organ shoes, I'll probably have to start carrying around a pair of 2"x4"s to prop under the organ bench. Of course, then my arms will be too high, meaning I'll probably have carpal tunnel in 6 months.
Suffering for my art, I guess. Paying my dues so I can sing the pipe organ blues...
But not much to say. Not doing much studio work now, concentrating on mastering Bach's "Wachet Auf" Schubler Chorale. So far Bach's winning. My height (6'4") seems to be a factor in my difficulties: quoting myself from another forum, I look something like "Ichabod Crane riding a unicycle playing a calliope" when I play this piece. So, in addition to my organ shoes, I'll probably have to start carrying around a pair of 2"x4"s to prop under the organ bench. Of course, then my arms will be too high, meaning I'll probably have carpal tunnel in 6 months.
Suffering for my art, I guess. Paying my dues so I can sing the pipe organ blues...
Monday, March 10, 2003
In other news
I'm now "dedicated member" status over at Home Recording BBS. It means I get to pick my own "avatar", the little icon that appears next to my handle ("dafduc").
I think I'm going with this:
I'm now "dedicated member" status over at Home Recording BBS. It means I get to pick my own "avatar", the little icon that appears next to my handle ("dafduc").
I think I'm going with this:
Never Mind
It appears that Fred was the glue holding us together. As soon as he left, Luke stopped showing up. So last week, Carl put an end to it. Maybe we can get together and jam, but the project is dead.
So, if I'm to keep this site going, I'll have to redesign - it can still be about my studio, and my recording projects, but not about the band. There is no band.
It appears that Fred was the glue holding us together. As soon as he left, Luke stopped showing up. So last week, Carl put an end to it. Maybe we can get together and jam, but the project is dead.
So, if I'm to keep this site going, I'll have to redesign - it can still be about my studio, and my recording projects, but not about the band. There is no band.
Thursday, February 27, 2003
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Fred Has Left the Building
We had this deal where Fred was going to cut vocal tracks over our "keeper" (in fact, barely demo quality) instrumental tracks, and we were going to let those be the basis of our final decision. What actually wound up happening was that Fred and Carl talked a couple of days before the scheduled session, and decided to kill it now. Poor Freddie, we hardly knew ye...
No rehearsals for the past couple of weeks - Dan had surgery, then my wife did. This weekend, however, should give us some idea of the immediate future. Stay tuned.
We had this deal where Fred was going to cut vocal tracks over our "keeper" (in fact, barely demo quality) instrumental tracks, and we were going to let those be the basis of our final decision. What actually wound up happening was that Fred and Carl talked a couple of days before the scheduled session, and decided to kill it now. Poor Freddie, we hardly knew ye...
No rehearsals for the past couple of weeks - Dan had surgery, then my wife did. This weekend, however, should give us some idea of the immediate future. Stay tuned.
Monday, February 10, 2003
B-a-a-ack: Potential Band Name of the Day
Dr. Luke.
A little background: looks like Fred's on his way out. Not a done deal yet, but he's not happy, and the guys (except maybe me) aren't happy. So we were talking about how do we find a new singer, and realized that as long as we're doing studio stuff, Luke doesn't have to play and sing at the same time. So we have time to find the right fifth person, whether they're a drummer, a singer, or both.
For now, that makes Luke our front man. I'm thinking it may stay that way, too. The nice thing about "Dr. Luke" as a band name is there's an instant Christian callback to Luke the physician, but it's not so aggressively Christian-sounding as to preclude us from doing a secular thing.
Dr. Luke.
A little background: looks like Fred's on his way out. Not a done deal yet, but he's not happy, and the guys (except maybe me) aren't happy. So we were talking about how do we find a new singer, and realized that as long as we're doing studio stuff, Luke doesn't have to play and sing at the same time. So we have time to find the right fifth person, whether they're a drummer, a singer, or both.
For now, that makes Luke our front man. I'm thinking it may stay that way, too. The nice thing about "Dr. Luke" as a band name is there's an instant Christian callback to Luke the physician, but it's not so aggressively Christian-sounding as to preclude us from doing a secular thing.
Friday, February 07, 2003
The Sincerest Form of Flattery
Over at Dave Barry's Blog, Dave joins in on the "potential band name of the day" fun. I've had a dry spell lately, so it's good to see someone else pick up the ball and run with it.
Even if the name he picked is worse than most of mine.
Over at Dave Barry's Blog, Dave joins in on the "potential band name of the day" fun. I've had a dry spell lately, so it's good to see someone else pick up the ball and run with it.
Even if the name he picked is worse than most of mine.
Monday, February 03, 2003
Fred seemed real moody at last night's rehearsal, the rest of the guys are about to mutiny (if you can call it that - Fred really never set himself out as a leader, but he's the guy who did the legwork) - pitch is a real big issue, preparedness is, too.
It's too bad - **I** liked us when we were clicking, but apparently the pitch issue is enough to throw everyone else off their lunch. Sigh...
We'll try to keep moving forward - we're going to give Fred a shot at the studio versions of these before we give up.
It's too bad - **I** liked us when we were clicking, but apparently the pitch issue is enough to throw everyone else off their lunch. Sigh...
We'll try to keep moving forward - we're going to give Fred a shot at the studio versions of these before we give up.
Friday, January 31, 2003
Tuesday, January 28, 2003
Interesting week:
(1) Upgraded to Acid 4.0 - mixed feelings about it. Same price for an upgrade as for retail new box. I finally went for it (new box) - soft synth support was key, as were the 7 free loop disks it came with. Loop disks are a bit dated, but useable, some soft synths don't work well in Acid - notably Steinberg's Model-E (a virtual mini-moog). But, along with item (2) below, I got enough inspiration from the new features to move 3 songs forward - "Ps. 63", "Beloved", and "Praise the Lord, Sons and Daughters";
(2) Bought some deep discount loop disks, notably a Celtic loop disk from USB Soundscan, but a few more, too. The deal with these old loops though is that they're in audio format, and/or not timed to an even beat - this latter throws Acid for a "loop" (haha) - it can't calculate the tempo. Tempo is usually documented, though, and some editing will fix it. Still, not seamless the way the newer loops are;
(3) Met with Fred Friday night to go over stuff - he hasn't been happy with the band's progress and direction, though he says he likes MY stuff. I talked up the group a bit, went into some of my theories involving interpersonal vector dynamics (if I'm pulling northwest and you're pulling northeast, then the thing we're pulling will move north - something like what we were each pulling for, but just different enough to have a group "flavor" to it). We went over some musical ideas, he seemed okay by the end;
(4) Rehearsed Saturday (rescheduled due to Super Bowl), Dan was out sick, but we went over some stuff anyhow - I was the "bass player". Got a demo of mountain/forest/home (or Time is Time, as originally named - m/f/h is my set of lyrics for it) recorded for Fred, and Fred did Ps. 130 with us for the first time - really nice feel. then we started messing around - found out Luke does a dead-on Joe Cocker impression. So we tried digging up a Beatles song Cocker hadn't already done, tried "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey" first, then "Come Together" - pretty cool. Come Together segues right into "The Letter", too, so we bounced back and forth awhile doing that. Luke says he can't really play and sing at the same time though. Fred and Dan both play a bit of drums, so maybe Luke could go out front for a few? Also talked over "Bipolar" with Carl - Fred liked parts, and didn't like parts - so we're streamlining the song a bit and pulling out the rhythm punches (ripped from the Who's version of "Summertime Blues") and working them into their own piece - see #5. Lotsa beer down the gullet, too;
(5) Worked this week on "Bad Girls Found Out" lyrics - still rough, but coming together. This is based on Carl's lick (but no longer matches the Who riff), and lyrically based on the old Mae West quote: There's no such thing as good girls gone bad, only bad girls found out." Should be fun!
(1) Upgraded to Acid 4.0 - mixed feelings about it. Same price for an upgrade as for retail new box. I finally went for it (new box) - soft synth support was key, as were the 7 free loop disks it came with. Loop disks are a bit dated, but useable, some soft synths don't work well in Acid - notably Steinberg's Model-E (a virtual mini-moog). But, along with item (2) below, I got enough inspiration from the new features to move 3 songs forward - "Ps. 63", "Beloved", and "Praise the Lord, Sons and Daughters";
(2) Bought some deep discount loop disks, notably a Celtic loop disk from USB Soundscan, but a few more, too. The deal with these old loops though is that they're in audio format, and/or not timed to an even beat - this latter throws Acid for a "loop" (haha) - it can't calculate the tempo. Tempo is usually documented, though, and some editing will fix it. Still, not seamless the way the newer loops are;
(3) Met with Fred Friday night to go over stuff - he hasn't been happy with the band's progress and direction, though he says he likes MY stuff. I talked up the group a bit, went into some of my theories involving interpersonal vector dynamics (if I'm pulling northwest and you're pulling northeast, then the thing we're pulling will move north - something like what we were each pulling for, but just different enough to have a group "flavor" to it). We went over some musical ideas, he seemed okay by the end;
(4) Rehearsed Saturday (rescheduled due to Super Bowl), Dan was out sick, but we went over some stuff anyhow - I was the "bass player". Got a demo of mountain/forest/home (or Time is Time, as originally named - m/f/h is my set of lyrics for it) recorded for Fred, and Fred did Ps. 130 with us for the first time - really nice feel. then we started messing around - found out Luke does a dead-on Joe Cocker impression. So we tried digging up a Beatles song Cocker hadn't already done, tried "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey" first, then "Come Together" - pretty cool. Come Together segues right into "The Letter", too, so we bounced back and forth awhile doing that. Luke says he can't really play and sing at the same time though. Fred and Dan both play a bit of drums, so maybe Luke could go out front for a few? Also talked over "Bipolar" with Carl - Fred liked parts, and didn't like parts - so we're streamlining the song a bit and pulling out the rhythm punches (ripped from the Who's version of "Summertime Blues") and working them into their own piece - see #5. Lotsa beer down the gullet, too;
(5) Worked this week on "Bad Girls Found Out" lyrics - still rough, but coming together. This is based on Carl's lick (but no longer matches the Who riff), and lyrically based on the old Mae West quote: There's no such thing as good girls gone bad, only bad girls found out." Should be fun!
Thursday, January 23, 2003
Friday, January 17, 2003
Five Faves of the Day
I posted about dark happy beat songs before, but the happy happy songs need equal time, I think:
Happy-Beat Happy Songs
5. Suffragette City - Bowie
4. Stand - R.E.M.
3. Back in Love Again - LTD
2. Funky Nassau - Beginning of the End*
1. Walking on Sunshine - Katrina and the Waves
* - Had to look this one up for the artist. Had NO IDEA it was in Blues Brothers 2000 - almost makes me want to watch it, despite what I've heard. I DID know about the French techno cover of it, though. Jury's still out on techno, for me...
I posted about dark happy beat songs before, but the happy happy songs need equal time, I think:
Happy-Beat Happy Songs
5. Suffragette City - Bowie
4. Stand - R.E.M.
3. Back in Love Again - LTD
2. Funky Nassau - Beginning of the End*
1. Walking on Sunshine - Katrina and the Waves
* - Had to look this one up for the artist. Had NO IDEA it was in Blues Brothers 2000 - almost makes me want to watch it, despite what I've heard. I DID know about the French techno cover of it, though. Jury's still out on techno, for me...
Thursday, January 16, 2003
Finally got to put my Zero-G Development - Brutal Beats samples to work on Ps. 130 - nice feel to them, though I kept in some of the techno stuff too. Essentially, there will be two drummers on this song. I like the feel.
Sadly, some of the more interesting sonic mayhem on Brutal is not available in all the permutations of a given beat. So the headbangers' ball setting, and the jet-airplane's-about-to-run-you-over setting of the loop group I was using were pretty much unusable - different enough from the stock mix and the overcompressed mix to not mix well with them, and not interesting enough to be used as the only source(s) for the whole tune.
There's also this thing with mistuned cymbals - or maybe they're two different cymbals, but the second only exists in one pattern. I decided to ignore the diff and use both anyway.
Also had some fun with freebie bass patterns - dig deep enough, you'll always find something! In this case, it was two patterns - one of which played D-E-A-B in just the right rhythm. So I split it in half, put the last half first (A-B-D-E, if you're following along), then cut the first note, put it on a separate track, and dropped it a minor 3rd (F#-B-D-E) - sounds like it was made for it. And for the opening part I actually found exactly what I was looking for - bassist playing an mid-A and a high E together.
Guitar loops were fun too - I didn't expect to get this far last night. But the Magix $5 loop disk saves the day again, with its building block style loops. Had to re-EQ the annoyingly trebly Telecaster loop, but the the crunch power rhythm loop was perfect just as it was. Played a bit with the dynamics, and voila - ready for porting to Cubase!
I was so geeked at getting the work done that fast, I went and added a bass guitar part to my "Praise the Lord, Sons and Daughters" piece. It already had a sub-bass part, but I thought it needed a real bass, too. Spend some time with 5-string bass hits (Magix, too? I forget), kinda cool how they came out. Sort of a rubber-band thing, where the sub-bass notes are cut real short, and the higher bass guitar note extends a bit. I was going to cut the bass guitar notes shorter, but I think I like this effect. Hope to listen again tonight or tomorrow to make sure.
Sadly, some of the more interesting sonic mayhem on Brutal is not available in all the permutations of a given beat. So the headbangers' ball setting, and the jet-airplane's-about-to-run-you-over setting of the loop group I was using were pretty much unusable - different enough from the stock mix and the overcompressed mix to not mix well with them, and not interesting enough to be used as the only source(s) for the whole tune.
There's also this thing with mistuned cymbals - or maybe they're two different cymbals, but the second only exists in one pattern. I decided to ignore the diff and use both anyway.
Also had some fun with freebie bass patterns - dig deep enough, you'll always find something! In this case, it was two patterns - one of which played D-E-A-B in just the right rhythm. So I split it in half, put the last half first (A-B-D-E, if you're following along), then cut the first note, put it on a separate track, and dropped it a minor 3rd (F#-B-D-E) - sounds like it was made for it. And for the opening part I actually found exactly what I was looking for - bassist playing an mid-A and a high E together.
Guitar loops were fun too - I didn't expect to get this far last night. But the Magix $5 loop disk saves the day again, with its building block style loops. Had to re-EQ the annoyingly trebly Telecaster loop, but the the crunch power rhythm loop was perfect just as it was. Played a bit with the dynamics, and voila - ready for porting to Cubase!
I was so geeked at getting the work done that fast, I went and added a bass guitar part to my "Praise the Lord, Sons and Daughters" piece. It already had a sub-bass part, but I thought it needed a real bass, too. Spend some time with 5-string bass hits (Magix, too? I forget), kinda cool how they came out. Sort of a rubber-band thing, where the sub-bass notes are cut real short, and the higher bass guitar note extends a bit. I was going to cut the bass guitar notes shorter, but I think I like this effect. Hope to listen again tonight or tomorrow to make sure.
Tuesday, January 14, 2003
Friday, January 10, 2003
Rehearsal was okay last week, and we finally got a practice CD out of it. Pretty rough, but some shining moments. Carl played with the endings a little in post-production (it's just a practice thing, so that's a misleading term, I suppose), some cool ideas there. Rehearsal again tomorrow! I'm ready!
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