For the first time in ages I've been looking for a different guitar sound. Thicker, heavier, and more riffable. I think I've stumbled across it. Laying on enough echo to make the riff (with enough practice) sound like there are two guitars, when in fact there is only one. Check out the sample titled New Guitar Sound in my profile to see what you think - Honeycomb Personally I think it rocks, and I'm looking forward to using it (and that riff) in a new song soon...
Got a new song. It's about my life as a freelance software developer, travelling from company to company fixing their problems. Anyone who's worked as a "road warrior" should relate... Selling Your Soul For The Man Lying here in my hotel room Just thinking over the work to do tomorrow Weekday evening TV Reality sets in, but not behind the picture With my bottle of wine I prepare myself for the excruciating boredom to come Chorus This life on the road Forget the glamour, it’... (423 more chars)
Damn, I was determined that this game wasn't going to interrupt my album writing duties, but I'm sorry to report that I haven't picked up my guitar since Tuesday. I've only got 4 songs so far with a target of 12 by the end of May/beginning of June with recording happening in July. Not quite as tight a schedule as the RPM challenge, but tight nonetheless. I think I may have to lend out my XBox to someone, anyone, or I'm not going to get this done. But wow, the game is good...
Yet another new song from my forthcoming album. Two down, twelve to go. Bit of a rant against the music industry this one... King Of Punk The snake tattoo On the back of the hand Should have been a giveaway At first ignored But after a drink Listened to what he had to say Don't fool yourself into thinking That mere effort breeds success You need me And I need you Please listen to my request (Chorus) I'm the king of punk They don't notice me At the top of the cha... (585 more chars)
Damn, the switch on my Strat just stopped selecting one of the pick-ups. I suspect there's a loose wire or bad contact in there somewhere. Oh well, I'm going to have to open her up and perform open heart surgery. I don't know what I'm going to find in there, I haven't been under the hood for over 10 years. There's probably mice nesting in there or something...
My first song since RPM!! The aborigines of Australia believe that when you take a photograph you remove part of the soul of a person. So what would it be like behind the photograph? Behind The Photograph The remains of me Lie beyond the lens Entangled in a ray of light Escape velocity Torn apart from the shadows Ancient philosophy Flows through the centuries Elicits half a smile from me The lucid world Seems lost forever (Chorus) Bare your soul for the camera Lose ... (171 more chars)
So, I've been battling with the loss of my muse since the end of February. Nothing was working, nothing seemed to fit together. But this weekend I decided to take part in the RPM covers thread and did a version of the Angie Fights Crime song Escape, both because he put it up for covering and because its an awesome song. (Check out the cover in my profile - Honeycomb - and don't forget to stop by the jukebox to hear the original) Anyway, since working on that track my muse seems to have retur... (610 more chars)
(Wednesday, 27 February 2008) Written by Honeycomb
I'm finally in the process of mastering my tracks. As I'm doing so I'll be posting them in my profile - Honeycomb - first one, Behind The Moon, is up now... Edit : The 128kbps MP3s don't sound very good, especially at the top end.
Album is done. It's entitled "Once Bitten...", it weighs in at 37.4 minutes and the track listing is as follows:- 1. Behind The Moon 2. Hustle 3. The Final Act 4. An Ingenious Confession Of The Truth 5. Ex Animus 6. The Rot Won't Show 7. One Too Many 8. Hours And Days 9. Forgotten Youth 10. The End All that's left is final mastering, burning and artwork tomorrow, with posting on Friday. Good luck to everyone who's still working, especially those who will be going to the wire.
So I overcame my headache and nausea and have now finished tracking for all 10 songs. Now comes the tedious part. Normalising all parts and cutting and pasting takes to get the best result. Then mixing (listening on my Sennheisers, earbuds, iPod and main stereo to make sure everything is balanced on all hardware). And finally breaking out Ozone for mastering. Then all I've got to do after that is decide on an album title, decide the order of the songs, design the artwork and finally get it pri... (118 more chars)
So it's the last day that its possible for me to track vocals and I wake up with an enormous headache and a nauseous feeling in my stomach. I've taken the requisite medicines and hope I get better in a few hours or this whole project is going down the pan. I've only got 5 vocals left to track and all 10 songs written which makes it all the more annoying.
So this weekend its make or break time. I've got many parts to record, some drum parts to finish, vocals to record and the beginning of the mixing phase, with the rest of the mixing and mastering next week. It's going to be a marathon session, but strangely I'm looking forward to it. Trying to think of all the little details that need doing - guitar re-stringing, pop-shield making, checking leads etc etc.
So, I've finished writing the 10th song. I've never written this much so quickly in all my life, and though some of the songs would probably not make it onto an album under normal circumstances, given the constraints I'm very, very happy with the results. I'd even go as far as to say that at least 2 of the songs are up there with my best ever work, which is even more pleasing. Now it's time for final tracking and *gulp* vocals. I've got 8 days left so I'm proud to say that unless something goe... (172 more chars)
Well I'm back from my Valentine's weekend away, and it was hard not to think about the RPM challenge during that time. Believe me when I say tht my manhood was likely to be at stake. I did manage to sneak in a bit of lyric writing on the train home, and it is the first political song on my RPM album inspired by the Northern Rock situation (for those outside the UK, the British government has just taken over a bank that was failing and now our tax pounds are propping up a whole bunch of sub-pri... (219 more chars)
So this is my first time doing RPM and the first time I've ever actually tried to produce an album. I've done EP length stuff and the odd track for compilations, but nothing as ambitious as this, and certainly not in this timescale. So my progress so far is that I have 6 songs demoed with some of the parts being the final recordings, 2 other songs written, and 2 more to be written. I'm going to be going away for a long weekend tomorrow for Valentine's and not coming back until Monday. Though I... (217 more chars)
So, after I discovered the horrible truth about my voice, that I had written the songs in the key that the singer I usually write for sings in, and that it was totally the wrong key for me, I've begun the arduous process of re-recording everything in another key. Luckily I hadn't done final parts, so it's not too bad, but it's still a lot of work. First song to be transposed (from F# to B) is now linked in my profile. I'm going to leave the vocals to a marathon session after all music is done ... (134 more chars)
Yes, they do. Hard and dry. I've even tried recording in the downstairs toilet for a more full and reverby sound, and they still sound like a load of old tulip. I'm not really sure what to do about this, but I'm a perfectionist and I really can't allow my stuff to go out with vocals as bad as I've got so far. My next plan is to start back again in my bedroom and do it line by line, as many times as it takes, to get something both in tune and emotive (tune and emotion seem to be an elusive mix ... (623 more chars)
So, this is my first ever solo project and I've come to the realisation that I can't sing. It's not that I can't hold a tune, just that my voice is so weedy and lacks depth. I've done a few takes on some of the tracks that I've got ready and it just doesn't sound right. But then, I had an idea. Maybe it's the room and the fact that my studio (bedroom) is too large. So tomorrow I'm going to try and record the vocals in the smallest room in the house, the downstairs toilet. My main recording com... (188 more chars)
(Wednesday, 06 February 2008) Written by Honeycomb
So, I now have 5 songs written, yay!!! They're still only at the demo stage, and each one will need to be re-recorded properly, but hey, the hard part is the writing for me. I've got a whole bunch of half-finished ideas that I've scratched out parts to. None of them have inspired so far, though I'm happy with some of the lyrical ideas. I'll probably delete the Garageband files and start again from scratch on those to see if I can still make anything from them. As always, follow progress on Vi... (35 more chars)
It had to happen. A song about participating in the RPM Challenge. It's 11pm at night, I have work tomorrow, and this song sums up how I'm feeling right now. It will appear last on the CD, and is entitled "The End" Lost, I'm lost Reading between the lines I know That there must be a way That there must be a way That there must be a way out somewhere Tired, too tired Just too damn tired to look for the way The path that we need The path that we need Th... (150 more chars)
So I set the alarm for 9am this morning intending on adding a few songs to the two already written. It gets to 10am, 11am, 12pm, 1pm, 2pm and nothing. I have nothing. Grrr. Its freezing cold outside, and not much better inside and I'm getting frustrated. So... I run myself a hot bath and lay there for 25 minutes or so, then Eureka, it's there. An hour or two of fleshing the idea out, et voila, Hours And Days, the third song for the challenge. I'm off out to grab a few brews now and sit down t... (97 more chars)
I now have the music recorded for my second song - The Rot Won't Show. Will get my vocal mic back next week and will then have two finished songs. To be honest, I'm well pleased so far. The music is some of the best I've ever produced IMO. Maybe that's because of the pressure, maybe it isn't. I've never normally been one to be able to sit down and say "Now I'm going to write a song". Songs have always come to me when I least expect them and I've had to act fast to get them down before they're ... (131 more chars)
So I've finished recording (the music at least) for my first song. Lyrics are written and will be recorded when I get my vocal mic back from a friend. I've decided to do this Steve Albini style. No more than 5 takes per part, all parts recorded in full with minimal looping. Mistakes are allowed to remain as long as they don't detract from the overall result. The demo is up on Virb here - http://www.virb.com/honeycomb - and is called Ex Animus. Now on to song two, no time to waste...
So I'm now home from work on February 1st at 18:45. Time to have my dinner, then it's into the studio for me. Well, I say studio, my spare bedroom and my MacBook. I have some lyrics and an idea, so with a bit of luck my first song should be squeezed out later tonight or early tomorrow. That will be the biggest hurdle for me, as once I have one song, more will follow hopefully...
I've been unable to resist the temptation to get started on the songwriting aspect of the challenge, I guess it's to do with the anxiety of getting this thing done in a month. So far musically I have a rocker (along the lines of Oasis or T-rex), a ska/reggae type thing, and a downtempo trip-hop style number. I've only got scratch lyrics for them at the moment, but it's a start. Recording starts in earnest tomorrow night. It's beginning to look like my entry is going to be somewhat eclectic. But ... (104 more chars)
Oh well, my singer (and girlfriend - thanks for the support) has decided that she doesn't want to join me in the RPM challenge and I can kind of see her reasons. She's quite the perfectionist and reckons that she won't feel comfortable singing sub-standard lyrics or singing over sub-standard music (which it probably will be given the time constraints). So, it's just me on my lonesome. The last time I attempted singing was when I was around 16-17, about *cough*20*cough* years ago, and I wasn't ... (319 more chars)
Hmm, I said to myself when I signed up for this that I wouldn't do any work on the CD until February 1st, no lyrics, no songwriting. With two days to go, anxiety is setting in. My guitar is looking at me longingly. Must resist, must resist...
