audiotthoughts on music

WOW, has it already been one year? unbelievable!

i just received an email from the rpm-challenge folks asking me to sign up for 2010. and i gladly did right on the spot! for those of you who haven’t heard of it, the challenge is to record an album in 28 days – just because you can. that means you have to come up with ideas, write the whole stuff, record and mix it all within the month of february. there’s nothing to gain except self-respect and huge amounts of fun :-) and you could cheat of course by just recording stuff you already have etc. but you would only cheat yourself.

this thing really is a race against yourself, the real question is: are you able to get up and just do this? no excuses.

after writing and recording my own stuff for many years but never finishing anything because of never-being-satisfieditis, last year’s rpm-challenge changed this for me. as many of you know, that’s where my first album corner came from. so i can tell from my own experience, if you ever needed a kickstart – this is it!

once again, i have no idea what i’ll do this time. since the work on my 2nd album is already in progress – and one song’s already released (“wipe it clean”, in the blue player to the upper right…), i thought about doing something completely different. but that’s about all i’ve figured out so far. and i’ll try not to think about it for the next 14 days, so it’ll be completely fresh once february kicks off……not to mention that i’ll jump around in wild panic because i’ll have no idea whatsoever how to do this. FUN !!!

so go ahead and sign up right here and tell everyone about it! and, if you tell me, i’m gonna write about it – giving you the exposure you always wanted right here on this ridiculously famous site :-)

and wondering where it’ll take me. i guess it’s about time for an update on the new audiot projects. as you guys already know, there’s music in the making which was supposed to end up on an album called “traitor”. this became more of a working title and then ideas came up like crazy  – so here’s what’s happening right now:

i’m up to 19 songs so far, 7 of them are awaiting vocals. it seems there won’t be any instrumentals this time, but one never knows. those 19 will have my voice on them. so i’m gonna do some vocal-recording and then 5 of the above mentioned 7 can be mixed and thrown out into the world. the other 2 will need maybe a solo and maybe some fills. i’ll do that after the vocals.

and it seems there will really be two albums, one in the style of “corner” and one with more “regular band stuff”. and once again there’s a lot of experimenting involved, lots of flaws left in there and again it kind of scares me what my mind comes up with. so if for me “corner” was like standing in a forest at sundown, peeking through some trees at a scary little cabin – this next one will be like stepping through the door and have a look at what’s inside. and i really don’t know if i’ll like what’s in there – but at least i’ll find out soon. fortune favors the bold, right?

before the albums are actually released i might put out some sneak peeks to let you know what’s coming. i thought about this a lot but am still not sure how to do this without spoiling the surprise – we’ll see about that. and still no making of video i’m afraid – getting into video-stuff would delay this whole thing even more….

so now you’re up to date and thanx for staying tuned. and even if i don’t know how this new stuff will sound once it’s finished, i can already say: if you liked “corner”, then you’ll love what’s coming. but if you didn’t like it, then you’ll love what’s coming. how’s that for a slogan? :-)

working on “traitor”, my 2nd album (listen to the 1st one “corner” in the blue player to your right) provoked some thoughts about the future, actually the present as well, of the album as such.

looking at websites or profile pages of independent artists creates the feeling that’s it’s just about single songs instead of albums. songs are uploaded as soon as they’re finished and more often than not, they don’t even seem to be related to some kind of album anymore. now, is this so?

it would make sense, because people listen to music on their mp3-players, create their own playlists and pick single tunes from download-sites. so is this the switch from rug to patchwork-quilt? and if yes, would it be wise for an artist to jump on that train? there’s another point to this, it would be more web2.0-ish if an artist would release each song as soon as it’s done because that would mean more frequent updates to his/her page or profile. one more advantage might be that each song would be noticed and listened to equally (at least at first). with the release of a whole album there’s always songs that draw more attention than others.

but on the other hand, i do like the concept of albums. to me it’s a lot less confusing, especially if someone covers a wide variety of styles with his/her music. so the albums would be like folders on your desktop that keep the songs together that belong together and give you a better view at what the artist did so far, because you see the different phases of his/her work. and the artist has the possibility to group songs together, so the album is more than just the sum of its tunes.

that leads to another thought. is this just triggered by the market? do artists simply react to the new era of consuming music? or do they welcome this and like the idea of thinking in smaller units? as for me, i’m not sure. right now, i’m in the middle of creating what i thought of as my 2nd album. but as a matter of fact, it’s more like 2. one of them very much related to the first one, stylewise. and the other one a straight hardrock record (about 8 songs each at the moment). now, there’s a decision to be made – should i do 2 albums, write more material for both and release 2 full records when they’re done? or should i just mix it together and do one album with those 16 tunes, even if they don’t really fit together? or, should i just go ahead and release every single song once it’s finished and don’t care about albums at all? or do the latter and then group the songs together once all of them are out? but who would be interested in an album if all the songs were already released? or, release some of the songs, so people already know half of the records, but have to wait for the records themselves to hear the other half?

i guess the main question here is: does the rug really tie the room together?

at this point, i have no idea. and instead of helping me to get closer to a decision, writing this confused me even more. damn!

that is something i do all the time, since i wrote my first song – about 18 years ago that is. accidentally i should add.

for some reason, i always write stuff i cannot play or sing – and it sucks. breathing for instance is usually no big deal once you got the basics down. there’s of course – and always will be – songparts that are hard to do, but those are just a few. oddly enough, i managed to write songs, lots of them, that i myself could not breathe at all. how stupid is that?

and although i’m through with this “airless phase”, i still do this with other parts – like drum- or guitarpieces i simply can not play. now, today that shouldn’t be a problem, right? we have computers and such to do this for us. but this is just not how it works, at least for me. even though i do almost everything with the laptop, i still take pride in my music (stop mocking me!) and the things you hear are really played and recorded, not drawn in with some pencil tool. and this is important to give it authenticity, which is one of the most vital things in music – or any art, for that matter. so right now, while working on the second album, i spend a whole lot of time practicing – just to be able to actually play those things i’m making up for myself. it usually is about precision. when i come up with a drumpart, it’s something i am basically able to play – if you can think it, you can play it – so that’s not the problem. same with guitar or bass. the hard part is to play it clean and precisely, to make every hit or stroke count and equally important. to have no fingernoises or rimclicks and so forth. this is the big challenge for me, so it’s writing the stuff and then tracking a really bad version of it, so i can figure it out in detail. and once i know exactly what to play, i practice like crazy to simply not suck too bad on the real track.

and that’s my point. there’s this saying here (no idea if there’s something similar in english…): one grows with his challenges. or as i probably mentioned many times before: practice something you can NOT do, instead of playing something you already own over and over again. so maybe i should feel lucky to have such a freakingly perverted subconscious that throws all those rocks at me during songwriting, because it knows me all too well. but even if this makes me playing better, it still would be nice to come up with something i could do right away every once in a while…

so, now he has completely lost his mind, right?

well, of course i have….to a certain degree – why else would i prefer music to a 9 to 5 job? but this idea really makes sense, apart from many others i come up with on a minutely basis. however, i can’t take any credit for this one, it’s out of a book (this one to be precise). although i can’t recommend this book, because i haven’t read it, the idea behind this is really cool. i was told about this and the person who told me had this idea from the book – that’s my story and i’m sticking to it.

now, what’s it about? in a nutshell, it’s about idea-pregnancies. meaning, once you have an idea, you need to let it rest inside of you, it needs to ripen like a fruit until it’s ready to be picked (if those are the correct terms in english…). your subconscious works on it, even if you’re not aware of that, and – as soon as it has something of value to offer – it’ll bubble into your thoughts, seemingly out of thin air. did you ever forget someone’s name and just couldn’t remember it, no matter how hard you tried? but as soon as you thought of something else for a few moments, it suddenly popped up? that’s what this is about…

so once you’re stuck with something, like me right now for instance, just do something else and try not to think about it at all. believe it or not, this will work! as i said, i haven’t read the book, so it might be about becoming rich and famous without doing anything – and that would be bogus of course. but nevertheless, we can use this basic principle to our advantage and become way more creative, productive etc. by just adding pauses. and for a musician, such a pause can be to work on another song for example. it’s like i mentioned before, when i’m stuck with one song, i start another one. but since i’m already up to 15 songs for “traitor”, it’s about time to finish some of them. so i’m taking the rest of the day off, since it’s sunday and sunny outside, and go for a walk. i’m coming out of the closet with this and i don’t care how boring it sounds – i just love to walk. i’m thinking about a 5 hour march through the beautiful hills around here, maybe about 25 kilometers – it’s not about speed, it’s about being pregnant, remember?

anyway, this should take care of beingstuckness and get me home again before sunset. i just hope my back can take this – some of those wombsongs are pretty heavy…

now we’re getting somewhere :-)

i just finished another recording session and am now up to 15 song-construction-sites. and since i’m still in da zone, this will be a really short entry (once again…). sorry for spending so much time making music, but i can’t help it – it’s what i do…

anyhoo, today was all guitars so far and if you’ve ever tried to record electric guitar, here’s the mother of all advice from me to you: less gain! stop mocking me! i know this is no bloody Richard-Friggin’-Feynman-Flash-Of-Genius-Idea but it helped me a lot. set up your sound the way you like it and then turn the gain-knob down by maybe 20% or the sound will suck big time on the recording. i have no idea why, this came out of experience, lots of swings-and-misses and running up and down the street, waving my arms like crazy screaming out “serenity now!” at the top of my lungs. so better take this advice before your neighbors call the lunatic-patrol-guys who will come into your home and kidnap you away from your compu

after browsing a little longer through reverbnationland i really have found something that i’d like to recommend as an out of the ordinary listening experience. check out “Veronique Chevalier”, i have only listened to 2-3 songs yet but it’s really worth checking out – love it! there’s a few more recommendations on my profile page over there, but this freaky polka stuff just rocks!

and speaking of which – try to find a band called “The Mollies” (maybe “The Mollys“), i couldn’t find their site or anything related to them right now – found them years ago through CD Baby, but the site is down for maintenance. i’ll provide you with some link as soon as i have something. back then, i bought their album “Moon Over The Interstate” and it’s unreal! although i have no idea why i like it….and it kinda scares the hell outta me….

p.s. just added their last.fm link…

maybe this is the right time to come out of the closet: no instruments were harmed during the creation of this album! oh, except my voice of course :-) but seriously, apart from the vocals, there was not a single real instrument involved. everything you can hear is based on samples. BOOO!

well, it’s not that simple. everyhing was played alright, but on a midi-controller. so even if it consists of samples, it still was actually played by a human being and recorded – including flaws. i didn’t select a pencil tool to just draw event-lines all over the place and then ‘randomize’ them with kind of a human-factor-function (which is no problem with today’s software).

now, why does this make a difference? why draw the line there? lots of musicians think it’s completely off limits to use samples, others believe there are no limits at all and let the software do all the work – if no one knows about it, who cares? again, why does it make a difference? until recently i was one of those guys who thought of samples as cheating, only what was played and recorded the old fashioned way counted. but two things changed this opinion of mine. first, it’s virtually impossible for the independent ‘guerrilla’ musician to get a professional sound out of a – let’s say – drumkit. and by professional i mean Colaiuta-like. because you do not only need a decent drumset, professional mics and a high-end signal chain, you also need a professional room to record it in – not to mention all the know how to deal with funny little things like Pandora’s-phase-orgy-box. it’s not coincidence that sound-engineer is a full-time job, as is drummer. so doing it all alone requires some dirty tricks. period. and i’m not even talking about the ability to play (and proper record) all instruments that are involved – in this case: drums, saxophones, trumpets, french horns, trombones and other plumbing devices, harmonicas, flutes, an orchestral string section, percussions of all kinds, guitars, basses, all sorts of mallet-instruments, synthesizers, organs, accordeons and other things i can’t remember right now. and, by the way, one would need to have all those instruments…….and quite a storage facility as well.

and second, it’s still one hell of a challenge to make those samples sound real. even with the best drumsamples available, the knowledge of how to actually play the drums is as important as it is for the real instrument. you have to know about accents, about which hand/foot is playing what and when and so forth. otherwise it will sound artificial and boring – as it does in countless recordings. yes, software has come a long way towards sounding real, but a program is only a tool. if you don’t know how to use it, you’re gonna hurt yourself – and others.

so no matter how much cheating is involved, there’s still a big difference between an artist and a pencil-tool-pusher. and i guess it will stay that way…

yep, i wanted to add a few words to the last entry of this series. first of all, the doing-it-very-slowly-thing is especially for learning new things. then, it’s not only about doing it slowly but also about doing it well aware and concentrated. so to avoid any misunderstandings, i wanted to clean that up. learning something new on a drumset is a great example because with this instrument, the moves you make are huge compared to a guitar for example. big moves mean you can easily see what exactly’s going on. maybe you want to hit the hihat with your right stick and then hit the lowest floortom afterwards. that’s quite a long way for poor mr. stick. now, if you practice this at normal playing tempo, chances are, your motion is far from perfect. you mostly concentrate on getting this done in time. doing it slomo, however, gives you nice visual feedback on what it is you’re doing. you will immediately see, if the motion is unbalanced, weird, wacky, whatever. and you will be able to correct that aka replace it with a nice round beautiful motion that will not only help you staying in time, but also look a lot better to bystanders :-) – it will sound better (trust me on that), feel better and your hands, arms, shoulders, back, neck will thank you. and one more thing: you will be able to play this a lot faster once you really figured it out and got rid of all wackyness.

of course this goes for any instrument, drums just happen to show it more clearly…

yes, nothing more than a big thank you. two of the three ebay-auctions were sold out about 3 hours after they started – unbelievable. both were about parts of the legendary Sonor Phonic Plus drumseries of the ’80s. i’m gonna sell lots of parts from this series in the next days and weeks, so if you’re interested in anything stay tuned or drop me a line right here.

and there were answers to the online-vocal-teaching-experiment-offer as well, yay! as i said, i have no idea how many online students i can handle at this point, so if you’re at all thinking about it, don’t waste any time…

and one more thing: i just read some articles in Tape Op (issue #67) and they rock! i looooove the one about reamping drums, really cool. for those of you who haven’t heard of it, Tape Op is an independent magazine about music recording with tons of tricks from the pros. it’s completely free and there is just no excuse for not subscribing right now. go ahead.