Signal/Noise: This Is Not A Podcast

Brand new

So here’s a new recording. This is somewhat special I guess, mainly because it marks a milestone—it marks my return to recording actual real instruments as I play them. I think this is only the second recording here I’ve posted that is of me playing in realtime instead of arranging pre-recorded loops and assembling beats and stuff.

Anyway, as always, I am really unsatisfied with this. But I decided after two weeks of going nuts to just call it done. I’ve been trying for days to record a decent solo for the end part, but a friend recently told me it was fine without the solo, so that was excuse enough for me to give up.

I kind of wish there were more to it. Maybe if I had any lyrical/vocal talent at all I could make it better.

So the only thing in this track I didn’t record was the drums. I don’t play drums, so those are loops. The rest is me.

Anyway, like everything else, it has no name. It is what it is. Have a listen.

Listen now! (5:03min / 4.7MB)

Tonight's Work

Well, I’ve been playing with this software on and off for a few days. It’s called Ableton Live, and I am finding it a little complicated, but I’m coming along slowly.

I finally got it to do something cool at least. So thats a big step in the right direction. For the track attached to this entry, I started with a MIDI track, came up with the underlying beat, then ran it through a couple of filters. Pretty basic stuff, it’s just a matter of getting used to the Ableton mindset and interface. They sort of take a different approach to the process than I’m used to.

Maybe one day I’ll get back around to actually playing a physical musical instrument.

The funny thing with this music software is that it’s supposed to unlock your potential and stuff, but it seems to actually just confound your efforts and bog down the creative process because I wind up sitting there searching for the right button to do what I want to do. I’m sure it’s just a matter of spending enough time with it to really learn it well. But this is the Internet Age, who has time?

Enjoy.

Listen now! (1:06min / 1MB)

Sorry for the silence...

I’m only posting this out of guilt. I’m not very happy with it. I was happy with it, as I was recording it, but I made a few mistakes and turned the wrong dial, resulting in a few very annoying measures.

Normally I’d throw this away, but it has been so long, I really wanted to get something new out here.

Enjoy.

Listen now! (7:25min / 6.8MB)

3 the hard way - Remix

So the Beastie Boys, being the forward thinking gentlemen they are, are releasing vocal tracks to their songs one at a time to the general public to encourage remixing.

So of course I had to oblige them.

I have to say, the Beasties are hard as hell to remix. It has a lot to do with their rapping style I think, which often falls just a little bit off beat for a time. It sort of actually enforces the beat, but only when you can hear the beat. Coming up with a new beat with only the slightly off-beat vocals is a little bit of a challenge.

I had to give up on three different songs before settling on one that was straightforward enough for me to work with.

Maybe I need to work on my internal quantizer.

Either way, the remix is available at the end of this entry, and I’ll add a link to the Beastie Boys remixer site.

For this one, I did one of the synth parts. The rest are all from various loop libraries.

Listen now! (3:03min / 5.6MB)

The infamous first solo

This was my first ever recorded attempt to actually improvise a real, on-key solo. The backing track is from a Neil Young song.

It’s not particularly good, but it was done in one take, so it could be significantly improved with some effort.

I actually thnk it starts out really well, aside from some sloppiness at the very start. It just ends so pointlessly, I guess I ran out of ideas very quickly.

Listen now! (0:52min / 0.8MB)