Random Blog Post #4

randomblogpost
It’s time for another random blog post! I’ve been posting about nothing but Punk Rebel Renegade for a while, so why not talk about something else for a change? How about some insight into the possibly boring parts of what I’ve been doing and learning lately? If nothing else, it’ll be a good way for me to reflect on what I’ve been doing musically for the last year or so.

Just production-wise, I’ve learned a lot. Ever since I started seriously recording music in 2001 or 2002, I made it a point to NOT look for tips and tricks on how to do anything. It’s kind of like how I approach playing guitar or singing or anything else; I feel like if I learn the “right” way to do something, I’ll feel like I have to do it that way and never experiment. There are some exceptions to this way of thinking. I mean, if I have a problem with a very particular thing, I’ll attempt to search out a solution. And usually there isn’t just one answer, so it’ll point me in the right direction to try some other things. For example, I was having trouble getting good recordings when micing a guitar amp. It turns out there’s a science to microphone placement. There’s a general area that is usually good to have your microphone placed in relation to the amp, but you can also try other placements to get different sounds.

There are probably other examples, but for the most part, I sort of pride myself on figuring out this whole music thing on my own. I feel like if I studied up on everything and did everything the tried-and-true way, it wouldn’t be as fun anymore. It was after I finished recording Heat Stroke and began the mastering process. Steve at Sage Audio was cool and commented that I had a buildup in a certain frequency range. That’s something that completely changed how I look at my recordings. And it’s a big focus on what I’m doing with Punk Rebel Renegade. For the most part, the recordings I did sound pretty good, but now that I have more knowledge about frequencies, I’m making these old songs sound even better. If all you’ve heard of my music is Heat Stroke, you’ll probably be pleasantly surprised at how much better Punk Rebel Renegade sounds, especially considering it’s over 4 years older.

But yeah, fixing up all the Punk Rebel Renegade songs is taking longer than I thought it would. Part of that is because I’m working a lot of overtime at my job lately, but it’s also because I’m going over all the tracks with a fine tooth comb. I don’t want it to sound super polished, because it is my punk album after all, but there are definitely things that have always bugged me that I’m fixing. I think I mentioned in one of these blogs that I bad habit I had was that I wouldn’t use headphones when recording instruments or vocals; I would have some (metronome-like) playback over my computer speakers instead. So you’ll hear some bleedthrough, and it bugs the crap out of me. When there are drums and guitars all layered on top of the each other, you can’t hear it. But when the guitar is playing by itself or there’s just vocals, there are definitely times when you can hear a drum beat in the background.

Another problem is that I was sloppy with putting together the pieces to songs. I didn’t re-use guitar recordings within songs much, but when I did, sometimes I didn’t take care to make them fit together nicely. Sometimes you can hear an obvious overlap of recordings or there would be an awkward gap. I’m fixing all that. It’s not super fun, but I want to do it so that I’ll get in the habit of being more careful on future songs. Then I won’t have to delay the mastering of an album so much like I am with Punk Rebel Renegade.

Speaking of old albums of mine…did you know I have other collections of music that aren’t available to listen to anywhere? I do! Quite a few in fact. Well, maybe 3 others. I don’t know. But there’s definitely Modus Operandi and Boobs, Butts, and Feets. The former came out before Punk Rebel Renegade, and the latter came out even before Modus Operandi. I listened to both today, and I was totally dissecting the songs in my head, wondering what I could do with them. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably heard “Everyone I Know Is an Alcoholic,” from Boobs, Butts, and Feets. That album might be my favorite one to listen to. I authored it for play in Rock Band via the Rock Band Network, and it got some decent attention there. I also released 2 other songs on there from the same album, “Around the World” and “Electro-Heaven.” Those didn’t do quite as well, but I imagine more people have heard those songs than anything I’ve made before or since.

I could blab on forever, and maybe I’ve already mentioned this before, but what I would like to do is slowly release these older albums of mine. When I’m done releasing Punk Rebel Renegade, I am not going to feel like working on another old album. I actually do get some pleasure out of fixing up these old songs I’ve recorded years ago, but it only works one part of my brain. It’s not very creative. So I would like to release a collection of new songs, then fix up and release something old, and repeat that until I’ve officially released virtually everything I can release. I figure that would take years to do. I don’t want to release more than 2 albums a year. It’s not my goal to burn out on making music. Nor do I want to use up all my money to get the songs mastered and out there for a handful of people to listen to.

Anyway, Modus Operandi and Boobs, Butts, and Feets would certainly benefit from another going-over like I’m doing with Punk Rebel Renegade. The problem is that they’re going to be way bigger undertakings. Why? Well, with Modus Operandi, the vocal recordings are pretty poor. I’ve considered actually re-recording them, which might be kind of fun to do. And since that album is probably the least listened to collections, at least by me, I don’t think anyone would know the difference. Then for Boobs, Butts, and Feets, there are all sorts of obstacles. One, I was using a slow computer to record everything. I’m pretty sure all the individual tracks were bounced out as mp3s instead of uncompressed .wav files. Assuming I still have those original MIDIs and drum samples and stuff, that would take a while to re-render all that stuff out for new projects.

Oh, and like with Modus Operandi, I was using Acid to layout the songs. Um, like Sonic Foundry Acid 4.0. Not drugs. The cool thing is that I still have that program, so there is the option to stick with using that, which could save some time retooling the songs. And then there’s the issue with copyrighted sounds. I sampled everything from RoboCop to The Shining to Midnight Cowboy to crowd cheering at sporting events. I’m sure I can get away with the random crowd cheering, but obviously not the movie samples. If I had to guess, I’d probably elect to reenact the voices from the movies. It would be too weird to just take them out completely usually.

Alright, that’s enough for now. Check out my Facebook group, by the way. I’ve been posting some potential t-shirt designs. Tell me what you think. Yeah. Back to Punk Rebel Renegade.

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: