Week 21, Say

The song for week 21 is called Say.YouTube link for iPhone

I actually wrote this song a few weeks ago and have been working on it piece by piece when I could. I recorded the drums last week, but only finished the electric guitars, bass, and vocals over these last two days. This is another song that is very much in the vein of my old band, Hovland. There’s the pretty, sad, quiet stuff, followed by the heavier, mathier stuff. I always thought it was a nice little songwriting recipe. Someday soon, I’ll upload the various completed Hovland recordings that I have on my Bandcamp page. I may even take a swipe a remastering everything while I’m at it. The song was written in a variation of the Hovland tuning (F-A-D-G-A-E). It’s in E-A-D-G-A-E, so from standard tuning, only the B string has been tuned down to  an A.

This song was recorded in what has become my standard recording process. The guitars and bass were recorded using the custom break-out adapter (from Week 2). The vocals were recorded using the iPhone’s built-in mic, and all of the iPhone tracks (five guitar, one bass, and five vocal) were recorded using the MultiTrack app. The drums were recorded using my new 5-mic setup into Reaper. The new setup consists of two overhead mics in an X-Y pattern, the same AKG D112 on the kick drum, I switched to a large diaphragm condenser on the snare which is covering a bit of the rack tom, and I switched to my CAD E-200 which I have placed above the kick, over the rack and floor tom but just under the ride cymbal. I think it sounds better, but I’m still fooling with it. I’ll probably end up reading an article in Tape Op tomorrow and get a different idea for drum miking and switch it up again. (In my opinion, Tape Op is the best…recording…magazine…ever…seriously go subscribe, it’s free!) I feel like I’m always trying to get the perfect drum sound. I feel like it’s the Holy Grail of recording. Plus, I’m working in a less-than-ideal-room for drum acoustics, so it pushes me to tweak it even more. As usual, everything was mixed in Reaper.

I’ve been checking out some new (to me) websites where musicians and listeners can coexist and I think they make for a nice way to find out about new bands and musicians that you like, and for the bands to get exposure in new ways. I think it’s a really interesting time for bands and music in general, and I’m interested in finding out about the new systems for finding good indie music. For me, that role was once served by trusting the bands that came out of good city/scene-based labels and then college radio and catching live bands to a lesser extent. I’m still feeling the sites out. I’ll probably write more about them in the coming weeks. Let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions for websites or anything else to check out. Also, I’m still working on the podcasting thing. I should have a little bit more of it figured out by the next post. Have a great week everyone.

1 Comment to Week 21, Say

Fred
February 2, 2010

The drums are sounding better and a bigger part of the mix. Another good song. I just put my acoustic into your dropped B tuning and came up with a cool fingerpicked tune. Thanks!

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