Week 17, Old Battles

The seventeenth song is called Old BattlesYouTube link for iPhone

…and it was no small battle. I write this with less than two hours until Week 18 begins. I had no intention of writing an eight minute song when I etched out the guitar riff which now sits passively behind the verse. But sometimes the song goes where it goes. I suppose that I could have cut this one in half, but I think it needed to go the second time through. I’m still on track, even it’s just by the skin of my teeth. I did come uncomfortably close to realizing one of my biggest fears with this project: to get so far behind that a song gets pushed into the next week. I feel like I’ll have a hard time making up the ground by doing two songs a week. On the other hand, I still have 34 weeks to figure this all out.

I’m going to keep the description short on this one. I’m happy to be introducing the melodica into my repertoire – a heroic Christmas gift from my dear wife. Though it sits lower in the mix, I feel like it adds a little something different to the texture of this song. I recorded the two melodica tracks using the iPhone mic in my kitchen, which is also the method and location of the vocals on this song. The guitar, baritone, and bass tracks were recorded through my always dependable and great sounding Orange Crush 30r into the iPhone by way of an Audix dynamic mic and the custom break-out cable (from Week 2). I wrote the guitar part in my old Half Hour Action Drama tuning (F#-A-D-F#-A-E) and the baritone was in a standard A tuning.

All of the iPhone recording was done using MultiTrack, which has now been updated to Version 1.1, and has just put on its big boy pants. What was already an incredibly sound and simple 16-track recorder that functioned much like an old tape machine, now has the infrastructure of a fully-functioning digital audio workstation that includes punch in and out, beat and time grids, snap-to, and a metronome. It took me only a few minutes to figure out the additional controls, and I made use of all the new features while recording this track – I’ll be honest, there’s a lot of melodica punching needed in an eight minute song.

The drums were recorded in Reaper with the usual four mic setup of late. I’m willing to live with how the drums came out (I kind of have to), but I’m not thrilled with it. It was a case of having too small of a window to record the drum tracks, and I’m just not a good enough drummer to sit down and knock out an eight minute song flawlessly in the first try or two. But I’m hopeful that all of these songs hold their own, flaws and all, by the merits of the songs themselves and not the limitations of time and performance.

A couple of tidbits for this week: Project 52, Volume 1 – the remastered collection of weeks 1-13 has made it out to some stores but not all of them yet. I’ve added the link to the Amazon MP3 store for the album for all of the songs now, so feel free to go forth and shop if you’re so inclined. I really appreciate all of the good feedback that I’ve gotten about the project lately. It really keeps me going. Also, you may notice that there’s a new Facebook icon on the right side of the site. I finally broke down and started a Facebook page for Developer, separate from my personal account. I’m just getting it started, so stop on by and friend me up. And if you just can’t get enough, I’m tweeting my trials and tribulations as well at @developermusic. And finally, stop back next week as I plan to add a couple more tracks to the Free Downloads Page.

All right, enough with the plugs. I hope everyone is having a great start to 2010. I can’t complain. I’ll see you next week.

4 Comments to Week 17, Old Battles

Fred
January 3, 2010

Great work under pressure. I like the drums quite a bit (don’t be so hard on yourself) and, please, more melodica. The song builds nicely and your 8 minutes makes up for the 90 second songs you have posted….. Happy New Year.

Chris
January 7, 2010

Meant to say well done under pressure. Also, never mind the YouTube link, I’ve got SoundCloud on iPhone. Much easier. Enjoying MuliTrack 1.1, thanks for the initial headsup, and bet you’re looking forward to the new Blue Mikey, when eventually it comes.

Keep them coming, I’m enjoying them. Thanks

Ben
January 11, 2010

Easily my favorite of the bunch. Really reminds me of some of the late-era Hovland stuff with the rolling bass, the noodly lead, and the periodic builds to chunky riffs. Well done sir!

project52
January 11, 2010

Thank you Ben. Yeah, I feel like I’ve slowly been getting back into Hovland territory as this goes on. It might be the winter weather that’s drawing out my frosty side.

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