Week 20, Dig In

Song 20 is called Dig In.

YouTube link for iPhone

I might finally be able to get myself out from under the end-of-the-week problem. I’m going to try to work on two songs next week so that I can get back to posting songs early in the week.

In my head this song is pretty heavily influenced by Guided by Voices, but I’ll leave it to you guys to decide if it sounds obvious or if it’s just in my head. I consider myself a pretty big GBV fan, though I’m not quite up to the level of some folks I know. But I’d say that Robert Pollard and GBV have been a pretty strong influence on my songwriting for a while now. I get that their music isn’t for everyone, but in my humble opinion it’s some of the best songwriting out there. I think that if you haven’t given them a good hard listen, you owe yourself that opportunity.

The song was written in standard tuning and was entirely recorded on the iPhone. There are two mostly mirrored and hard-panned guitar tracks (they’re the same except for a couple notes and a little inflection during the verse that you can hear clearly in headphones) and a third guitar part over the chorus. The guitar was recorded using an Audio Technica ATM29HE to mic my Orange Crush 3oR and into the iPhone using the custom break-0ut cable. I just recently had my pair of ATM29HE’s returned and am thrilled to be using them again. I’d take them over an SM57 mic any day. The vocals, melodica, and percussive elements were all recorded using just the iPhone’s mic. All the tracks were recorded as usual using Harmonicdog’s MultiTrack app into the iPhone and were mixed and tweaked in Reaper.

There are a few touches of percussion throughout the track. I continue to find myself using my son’s instruments in the recordings. I can’t help it – they’re everywhere. A couple of weeks ago he was given a Melissa and Doug Band-in-a-Box. If you’re wondering who Melissa and Doug are and why they’re putting bands in boxes, then you most likely don’t have a kid right now. I’ll catch you up: They make wooden toys, puzzles, and in this case, kids’ instruments. For this song, I used everyone’s favorite three sided instrument, the triangle, and something that M&D call the “clacker.” It’s a little wooden handle with a wooden flap on either side. It does make a clack sound,;I think it’s pretty well named.

I’ve been thinking about adding a new feature to this project… like I need to create more work for myself, I know. I’ve been trying to set up podcasting for the songs. I’m a bit new to podcasting, so bear with me. Hopefully I should be live in iTunes soon. Here’s my feed, let me know if you find that it’s working or not.

Thanks,

Corey

Tags: Band-in-a-box, bandcamp, Cockos, Corey Layman, developer, GBV, Guided by Voices, Harmonicdog, hovland, indie, indie rock, iPhone, Karl Hendricks Trio, lo-fi, Melissa and Doug, MultiTrack, phone-fi, Pittsburgh, podcast, Project 52, Reaper, Robert Pollard, Woolslayer and Main

Week 16, Over Time

Merry Christmas to those that celebrate and Happy New Year everyone! Youtube link for iPhone

I hope everyone has had a great holiday season. I’ve had a fantastic Christmas today with my amazing wife, who got me a Melodica, so expect to hear some serious Melodica-based tracks in the coming weeks. My kid had a blast and is completely overwhelmed by everything for better (sitting at his mini drum kit rocking out) and worse (total epic meltdown on Christmas eve at a Chinese restaurant with friends). 2009 has been an awesome year and this project has been a really great part of it. I didn’t see it coming. I’ve really enjoyed the challenge and connecting with people all over the world, and I can’t wait to see how things go down in 2010. I’m not sure if I’ll have a track done before the New Year or not, it depends on how things pan out next week.

One thing that’s coming up early next year is the digital release of Project 52,Volume 1. Everything is in place. I did a little mastering of the the first 13 tracks, uploaded the high quality mp3s, and now I’m just waiting for the album to go live. You’ll notice in the upper right-hand corner of the site that there’s a widget where you can listen to the remastered album, front to back, and eventually you’ll be able to pick up individual tracks or the entire album at iTunes, Rhapsody, eMusic, Amazon, and other stores online.

“Over Time” is another rock track that’s somewhat obviously influenced by Guided by Voices. At least that’s what I thought when I was writing it, but once it was done, I realized that there are also some serious shades of Nirvana. It makes sense because the other night I was completely sucked into a documentary about the making of the album Nevermind. I can’t help it. I was a grunge kid through and through. I still remember when my friend Todd came over to my house, frantically slapped a cassette into the tape deck, and started raving about this band he’d recorded off the local college radio station when someone had played the entire album over the air. It absolutely kicked my ass. It was unlike anything that we’d heard in our smallish town. That album was Bleach.

The song is pretty basic: guitar, bass, and drums. The guitars were recorded with MultiTrack on my iPhone using the custom break out cable. I also took two vocal tracks with the iPhone mic in Multitrack, but for the first time I wasn’t able to get the type of sound that I wanted for the vocals. I was prepared to make the most of them, but since I had extra time on Wednesday after finishing up the last two tracks for the video game my partner Dave and I have been working on, and getting a good drum take for the song, and since the Rode NTK was already set up, I re-recorded the vocals with the tube mic. I kept both recordings in for the last part of the song, so it wasn’t a complete loss. The bass track was through my Fender Twin and recorded with the Rode. As usual, the tracks were recorded and mixed in Reaper.

Tags: Cockos, Corey Layman, developer, Guided by Voices, Harmonicdog, hovland, indie, indie rock, iPhone, Karl Hendricks Trio, lo-fi, MultiTrack, Nevermind, Nirvana, Pittsburgh, Project 52, Verde Good Beans, Woolslayer and Main