Recording in the basement tonight. Got the main rhythm acoustic guitar track done for the new song. A good start. Used the solid top, back and sides all mahogany Godin acoustic. Recording with a CAD GXL1200 small diaphragm 48v condenser mic. I might double track another acoustic in high-strung Nashville tuning for the chorus. Pondering where to go next with it. Got my Hohner B harp for the solo parts. No drums. I’ll use a shaker though. Sleep on it. #music#recording#songwriting#gearsquad
A couple of people have asked, since my recent instance change, about what I'm playing - musically speaking. Recently, I've been just messing around for a couple of hours, no more than 3-4 takes, and no previous idea of what I was going to do. Usually on a Sunday morning. As you can imagine it can vary in success widely but I'm also trying to learn how to record myself, get better at playing, everything really ... Here is a recent one.
I mixed a song a couple of nights ago but didn’t get around to posting it to my alonetone or hearthis.at accounts so it just sat there on my laptop. Now it is out there for the whole wide world to ignore.
I think it kinda sounds like crap, but the song itself is okay, I think. You can probably hear the edits in the chorus because I wrote a melody without leaving any space for that pesky little breathing thing. Oops.
The lead guitar was through a nearly cranked amp. That was fun. Noisy as hell, but fun.
"The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer discusses 'Georgia on My Mind'—and the highly improbable pairing and production that gave birth to Willie’s quintuple-platinum masterpiece."
I suggested to the creator of Lyrcs he should add a way to put song metadata and chord/section annotations into the app, and within a couple weeks he did!
This is the Lyric writing app I would make myself. It's a real Mac app (iOS too) that uses regular text files, with a rich UI on top of that for embedding song info.
All the basic features are free, although I suggest paying the small pro subscription, because he's done such a great job.
Two days in a row. It is silly how sneaking in 20-30 minutes of guitar playing before work in the morning can just brighten up the whole day. Silly and a little weird, maybe.
I mentioned last night that I started working on a new song for the re-recording project thing. I put rhythm guitars on it this morning after I did my daily exercise and had a quick breakfast. Done and done. I used direct outs from two of my amps again. That’s the norm now. Oh well. It sounded pretty good today. It sounded pretty good yesterday too, I think.
Here’s the obligatory guitar pic. Let’s use it for today’s photo a day project as well. Day 243 of 365. Actually… 366, but we won’t worry about that until the end of the line.
If you want a Mac assed lyric writing app, this Lyrcs app is it. There's a few things I'd like to see them add (some way to define sections and chords and have them be ignored), but other than that, this is pretty great. #macOS#songwritinghttps://apps.apple.com/us/app/lyrcs/id1599888045
After some consideration, I've decided to try and make Apple Notes work for my songwriting. It's not perfect, but it does have a lot going for it, and they make it better every year. I wish it had a mode where I could jump between section headers and the tables are very limited, but I can get by.
It's easy enough to switch later if I want to, but for now, I really just don't want to turn #songwriting into a programming problem. One thing I need to solve is figuring out a good back up strategy.
After talking with @Rob_Thew the other day about songwriting, I've been working on ideas for a blog post about it. It's just funny, things you notice, chord progressions.
I'll talk more about it in the post, but it made me laugh the other day when wifey & I were watching Taylor's performance of 'Champagne Problems' (which is a very chill piano song) and I laughed & I had to explain to her it's like, a punk progression she's using in it. She even drops the f-bomb in that one.
So I have a website for publishing my demos/ideas/half written songs (https://songs.travisbriggs.com). This is not actually a post promoting that website.
Instead, I'm considering the idea that having 100 or so songs just sitting all the time on the shelf makes them go stale. No one ever listens to ANY of them. It's basically an archive.
Maybe instead, I could build some kind of "song of the week" website, where it takes each of those songs, that are already hosted there and already have metadata, and creates some kind of artificial scarcity around them.
Right on the top: "The last time this song was song of the week was June 12, 2021. It will be song of the week again on April 5, 2026".
"Last time, this song was played 0 times and received 0 comments. So far this week it has been played 0 times and received 0 comments".
#Radio Irrtum! is a German language #radioShow exploring the sonic vastnesses of the underground. Emitted transmissions may raise your attention for new unheard #music all over the genre spectrum from all over the world. Btw.: Forget about that German language aspect - it's all about the music… as in:
But can you withstand the genre jumping overdoze?
This time the Fediverse is represented via one track by #Sitka, which is the most talented @oleksiy !
Also lots of powa female energy in it! And... tape machines!
On top of that thanks to @mistfunk for raising my attention towards @pixelblip (not active here anymore unfortunately) so I could inject his animated #Teletext art into my video teaser (see below!).
As always I'll post playlist and manuscript later here (provided I’m at home, else it will come up the day after). And if you have questions about the music – I'll gladly answer! Just ask!
C U all tonight! :)
↑↑↑ English version above, the German one is still below ↓↓↓
Der Underground hat angeklopft und will seine Bandschleifen zurück! Oder Bandschleichen. Was weiß denn ich?
Jedenfalls — 1 Monat is rum, Radio Irrtum! ist wieder da! Und zwar Samstag Abend, 20 Uhr über Alex Berlin auf FM 91MHz/DAB+ Ch.7D (Stream URL oben).
Radio Irrtum! ist meine Radiosendung, in der wir zusammen die Weiten des musikalischen Untergrunds erforschen mittels Musik folgender Genres:
fast schon gotischen (so sagt man, oder?) Shoegaze Dreampop
Well, got my recent song mixed. Quite a challenge with several stereo tracks, 2 acoustic guitars in high and low tunings, one electric guitar, pipe organ, 3 synth tracks, drums and 2 vocal tracks. It went great. Until I decided today to completely change the instrumentation for the final chorus, which really needed to be done to fit the lyrical story context. Brought in a stereo string section and piano with the Strymon BigSky reverb on Epiphany chorale setting for those tracks. Wow, that did the trick. Fortunately, I preserved all the original mix settings and just had to do a few moderate adjustments. And I’ve listened to the song so many times, I could pick out any issues quite easily. Done. Now just need a freaky bizarre graphic for this strange song. Tomorrow. #music#recording#songwriting
The sacred ritual of getting ready for vocals. Pulling the large diaphragm condenser mic out of its inner sanctum and hooking it up to the 48v electric life source, the phantom power. #music#recording#vocals#songwriting
I’m in a songwriting club with a bunch of friends that are all fans of the comic strip Achewood. This is our latest release. #music#songwriters#songwriting#musicians