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Plan To Make My Own Album C.D.

total-recoil

Well-Known Member
My absence for the last few weeks is explained by the time required to work and, as ever, taking care of my German Shepherd and so on. However, the fact is there is another reason and this is basically down to very prolonged work on my keyboard, writing music (when I'm not studying electronics in between).
I've now written 3 numbers. The first is a rocky, pop number with what I think it a catchy fuzz riff on keys and those few people who heard it tell me it sounds very eighties.
The second number is almost pure jazz and all done on black keys. Nothing special but sounds like the sort of background you'd hear in a hotel or bar and I used a running jazz bass (a bit like the old acoustics used in the fifties).
Third song I think is the sweetest. A very soft, melodic progressive jazz number which is very odd how it came about. I started with various piano riffs that sounded O.K. but somehow nothing special. I got a bit discouraged, abandoned ship for a while then went back to the keys around midnight last week. Changed the riff to jazz acoustic guitar and instead of hitting notes randomly as on piano, I split the riff to a half arpeggio with heavy sustain and that sounded spot on. Just made the base of the song. After that I fiddled around with various bass options such as slap bass, acoustic bass, synth base but finally worked out a very basic and easy-to play underlying bass. Added some soft synth chords to give the "unorthodox flavour". Today I experimented with piano inserts to buffer any later improvisation done on electric piano so the way that works is the piano insert just repeats throughout the track.
Here is where I need advice. I have no illusions as to limitations as I'm only using a casio synth which actually I consider totally sufficient but we all know it's a home piece of kit and can't compare with actual studio sound. However, the plan is to use software to record what I have onto a C.D. and glad to say my casio does have the corresponding ports. I'm pretty out of touch on softward but can only guess I need a laptop and some sort of C.D. burner so I can import tracks and save to disk. At least it will give me a very basic demo disk and maybe work up from that. No diea of cost either.
Incidentally seeing as my other hobby is tube or valve audio electronics, I may in time try to get my hands on a Moog analogue synth or maybe a Roland as am aware valve sound is still hard to beat.
Finally a word about progressive jazz. I followed it from the eighties and have always been a big Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays fan. People disagree what progressive jazz is but my take on it is that progressive jazz is usually a result of musicians who have a jazz background becoming far more experimental and liberal. It may include weird and wonderful sounds from synths combined with multiinstrumental, semi improvised composition. THis is not mainstream music but does have a huge following and needless to say the musicians involved are highly accomplished instrumentalists (unlike myself at this stage).
 
As a hobby musician, recording artist, sounddesigner and whatever there is on in the aural field... I'm also pretty DIY (Do-it-yourself; kinda beats using an abreviation, lol) and tend to look for budget solutions.

If I understood correctly, you just some advice for recording software? Do you do everything track by track or do you record everything with a full band playing (and essentially would need multitrack recording)?

If you do every track seperate, I might even suggest using something like this; Audacity: Free Audio Editor and Recorder. Totally free. You can record tracks while having another on playback in the same program. I guess for recording it would do, mixing/mastering might be different thing, but it can easily get really expensive with the program + additional plug-ins for reverb etc.

I don't know your set-up, but I would recommend a pre-amp in between the instrument and the line-in of your computer. In my experience that kinda helps the sound get in a bit more clear and crisp (depending on pre-amp of course), since the line-in on a computer isn't amplified that much (and the often used "microphone"-connection has a pretty high Db boost, sometimes up to 20 Db, which might distort sounds too much).

But I'd say give recording a go first, then worry about mixing, mastering and the final editing.

As for a computer, or a laptop... a laptop will give you some mobility. But a decent laptop doesn't always hold up on price/quality compared to desktop computers. For the same performance (hardware wise) laptops are mostly a lot more expensive. So I guess that's a thing you can take in consideration when trying to keep it on the cheap.
 
What I'm currently doing is really pretty basic. I have six channels on my keyboard. You will be very familiar with this. I can record my chosen drumbeat and riff on channel one. I know this is really very unprofessional to just select a drumbeat (typical of home keyboards) but actually if I use a swing or big band pattern and get the riff in straight away, it's hard to notice the artificial nature of the percussion at all. Having said that, you can make your own percussion and open another channel.
Thus, on channel one I may have a solid piano riff with the drums.
Channel 2 allows me to play back all the channel one sounds and just play over again with the add-ons. Normally on channel 2 I play over with bass, usually quite simple as well.
Normally I get as far as 5 channels at which point I feel I have what I want.
I use a casio keyboard and I know this is controversial as for some reason, it's not viewed as so fantastic and the one I have was originally put on ebay, failed to sell and so was given to me as a gift. Personally I'm delighted with it and to give you some idea of how even some pros like casios, you can take a look at the link below where one (not as good a casio as mine) is demonstrated by a popular musician:
Jarvis Cocker And His Casio Keyboard - YouTube
One thing about my casio is I see no reason why I couldn't use a recording to split in a band. So, one guy on bass, me on keys, a drum machine, a guitarist and so on.
Hope to do my best to get together the album and then explore ways to improve the quality of sound. Hopefully you can guide me through with some tips and I can later upload it so you can all listen. The frightening thing is it sounds pretty good to me but so far only one person has ever heard my music. In this geographical area, nobody is into progressive jazz or non mainstream, Indie or what have you.
Split recoding I do have but really no idea how it works. I just use the channels which is pretty easy to do, only pressing record, channel number and "go" button.


As a hobby musician, recording artist, sounddesigner and whatever there is on in the aural field... I'm also pretty DIY (Do-it-yourself; kinda beats using an abreviation, lol) and tend to look for budget solutions.

If I understood correctly, you just some advice for recording software? Do you do everything track by track or do you record everything with a full band playing (and essentially would need multitrack recording)?

If you do every track seperate, I might even suggest using something like this; Audacity: Free Audio Editor and Recorder. Totally free. You can record tracks while having another on playback in the same program. I guess for recording it would do, mixing/mastering might be different thing, but it can easily get really expensive with the program + additional plug-ins for reverb etc.

I don't know your set-up, but I would recommend a pre-amp in between the instrument and the line-in of your computer. In my experience that kinda helps the sound get in a bit more clear and crisp (depending on pre-amp of course), since the line-in on a computer isn't amplified that much (and the often used "microphone"-connection has a pretty high Db boost, sometimes up to 20 Db, which might distort sounds too much).

But I'd say give recording a go first, then worry about mixing, mastering and the final editing.

As for a computer, or a laptop... a laptop will give you some mobility. But a decent laptop doesn't always hold up on price/quality compared to desktop computers. For the same performance (hardware wise) laptops are mostly a lot more expensive. So I guess that's a thing you can take in consideration when trying to keep it on the cheap.
 
Still on the same theme, I've been doing a bit of research into song-writing and composition. Question I ask myself often is can it be developed in the same way as you would practise and get better at maths, languages and so on. The big lesson I feel I have probably learned is that good sound isn't a by-product of complexity and that is the irony. I mean, the most complicated, hard-to-play riff may not sound as good as a very simple five note riff.
My conclusion is the aspiring musician needs to listen very carefully to those sounds he (or she) chances upon either on guitar or keys and then freeze the frame at the point where something sounds good and then go back and experiment. Sometimes a simple mistake can come in handy if something sounds better. Then record what you have before you forget.
Hopefully the ear will be trained by just continual practice.
The other day I worked out Keith Richard's Last Time riff. I was amazed as it's dead simple but in 1965 the Stones had a big hit with this song and the riff (as simple as it is) sounded great on guitar.
At this stage I'd say, how you blend the sound, the timing, chosen beat, harmony are all factors that are far more important than complexity.
Here are the influences that go way back to my childhood as good musicians or geniouses:
(1) The Beatles
(2) The Rolling Stones (sixties period)
(3) John Denver
(4) Santana (early period)
(5) Abba (not my taste but amazingly talented songwriters)
(6) Brian Wilson (musical genious)
(7) Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays
 
Wrote track four today. I seem to have a thing about andean pan flutes used in chord sequences, jazz bass and electric piano. I confess my gear at this stage is as basic as it gets but casios are great for learning on. Have been looking at more expensive Rolands.
 
I once made a CD of my own personally-created music. It was actually for my mum. She requested it for her birthday last June. She even specified what the album art should look like. It was this:
My Album Cover.png
 
May need to pick your brain as I go on as am a bit rusty with software. I have finally managed to put together a decent track. Well, the other tracks are reasonable but this last one is the first track that I think will make the album. This is normal as when you play an album, I normally find I love one or two of the tracks and the rest are O.K.
I am, in fact, a big Pat Metheny fan, not that all of his tracks are great. Some are and some are average. However, when I first got my hands on American Garage and later As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls, I liked the sound Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays were creating. I feel my most recent track does sounds a bit like early Pat Metheny Group. The track is made up using acoustic bass, simple Sgt Pepper reprise drum beat, a nice structural riff using "atmosphere" and a nice minor chord sequence using a gospel organ sound. On top of this there are some synth runs and (what makes it) a catchy melody using Andean pan flutes. It honestly took ages to produce this number, endless playing, experimentation and improvisation. In fact I would say that I've averaged 9 hours a day on it for the last three days and part of the sound I have now has something to do with luck.
I should say, I don't have a great deal of time for mainstream music. Well, I think some years ago mainstream music was good but now I think mainstream music is being produced to sell to a dumbed down market. I can't compare the talent of Brian Wilson, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones or even early Santana to the artificial, phony material so often heard these days. However, there is a lot of talent floating about underground, I think.
Here is a very different Pat Metheny track that he did as a special mainstream track with David Bowie on vocals:
David Bowie/Pat Metheny - This Is Not America (Promo Clip) - YouTube

I once made a CD of my own personally-created music. It was actually for my mum. She requested it for her birthday last June. She even specified what the album art should look like. It was this:
View attachment 4884
 

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