This is the second half of my NGADM round of 16 songwriting diary.
You can check out the first half of the diary here.
Do you want to hear the original crappy recording?
I was able to clear my stage of the drums and microphones to make way for electric guitar tracking. I tried to use sample libraries of orchestral instruments the other night but I wasn’t confident and inspired by it. The guitars were recorded direct into my audio interface and then reamped into a Boss Katana guitar amp, mic'd with an Audix. It’s not the best guitar amp to use for recording but it is what I have and I did not want to spend time finding and tweaking software amps and cabs. I found my brother's guitar slide which was very useful for the transitions, though I did not know how to use it...
That is basically it, really. One day for tracking and reamping electric guitar, and the next day for final mixing. I will admit, I blitzed those last 2 days because I got worried. Listening back to what I submitted, I know what I’d like to do to improve it. For now, this will do. I know there’s still a day left for me to fix things. But I’d like to step back from it now and appreciate it again on another day. Ackee told Benjie-G that, and it’s true. We need to step away from our creations to reset our minds and start again with fresh ears after a break. Oh, that reminds me, I think it was Arponax’s YouTube video shared on the discord that inspired me to just let my hair down at the end of the song… It was supposed to fade out a lot quicker but I thought you might want to enjoy my imperfections… because perfection is boring.
Be That As It May
Sail away, I say
Give her a drink
Where to, four eyes, today
And you’re too late
Hey I’ve said too much
‘Fraid I’m giving
Hey I’ve given
Too much away
Once you’ve fallen into prayer
It’s you they’re afraid
As you left your set of rules
Be that as it may
Soon I’d see your face again
It aint gonna be the same
Whoooo… Sky ...Whoooo
I do beg you to stay
I do beg you to stay away
Be that as it may
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I don't know the genre of my music so I've always chosen 'Indie'. If anyone thinks it is incorrect, feel free to let me know.
Final thoughts:
I'm still wondering if my work is worthy of this contest. This experience is new to me and I am so grateful to be part of it. There are other contestants who deserve to be in this round like CloakedSoup, Trunotfals, and especially AlbeGian... I thought my luck in this life had run out. Thank you, I needed this.
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So, I just updated the mix.
The story was, I tracked a lot of electric guitars! And, imagine this -- I reamped each track twice, one with just the amp, another with distortion, and then I used the dry D.I. track to fill in the sounds that I wasn't able to get with the reamping. I basically multiplied each track by 3! And I had to deal with the comps. I was overwhelmed! I didn't want to deal with it anymore... I was happy with good enough and submitted it 'cause I had enough.
But a while ago, I played it back and it bothered me so much, I had to do the changes, even with my ringing ears! Tinnitus. I've had it for a long time now. Kids, protect your ears... I know you like loud but, just trust me, ok? :) Hopefully I've made my mix better... I really don't know anymore, but at least the panning was sorted out... There's lots of room for improvement still. It must've been a few minutes after the track has been frontpaged that I changed the track (I changed it twice!) 3 people downloaded it. They all got a different version of the mix. Hopefully I stop obsessing over this and walk away... walk away man... stop listening... (talking to myself)
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Reamp
...converts balanced line level signals to in unbalanced instrument level.