Done and Looking Back

 Looking back at my Blogger account I remember having done this. So it wasn't just a dream!

You can download my album at BandCamp: 

https://disposabletime.bandcamp.com/album/exchange

You can download it for free or, if you feel generous, can buy it for any number of dollars.

This blog will stay up but some of the SoundCloud links will likely break as I use my limited SoundCloud uploads for other things.

Be good to you.

-Brent

Production Notes: Broken Road

Now that November is over and I recorded these songs, I can share some notes:

Broken Road:

I wrote this quickly and recorded most of it in one day.

Here's the track list:

• Electric Guitar (Peavey Falcon which is an old Strat clone from the '80s played direct in
• High "plinky" guitar heard from beginning to end
• strong compression (ratio 3.8 with no knee)
• amp/cabinet simulator with a little bit of overdrive
• high pass filter at about 550Hz 
• panned moderate right
  
• Lower tone "fuzzy" guitar that comes in and out to fill out the tone
• EQ with strong cut of low/mid (around 550Hz)
• Light compression (ratio below 2, some knee)
• Amp with a good amount of overdrive
• panned moderate left
  
• These were sent to a stereo bus with:
• EQ boosting highs around 9000 and a narrow cut at around 4000Hz
• stereo chorus
• reverb
  
• Drums (a standard kit played once through)
• Condensor mic placed high
• EQ boosting highs (9000Hz and above) and a narrow boost around 1200Hz
• Expander (gate) to cut ambient noise and truncate drum hit decay
• panned moderate right
  
• Cardioid mix placed on the floor in front of the kick
• EQ low pass around 500Hz, boost around 1500Hz
• Strong expander
• Heavy reverb
• panned light left
  
• These were sent to a stereo bus with:
• Light reverb
• Background vocals (condensor mic)
• Two tracks doubled (the high vocal harmony on the chorus sung twice)
• hard-panned left/right
  
• These were sent to a stereo bus
• Heavy compression (ratio about 9, no knee)
• Stereo chorus
• Light reverb
• Piano (Yamaha digital keyboard direct in)
• EQ with high end boost, boost at 5600Hz, cut at 800Hz
• reverb
• panned left
  
• Bass (electric upright double bass)
• No effects
• Panned light left
• "Funny" bass (just the downward slides after "rains lead" in verse 2)
• Long delay (about 1200ms)
  
• hard-panned right
• Birds
• A sound I found on FreeSound, released with no rights reserved
• panned slight right
• Lead vocal (condensor mic, sung close to the diaphram with a pop screen)
• Strong high pass filter (cut everything below 60Hz, boost everything above 6000Hz), boost 4400Hz, boost 300Hz
• Heavy compression (ratio of 6, slight knee, quick attack, long release)
• Guitar fuzz pedal
• Long delay synced to the half note duration
• Reverb
  

 There was another guitar track I recorded but I just muted it.

My guitars were not tuned to the piano so I had to pitch shift the piano recording a few cents (I think I didn't get it right even then: the piano still sounds sharp to me).

I love the chord progression on the chorus, but I failed to really hit the transition chords that tonicize the minor V and then go back to tonic.

The third verse and following chorus (after the bridge) had very wonky timing so I just cut the drums out and that made it sound more open, and also dramatized the final chorus. In retrospect, I should have removed the backing vocals and pieces of the plinky guitar and piano to make it more sparse.

I added the birds because the expander/gates were making way too sudden and obvious cuts to zero dB during the pause and I couldn't figure out to smooth it out. I considered just adding some white noise or dithering or something and then just decided to use a sound effect. Maybe birds was too on the nose.

I did all my recording through an M-Audio Omnistudio A/D converter with phantom power for the condensor mic. This connected to a laptop by USB, running Ubuntu Linux with audio priority settings running PipeWire which controls JACK. The DAW is Ardour 6.9 which is an older version offered for free under a GNU license.

M-Audio does not make or support the Omnistudio anymore but I was able to find drivers for Linux that someone had coded a long time ago and with some trial and error was able to get the settings right. I fear changing my system simply because that was a pain and I do not want to have to do it again.

 

Day 30: We Are Done!

 We did it!

You can hear the finished album here:

Disposable Time's BandCamp page

It came out okay I think. It's only 5 songs long, but everything was written and recorded in a month in whatever spare time I could find. *pats self on back*

I'll do this again, I think. Maybe even before next November.

I'll leave the SoundCloud clips up for a while but they will be replaced with other stuff that I'm making. The BandCamp link I'll keep active for a while unless BandCamp is difficult, annoying or otherwise problematic. It's my first time posting something there.

Thanks for reading, and rock on.

Day 27: Yet another one

 This one is what "Where She Keeps It" became. I've changed the name to "Every Corner" to match the (somewhat opaque and hastily-written) lyrics. It's moody and not very song-like but I do like it.

rbstansfield · Every Corner

That's 4 so far, and that's all the ones I have complete vocals for. But I do have some I can finish up in the next day or two:

- Pick and Choose: is a funky little groove that I have background vocals done. I just need lyrics, a main melody, and the actual vocals.

- Where The History Comes From: this is a slow, Pink-Floyd-esque meditation in 7/4. I have a vocal idea for this and will probably play some guitar solos as well.

- Keeping To Yourself: a riff-rock song in 7/8 (that's two songs in 7!) This one needs more drums, lyrics, melody, vocals. Kind of the runt of the litter. Except for "Tree" of course which I have abandoned entirely.

- I may record a simple guy-guitar song just to bring the song total to 9.

Day 26: Another good one

 Here's one of my "throwaway" ideas that became a pretty lovely song:

rbstansfield · Broken Road

I've got some intonation issues: my electric guitar needs some tuning up! Also the fretless bass is a new kind of intonation challenge for me. But I still like this one even with those ear-bending moments.

I'm getting close to done!

Here's the plan:

- Saturday: Write lyrics for the songs that need it, do some mixing in the evening, play with song order.

- Sunday: Last vocals and drums where I need it.

- Monday: Final finishing tracks for everything are done.

- Tuesday: Have everything mixed the way I want, exported to WAV, and trimmed to the right start-stop points. Know the song order.

- Wednesday (last day!) Final mastering in my living room on those speakers since that's where I assume this will get the most play.

I think I've got this and I'm kind of excited. The quality is better than I'd expected.

Day 25: Another song into the home stretch

 Valuation!

 The mix is off, I think. The vocals are too high. But it's a sweet tune and it's going on the album.

rbstansfield · Valuation

Today I can tidy up a couple more songs and maybe add a throwaway from scratch.

Day 23: Uploading complete songs from here on out...

 My first complete song: Exchange

rbstansfield · Exchange

It needs some mixing work and some percussion clean up but it's pretty much what it is.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving so probably not a long of song work to do, but I will upload another song since I have several pretty much done.

I may not make it to 7 songs like I wanted, but at least 5 and possibly 6. Maybe I'll make one throwaway on the last day just to fill out the collection.

Nothing focuses the mind like a deadline.