No Song For May... But I'm OK with that

Well, there's no song for May. Instead I've been working on some film music and getting ready for a Traveler live performance. Traveler is rehearsing on Sunday the 6th and I've been feverishly reprogramming some sounds to get ready. I was using the Roland SH-201 in conjunction with Reason for my sounds but I've finally decided to give up on the Roland. I have yet to get a sound out of the Roland that can't be equaled or surpassed by Reason (at least for Traveler music) so the SH-201 going on the poo heap. So, no song but I'm still doing tons of musical stuff, and that was the goal after all :-)

More projects and a jam session

Well, now I'm working on some demos for a film project. Some friends are planning to start a film project this Summer and I've been asked to come up with some music for their consideration.

Meanwhile, Traveler continues to meet and practice. We have another jam scheduled for Sunday the 23rd. How did I get so busy? Not that I'm complaining :-)

Well, April is Finally Done... in May

Finally got the April song done over the weekend. Yeah I know, it's May...

Finally getting going again

Laid down the bass and rhythm guitar parts this week. This month has been particularly tough on getting anything done. Other commitments, travel, etc. and now I'm getting ready for another Traveler jam on Sunday. It's all good though! Next week is looking pretty clear so hopefully I'll be finished before the end of the month. If not, then not; no sense in compromising the music just to hit a deadline.

April Song Underway

Finally getting back in the studio after a couple weeks of doing things not musical. Lyrics for the new song are written and I think I have most of the parts worked out. Time to record!

Bandcamp!

No, not as geeky as that sounds. I've set up a bandcamp account to act as my primary distribution site. I'm still going to post the mp3s here but if you want to listen and get higher quality downloads, bandcamp will be the place to go.

Check it out at http://jdsampo.bandcamp.com

Gearing Up

OK, the song for April will be an original and is half written. Far enough along to start recording anyway. More words tend to come when the music starts going down, at least that's how it most often works for me. We'll see how it goes. Meanwhile, 'New Religion' has received a lot of kind words and very useful criticism. So thanks everyone who's listening for all that!

Song For March Posted!

OK, as I mentioned before the song for March is a cover. This month it's 'New Religion' by Duran Duran. I really like the original but I had a more rock and roll version spinning around in my head so here it is.

New Religion

We have vocals

Well, we now have vocals. They came out a lot better than I expected but then I have low expectations :-)
Special thanks to D for operating the buttons for me while I screeched in her ear. I love you sweetie!

Traveler Jam

Yesterday, Wayne and Dave from the old band and I got together at Dave's for a jam session. We played through about a dozen of our old songs. During the course of it we realized that the three of us hadn't played together in something like 17 years! It was pretty amazing how quickly some of these songs came back to us. After about an hour of dusting off the cobwebs the old synapses were firing and the muscle memory was starting to come back. Pretty cool. Anyway, this isn't the last time we'll be doing this and we're hoping to do something public in the Summer.

Still Going but Taking a Break

Laid down some more guitar tracks last night. Whole thing  is starting to come together nicely. Next up will be vocals and then tweaking the drum tracks. I may decide to re-record some of the guitar, especially on the choruses since some of the parts are a little rougher than I'd like. Came up with a very cool guitar sound for the bridge, very spacey...

Taking a break soon to take care of some other stuff and to finish getting ready for a Traveler jam on Sunday. Yep, Dave, Wayne and I are getting together to jam on some of the old tunes. The live rig is ready to go, just need to tweak some patches and practice a bit. Looking forward to it!

Thought for the Day

RTFM. Suddenly doing overdubs is even easier than I thought...

Bass Lines

Song structure laid out and bass tracks laid down. Some guitar parts and a smattering of electric piano. Might as well reveal now that the March song will be a cover. Didn't really plan that but the arrangement was bouncing around in my head all through the last week of February so it seemed like a logical project to start with. It's an '80s synth pop song but without any synths. What I'm doing to it sounds like it's being played by a garage band. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's pretty raw sounding and I think I'm going to keep it that way.

I do want to say a couple words about Record. I haven't really spent a lot of time with the software since I got it in here last year so this week is the first time I've really tried to get any real work done in it. All I can say is... wow. I've been working away, recording, cropping, cutting, pasting, comping takes etc. and really haven't paid a whole lot of attention to how I'm doing it. I was just realizing that this morning. People have been berating Record for all the things it doesn't have or what it can't do. The lack of VST support, MIDI out, and no pitch shifting (yet) have been show stoppers for a lot of people and I can understand that if you really need those things. But I'm blown away by what it can do and how it does it so well. I don't normally wax so enthusiastic about music software; when I used to work in Sonar I spent as much time cursing and reading manuals as recording any music. That said I really liked Sonar because it was less of a pain in the ass than some other programs I'd tried. It could still be a chore though and I frequently found myself stuck figuring something out and losing the thread of what I was doing. But in Record I realized that I'm able to do what I'm doing without really having to put a lot of thought into getting the software to do it. That's a sign of terrific design. Now all this probably says as much about me as it does about the software. Some people really like to dig into the audio editing process, I just like to my fleeting ideas down before I lose them. I guess I'm the target demographic. Time will tell if I'm missing anything by sticking with a system that's missing the aforementioned features.I doubt it though, I never worried about them before :-)

Not only that, this is actually fun...

Who knew this process of making music was so much fun? ;-)
I have to admit that when I sat down to work Tuesday night I listened to what I had done the previous evening and almost threw in the towel. Sixteen repetitive bars that, by themselves, sounded pretty boring. Now what? Nope, this is going to be too much work... does abc.com have any new TV to download?

But no, I forced myself to get moving. Soon the 16 bar loop became 32 bars with some variation. Meanwhile I'm feverishly plugging and unplugging cables, recording bits, re-recording bits, etc. etc. ...I'm having a blast! By the end of the evening I had the first third of the arrangement and it's only day two. Now I can't wait to get back to it.

And they're off!

OK, wires strewn everywhere and some actual music on the hard drive. Off to a good start!

Here Goes Nothin'

So, as the title bar says I'm starting on a project to record 12 songs, one a month, for 12 months while at the same time keeping up on all the other stuff that needs doing; you know, like making a living.

Spent yesterday making sure the rig is set up properly for recording. All systems are go. I also went out and bought a new guitar on Saturday. I didn't really need one but I wanted one that plays a little better than the trusty old Squier I've been using. So I picked up an arctic white Fender Stratocaster, hecho en Mexico. It plays really nice. Well to me anyway, it could safely be said that I really don't know what I'm talking about since guitar isn't even my second instrument let alone my first. But I treated D to some heavily distorted 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' just like those n00bs you see hanging out in Guitar Center. Felt good...

Right, off to work the paycheck job and another post tonight after I've hopefully laid down some tracks.