GIRLS WANNA ROCK!

Today I recorded someone else's song, It was awesome.

I am always scared of messing with someone else's work but I was given the blessing of free reign on production, so I cut loose on certain elements. The person in question is a lady I've known nearly 12 years, who is prctically a sister to me. We met through her husband - one of my oldest and dearest friends, and the three of us are obsessed with music. Suffice to say, we hit it off from the start.

We were always saying we should record something together, but the opportunity seemed to slip us by. Never in a bad way. There was always alcohol or some other vice that always interrupted our train of thought. Not that the three of us ever complained! One evening I received a random text telling me to check my email, so I did and what a wonderful surprise. it was 2 minutes and 26 seconds of a song, performed wonderfully, courtesy of this lady and her guitar.

I was immediately inspired. I set to work on mapping out the instruments, moving chords around and trying not to defile the original creation. I had a chorus type thing that I'd not yet used but thought it would fit seamlessly into the song. With her blessing I went nuts, even giving myself a guitar solo spot. Why? Because "Rock 'n Roll" that's why! She arrived excited and a little nervous. I was nervous myself. I'd not really recorded anyone else's song to such a degree and had been working blind on it to such a point that I could only describe it in sounds. But today, she would hear it. And she was pleased with it.

The hard part was about to happen. We had a number of runs through it, just to get the form of the song. I was conscious to make her at ease. This was her song, it would be done on her terms. The nerves were apparent on the first couple of runs! I called her a mouse. She then took the challenge and fucking nailed it to the wall. We then tried the old school vocal double tracking. I never copy and paste, it's soulless in my opinion. So she sang it all over again and it sounded awesome. We then tackled the new part, which was done in baby steps. We just needed to "FEEL" it in the song.

I was thrilled by the end of it, so much so, that I spent the entire evening adding the fairy dust to it.
The biggest issue for me was a phantom buzzing from the microphone which at times is still audible but is not a huge issue for me, as I freely admit that I'm an amateur producer! Thank you for an awesome recording experience, Tiffany. Already looking forward to the next time!

Here is the song: FAITH (Hear Me Calling) feat. Tiffany Cruickshank

No guitar hero....

Wow, I've been away for some time! I hadn't forgotten this place. More neglected it, really. I treat it like a sanctuary to give the hamster in my head some well needed R&R and he's well overdue. I've just been quite busy as of late, juggling weddings and jobs......

I haven't had much time to do anything musical until I revisited "MAMA". I won't go over the subject matter, as it's all contained in that particular post. I originally envisioned it as a simple guitar over an ambient backing. But then I added drums and the rest followed naturally.

Now, I'm no guitar hero, my style is more fluid than technical and the only scales I recognise are found in the marine world or a bathroom. I leave the shred type stuff to the cosmic guitarist disciples of Steve Vai et al, and do my thing. Kind of like taking the line for a walk.

This recording was a little different for me. I rolled back on the treble for a change. I always feared the tone was less expressive without treble and over compensated with it - which in hindsight, left the guitar sounding quite shrill. So this time, I rolled the tone pots all the way back and left the volume up full. Also, I plugged straight into the board and with exception to some reverb, there is absolutely no processing done to the signal at the finish line. It was simply my Burns pick-ups equipped Strat - BSM Silicone Treble Booster pedal - Tech 21 Liverpool V2 pedal - Boss CE 5 pedal - 8 track. My vibrato is something I've worked on a lot recently and I am particularly pleased with it in the upper registers. So just in time to celebrate Mother's Day - Here's "Mama":