I had a great weekend playing with Sliotar in the Porterhouse :-) I’m still recovering from it while writing this. Also last weeks rehearsal has kept a big smile on my face. I am bringing the video camera with me and hopefully soon I have enough material to put something together to give you a flavor of whats going on. I am also thinking of the first concert, but going a head of things here a bit...
When I first thought of recording an album, I had a handful of songs that I had written over the years, most of them I have recorded before with other bands, but thought of making different versions of them. Since then there has just been a steady stream of songs pouring out of me, few of them I have posted on my website an on my YouTube channel. But there is a lot more to come ;-) And these songs have replaced almost all of the old songs.
But this week the songwriter in me has gone on strike... I tried to sit down and write something, and nothing comes out. It is frustrating, but nothing that hasn't happened before. This is something every songwriter goes through time to time and every one has their own way of dealing with it. Mine is persistence, push through it! Keep writing until something comes out. But also get some space, go for a walk, refresh your mind. And that is definitely my plan today :-) Dublin has always been very inspirational place for me, and something as simple as walking down an empty street, where you haven't been in a while can do wonders to your mind. Me and school were never really the best of friends... And pretty much everything I do is self thought. But I do believe in searching out for good information, and there is one resource that has been great for me in the past few years. I follow a blog on song writing http://www.songwritingtipsonline.com/blog . Lot of this stuff is something I do know already, but it is refreshing to hear it from some one else's perspective. And very often I find old tricks that I forgot about and time to time, just brand new stuff. The site has a also a paid resources, that I have no experience, but also lots of good free stuff, and that’s what we like ;-)
I have been busy demoing songs, and let’s talk about this for a while. What I do is a rough version of the song, record the guitar and vocals. Then I play with it, I try different guitar sounds, different tempos, and most importantly, I work on the vocals. I would consider myself being pretty fluent guitar player, but human voice is a tricky thing. I like to sing through the songs several times, and listen back and work out the parts that work, what needs improving and so forth. Even with the best singers I've ever worked with, the vocals took the longest to record. Sure if you are very talented singer, you can capture the melody, but it is the emotion that takes time. Put the emotional meaning in to the words, and learn to do it again and again. This is why I find the demos very useful tool. By the time you go to record the final version, you know what works and what does not, this pre work at demo stage will save you lots of time and even money later on.
This is also a good time to pay a little attention to your microphone technique. In the ideal surroundings, sound proofed and acoustically optimal room I would record vocals on a large diaphragm microphone, about 15 to 20cm distance and a pop shield between. But the way any microphone works, the louder you need to turn it, the more background noise it will also pick. So I have my own compromise. I position the microphone little bit on the side, like where your cheek meets your lips and about 5cm away and a pop shield between the singer and the microphone. This is just a simple gadget that stops the surge of air that some strong consonants produce, and when this surge hits the diaphragm, it produces big pop. You can get pop shields cheap enough, les than €15 in Thomann, but all it really is, is a piece of nylon fabric (Stockings) put on a frame (Metal coat hanger will do). And here is the health tip of the week, ask your girlfriends (or boyfriends) permission before you utilize their old stockings, might just keep you alive;-). There are also cheaper foam covers for dynamic and some condenser microphones, but I find you will loose a small bit of clarity with these. By recording this little bit closer, you can turn the gain down a bit, and the noise from the surroundings (neighbours dogs) won’t be as much of an issue. Also this should eliminate little bit of a bad sounding room acoustics, but if it still sounds like you are singing in box, hang few blankets behind the microphone and behind the singer. This should do the trick. Also as a singer, it is good to learn to pronounce letter S and K bit softer. Another good trick is to learn to open your jaw when you sing vowels. This will project the words better. It is easy to do on A, I, O. E and U are bit trickier, but with little bit of practice, you will notice nice improvement. This is by no means a comprehensive guide to recording vocals, but just few tips to get used to at this stage, and we will continue on more detail later on in the project.
And let’s finish this week’s blog with some good news. I had a moment ;-) Not a big deal in the grander scheme of things, but for me this was a great little moment. My first YouTube video broke the magical 100 views! Yippee :-) So thank you all for checking it out, you made my day.
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