I just got finished tracking the song “February” (you can read the lyrics under in the archives, if you’d like). I tell you, I get really sick of playing the same guitar track over about seventy times, but hey, you do what you gotta do. Not to mention that I’ve still got this wonderful cold which makes me sound like a busted frog when I sing. However, the lucky green gino shirt came into play, and everything sounds wonderful.

Let me, for the layperson (me, a couple hours ago), explain my setup. First of all, I have no monitors. That’s right - no monitors at all, except the kind of monitors that attach to computers and display information, but by monitors I mean “speakers designed for this sort of thing”. I’m using the nice system that came with my computer (by Yamaha), but it doesn’t exactly give me the full sound - for instance, the noise I know is there from my computer and laptop is showing up in the headphones, but not on the speakers, so that’s a bit annoying. However, I shall remedy that as soon as have what I like to call “money”.

Anyhow, I’m using my Shure SM-57 mic to record with, and get this: I don’t have a mixer, either. My mic is plugged directly into the 1/8″ sterio jack on my laptop, which happens to give decent sound, thank you very much. I’d like something more… direct and designed for the job, but I’m a starving musician and don’t have the cash for it. Although I have three pretty fast computer sitting around here. So my mic is plugged in directly and I’m basically recording directly into Acid Pro 4.0.

I started with a good old fashioned click track to keep me on time, and then recorded the guitar track. Remember, I only I have one mic. I’m still trying to get the positioning right (and the levels, come to think of it), but it sounded good. I had to record it at least five times before I got something I even liked - I’m no guitar mystro - and then I went to the vocal track. It’s a pretty simple song. I also had to record that several times before I could combine them and have it sound like a guy singing with a guitar, not some screeching bird disembowling a small rodent.

I screwed around with the EQ for a little while, working mostly on the high shelf for some technical reasons, and now I’m taking a break from this process. It’s good to do something, not just lounge around and wait for the night to fall so I can head over to the Irish Pub and sit down with a pint and read a book in the (relatively) relaxing atmosphere.

Also, for those of you who wonder if you’re ever going to hear this track, yes, I’ll post it somewhere when it’s ready for semi-public consumption. And if you’re wondering if I’m planning a wonderful career in showbiz based on this track, no I’m not. There’s quite enough people in my family pimping their songs around trying to break onto the scene. I’m going to copyleft them with Creative Commons and let people do what they want to do with them, if anything.

The end.

No tag for this post.