I realized it's been a good two weeks since I posted anything. I know! You look like you grew a couple inches as well! I've been doing some work since the last time I checked in. Some, at least. I admit to doing a lot of sailing and playing quite a bit of badminton as well.
Anyway, the past two lessons with Clio have been productive. We've really pulled most of it together. Today we mostly worked with correcting notes on the vocal track using Melodyne software. This is a process that has a byproduct of insanity. Once a note is found that needs correcting, one can correct it to various degrees using two sliding bars: one corrects pitch and another decreases drifting. This seems easy, but there are usually three different notes that come up on the screen for every one note you sing (something to do with harmonics; I'm not sure I understand it myself) and hence one must perform the correction process thrice. In addition, the correction of a note doesn't necessarily mean it will sound good, so sometimes we had to correct multiple tracks and then undo them and whatnot. Thus, insanity was created. By the end I no longer had any idea what was right and what was wrong. Then we had to do the mix.
After much compressing, normalizing, adding reverberation, etc., we finally came out with something we thought was half-decent. It was then sent to the home emails of Clio and I as an mp3. I started a checklist on a scrap of paper for what needs to be done:
Basically, although there are a few more adjustments to be made before "She's What I Need" is posted (vocal volume adjustment and track work, and bass revision and addition) as illustrated by the fuzzy cell phone photo, the song should be out soon! Sadly, due to travel, a lesson will not be held next week so it will be a fortnight at least. :-(In other news, I had the privilege of working with my neighbor, Will, on a song he's covering last Friday. The song is Billy Joel's "River Of Dreams" and he asked me to do a piano part for it. At first I was apprehensive (for who can imitate such a legend?) but I practiced a bit beforehand and we laid down a fairly solid - if simple - track. It was very easy to play to because he had created a really great track behind that with guitar, bass, and all sorts of percussion. After the piano track was down, we fiddled with percussion rhythms to clean up the sound and the end result was really quite something. I'm extremely excited to see how that comes out.
So I think I better wrap this up, having rambled about two events for much longer than seemingly possible. I hope everyone who's reading this is having an awesome summer (hopefully music-filled!)
May the force be with all of you.
