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Hurricane Katrina Relief Project Thread - Song 1 (Ted)


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Craig, thanks for the vote of confidence. I'm open to all suggestions. I came home from work this morning at 5 am...went out and cut the guitar tracks, and an even crappier vocal track. Woke up around 4 pm...had maybe 45 minutes, went out and scraped up that vocal track. Like I say, it was rough. I am really open to production suggestions, 'cuz I can't hear the forest for the trees.

 

I am really bad at singing in a studio situation...it always sounds "forced", rather than natural, as it would if one was singing with a live band. So, yeah, a multitude of takes.

 

It'd be an honor to have you on the track.

 

Phil, whatever anyone can do is great. Things have been kinda screwed up for me too, lately...

"Cisco Kid, was a friend of mine"
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Oh, and...by "host"...are you meaning what multitrack program I'm using? I'm using Cool Edit Pro..

 

I'm pretty much a dunce at all of the technical stuff (hence my lack of significant contribution on meaningful threads)...I'm more of a "push the button and twang a chord" kind of guy :eek: :sheepish grin:

"Cisco Kid, was a friend of mine"
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Great to see you here Craig and Phil :thu:

 

Sounds like we need to get a reference track happening of Ted's song. I would love to add some ?hammond ?piano. I have PT LE and Reason 3.

 

So next step is for Ted to do a reference track yes?

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Sounds like Craig has production handled... :thu: I'd be happy to provide bass and additional BGV's Craig, if you can use 'em. I might be able to get a drummer over and cut some tracks too - let me know what type of feel you're after if you think that will help and I'll make inquiries.

 

PT over here, but I can consolodate things and send you complete tracks for the full song length, and not just regions, which means you should be able to load / import them into your DAW of choice with no problem and just line them up, assuming we're all working off of the same reference files from Tedster.

 

Last time around we did just that - worked off a stereo reference file with a count-in and click panned to one side, and a mono gtr / vox submix on the other. Everyone worked on their contributions and then sent them via FTP and we then compiled and mixed them. I had them give me that same click count-in on the start of their tracks so I could line them up in Pro Tools. Worked pretty well, but I honestly think that for anything beyond mono or stereo contributions (IOW for multi-mic sources such as drums), FedEx overnight of a CD-R or DVD-R might be a better way to get tracks to you. Even with a fast pipe, the downloads took me a while. Of course, I think a FTP site should also be set up just in case we need that or it's easier for some contributors, but I'd encourage FedEx delivery of disks from as many of the contributors as possible to make it easier on you. :)

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Originally posted by David Holloway:

And you thought you'd have a relaxing couple of days :D

I plan to. This is how I relax. ;)

 

Another idea...my son Andrew might be interested in pounding the skins on this. It's a matter of schedules.

 

I, again, am open to any and all ideas. Listening to the ruff, I got what Craig meant about letting it build for a couple of measures before going to the chorus. A couple ideas...build on all choruses...or, go right to the first and build on subsequent choruses.

 

Also, I mentioned this in some of the PMs...I really screwed the pooch (it's a saying) on the words "old man". I didn't mean to have it come out that weird. I was listening to a guide track through busted headphones, trying to figure out how I was gonna phrase that. That's how it came out, and when I heard it I went "oh lord..." but, I was too tired and pressed for time to change it. It's a rough, y'know...I could have yodeled the whole thing like Slim Whitman. :D:D:D And I know I need to either ride the mic better or apply more compression coming into the choruses..

 

Live and learn...(sheepish grin)...

"Cisco Kid, was a friend of mine"
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Hey guys:

 

Can we post a URL to the demo? I'd love to start listening to get some bass and/or drums and/or backup vocal idears...

 

L8r,

Dave

Old bass players never die, they just buy lighter rigs.

- Tom Capasso, 11/9/2006

 

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Ted et al, here's what I suggest.

 

Ted: Take it as far as you can, or want to, then send me the CEP project on CD-R. It should open okay in Adobe Audition.

 

I can then save out each track as a WAV file, put it into Sonar, and do the cut/paste/arranging.

 

Then save each track out again as a WAV file, and also create a high-res MP3 of a rough mix.

 

Then we can take a head count of who wants to add what, and they can either get a CD-R with all the files, or play along with the MP3 to do an overdub.

 

When all the tracks are done, they're compiled and mixed. And yes, a smaller number of people per project will make things more manageable.

 

What say you?

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Oh, that's way cool, Craig. I'll be working on it today. :thu:

 

For any interested...here's a link...with an explanation...but you've got to read the explanation first. :D I got off work Friday morning, came home and recorded the click track and guitar tracks. They're temporary. I recorded a vocal that was too awful to keep. Then I went to bed.

 

When I woke up, I had like 45 minutes before I had to leave for work. I raced out and did a couple of passes on a vocal track...using a previous guide track through a pair of busted headphones. I was trying to figure out on the fly how to phrase the line "Old man survived the storm but died last night"...and I just kinda went weird on the line, but I didn't realize it 'til the playback. At that point, I had 15 minutes to do a rough mix, save it as 16 bit, burn it to CD etc. The vocals peg too much, and they need to be redone, but it is a rough demo.

 

So don't expect much.

 

http://tedster.net/badwind.mp3

"Cisco Kid, was a friend of mine"
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Just listening again to the demo. At first, I thought about ending it on a picardy third...but it really didn't work, so I ended on the Am. But, the more I listen, I'd like to have it end on the D before resolving to the final Am...just hit the D and let it hang...that still gives it a little bit of the major feel you'd get from a picardy third, but the A (Major) felt awkward.

 

Just me thinking out loud. (shrug)...

 

Oh, and BTW, Craig...I'll just put a bunch of tracks on there, and use what you like, discard the rest (shrug)... :D

"Cisco Kid, was a friend of mine"
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Ted:

 

I think the demo sounds like a great rough sketch. Any chance you'd post a chord chart? I'm hearing a fretless bass on this one...let me know if you guys want me to throw something on disk and post it...

 

Dave

Old bass players never die, they just buy lighter rigs.

- Tom Capasso, 11/9/2006

 

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Just got done doing some more tracking, thanks Dave.

 

Right now I'm so tired I can't see straight, but basically it's out of an Am...

 

Am...F...D/F#...Dsus2/F

Am...F...G...D/F#

 

Chorus

 

Am...D/F#...Dsus2/F...D/F# That sort of bit.

 

More soon!

"Cisco Kid, was a friend of mine"
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Originally posted by Philip O'Keefe:

Dave, I already got the dibs on the bass part. :)

Oh, sorry! I'll wait for the next one...or I might post an idea I've been tinkering with if I get time...

Old bass players never die, they just buy lighter rigs.

- Tom Capasso, 11/9/2006

 

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Not sure what I can offer - guitar players are a dime a dozen ;)

 

I like Craig's production concept of circulating discs with the tracks in a raw WAV format or something. I remember from the tsunami project there were timing issues that cropped up with the compressed file formats.

 

I also suggest that once the form of the tune is firmly settled, that a strict time frame be established for submissions to the mixer.

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Just to clarify - the only timing issues with the Tsunami project were DAW-based, not the file transmission itself. Shorten is an excellent tool, and FTP is obviously quicker than snail-mail. However, if time isn't an issue and it's Craig's preference for CD's then obviously go for it ;)

 

I had just presumed there would have been some urgency to get the song out while there is so much attention on the hurricane victims.

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Just to clarify, the comment about timing issues with compressed formats was related to exchanging tracks via MP3 files rather than Shortened WAV files. I also found Shortened WAV files to work perfectly. MP3 files themselves also work fine for tracking to, HOWEVER the WAV/MP3 conversion programs occasionally introduced a time shift (and not all of them, just a one or two, but I don't think we were ever able to actually identify which ones). Stick with Shortened WAV files for everything, and it'll all match up just fine.

 

Dave

Old bass players never die, they just buy lighter rigs.

- Tom Capasso, 11/9/2006

 

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Keep in mind, folks, there can be more than one song here. Get your gears turning for more tunes.

 

So far I've been lucky the last two times, something hit me over the head really quickly. Can't say that will always be the case...

"Cisco Kid, was a friend of mine"
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