Winding Down the 4th

I’m about to go to bed. I feel like I had a fairly productive day. I got my rough drum track down and recorded a working bass track for This Old Dawg. I’ll have to go back and re-do the drum track (I knew I would from the beginning) so that it meshes better with the bass track. Then once the new drum track is done I’ll re-record the bass track with full processing. This sounds like a pain in the ass, and it is. But it’s the only real way I know to nail the groove.
Long story short (ya’ll hate it when I say that, don’t you?), I recorded the drums with a click track. But I suck at following click tracks. They’re so un-musical. I basically used the click track to keep the drums mostly on-time. Then I recorded the bass track as a guide. Next I’ll re-record the drums following the bass track (with no click track this time), syncing the drums better with the bass. That’ll give me a better, more organic feel on the drums. Once that’s done, I record the actual bass track for the song and start layering in guitars and vocals. It’s all about the groove. If you can catch the groove of a track, everything just flows from that.
I know, I know. That’s techno-babble to most people. But some folks will understand it. Mostly I’m just trying to say that I pulled off a great foundation to what I think is a catchy song. I can build from here. I guess the foundation analogy is a perfect one. What I did today was lay the foundation. Believe it or not, that was the hardest part. Everything from here on out is fun.
I’m excited about finally recording something. It’s been a long time coming. I’m just comfortable enough with all the new equipment and software that I’m not intimidated by it anymore. I figure it’s time to see what this stuff can do. Besides, now that I’m aware of all the outlets there are for independent music, I’d be foolish not to get some of my music out there. I’ve heard a lot of what’s out there. And it gives me the itch to show my ass a little bit.