New year, new game plan

Countdown to “Shit or Get Off the Pot” Time!

Howdy. Been a long time since I rapped at y’all. Did you celebrate something this festive season? If you did, I hope you had a good time. I know I did.

I had a couple of nice moments when catching up with my relatives. My sister told me of the dreary day she had that was made a little brighter when her iPod shuffled to “I Will Always Look up to You,” and it would seem that several of my in-laws are quite enamoured with another Song Fu entry of mine, “You Chose to be a Dick.”

I also this nice little boost from the blogosphere from the good person at SpinTown. Apparently of the 91 official entrants in Song Fu, I’m #19 when all the votes are tallied. Who knew? Certainly not me.

My darling wife gave me a very thoughtful gift this X-mas – an upgrade to my preferred digital audio workstation, Ableton Live. Now I have access to 64 tracks as opposed to the measly 8 tracks I had in the free version I got with my M-Audio keyboard. No more track bouncing for me!

So what am I going to do with all this new found power?

Well, I’m going to follow a slightly different approach to recording that I hope will work to my benefit.

This past year was focused on producing tracks in fits and starts one at a time, mostly for Song Fu. Sometimes I’ve tried to do some of my other tunes, but I’ve found working on one track under the microscope for an extended time to be an agonizing process that invariably ends with everything getting moved to trash (promptly followed by me permanently emptying said trash).

So next year I’m going to try something different; I’m going to record an album’s worth of material concurrently.

I’ve hand-picked 20 of my favourite compositions (none of which are from Song Fu) and one cover song that I’m work through in stages.

First will come basic structuring & background sequencing for all tunes, where I swear to you no pre-packaged loops will be used, until I’ve got the lions share of drums, synth, keys and a temporary MIDI-driven bass track will be laid out.

This will be followed by some basic rhythm guitar work (bigger & crunchier than you might expect from me) and then some disposable guide vocals.

After that, I’ll commit to all the other necessary instrumental elements – Iron Maiden-esque dual guitar solos and the like – before spending what will likely be quite a few solid weeks trying to get the best fricking possible main & background vocals I’ve ever done. Let’s face it, you guys are the best & you deserve nothing less.

What then?

Well, here’s where it gets a little fun for you. I’m planning a crude little video series where I do a quick vid for each original track and then give you the opportunity to rate your favourites. Based on this data, I will not only sequence the track order but I’ll also cut a quarter of the material. That’s right, the bottom five won’t make it to this album.

I’ll also have a participation option available for the cover tune I’ve picked (which I’ll reveal at a later date) where I’ll invite you & all your friends to sing background vocals and shoot videos singing & dancing along to the track.

As luck would have it, I’ve recently gotten reacquainted via the internet with my earliest musical co-conspirator who has gone on to a rather accomplished career as a mixing engineer even though he doesn’t have a website. Sensing an opportunity for an exchange of services like no other, we’ve worked out the following agreement; I’m going to build him a fully-functioning website/blog and in return he’s going to give my album a professional mix (way better than anything I’d be able to give you).

If you’re just half as excited about this as I am, then I guess I’m getting twice as much out of this than you are. But hey, hopefully there’ll be a little something for everyone in this. And hopefully by this time next year I’ll have this behind me so I can move on to the next album.