Covid is still a thing. And there were truckers everywhere protesting about … I’m pretty sure they don’t even know what they were protesting about in the end. Needless to say I’ve been a bit of a shut-in. Or rather, more than I normally am. I’ve gone shopping for groceries, but haven’t been looking for good deals on music equipment. Like most others, I hope we’ll be in the clear at some point in the near future and can move on with whatever the post pandemic normal will look like.
In lieu of that, here’s a sorta update.
Wait, I Lied
There is one new addition I forgot to mention in January:
Last November the family was perusing a local thrift store when I came across a no-name, nylon stringed acoustic guitar. The price tag was $75.00 with a case. I took a look at it and the only real thing wrong with it was that the strings had seen better days and there is a tiny scuff near the sound hole.
It took me all of thirty seconds to decide to buy it. One set of D’addario Classics later, it’s working just fine and sounding pretty damn ok.
Working On Music – Kind Of
I currently have six pieces in various stages of completion. There is “Weedly Woo” 1 through 5 and something I’ve labeled “Spy Hunter”. These are not final titles, of course, and some are further along than others. Most need new drum tracks, some need guitar and/or keyboard parts, and all of them need lyrics which… well, I’ll get into lyrics in another post.
I did manage to re-record about 90% of the guitars for the tracks. I played around with mic placements used a couple of different rooms in the house. The results were not displeasing.
Here are a few things I learned:
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- For recording electric guitar, I found getting a good distorted sound is much easier than getting a good clean sound.
- While the GLS ES-57’s are good for micing loud, distorted amps, the SM57’s are much, much better at this.
- The GLS ES-57’s are, to me, a wee bit better than the SM57’s for close micing clean amps.
- The SM57’s are, hands down, the best for close micing the classical guitar. It may be that they’re the best for the cheap classical I have, I don’t know. I don’t have anything better to compare it with.
- For amped guitar room mics, I found the Samson C1 much better for amps than the Behringer C-01, which is a better room mic for acoustic.
I’m still chipping away at the songs. It’s been more than a year since I sent a finished tune out into the world and not having these finished is making me antsy.
In the end, you do what you can with what you have and time is something I have little of. Hopefully I can find enough time to finish all of the tracks in time for summer.