Obscure Mush and Guilty Pleasures

Stonebolt is obscure. I only learned the band name last year, though they have a song that's pretty addictive, and can be classified as a guilty pleasure. The song was a minor hit in 1978, but had some measure of airplay in Philippine radio stations. Of the three known songs with the same title (one by Dolly Parton, but the version by Whitney Houston is more popular), this is probably the least eeeeky.

Stonebolt's I Will Still Love You, on 4track

And, apparently, Stonebolt is still active!

Covers Album?

Picture of covers for the  cover of the covers album

This blog has been alive for 3 months, and I just counted I have enough songs for a Covers album.

The album will start off with something educational :

Sesame Street!

Then say hello to the fool

The Fool On The Hill

Trying to be fanny

Fanny (Be Tender With My Love)

With some anticipation

Anticipation

For somebody

Somebody

Talk to the lineman

Wichita Lineman

And to Marilyn Monroe\

Candle In The Wind

Grab your clutch bag!

I Am, I Said

Some Lennon

Oh My Love

Then say goodbye (or hello?)

Hello Goodbye

Lennon 1971 and looking for the rasp

I got tagged in pesbuk on a post showing Ozzy Osbourne's cover of John Lennon's "How".  It's from Lennon's 1971 "Imagine" album, and I got reminded of how awesome that album is. It's a slow burner, seemingly simple songs that cut through after two or three spins of the vinyl. "Gimme Some Truth", "How", "How Do You Sleep", and that unassuming anthem since massacred by a thousand unworthy covers, "Imagine"

I'll steer away from "Imagine" and just do the B-side, "Oh My Love", which some critics say is the finest vocal performance of Lennon. Here's my take :

Oh My Love (Lennon cover)

Strangling Cats : The Bee Gees

At some point, I would eventually tackle the Bee Gees. I was a fan of their disco years, with the strangling cats falsetto vocals. But their late 1960's folk-country-rock sound evoking the Beatles and the Byrds has also aged quite nicely.

The choice here is probably my favorite Gibb song - which is in between their folk and disco years, when they were just  starting to use the squeeze-your-b@lls vocals. Fanny (Be Tender With My Love) was released in 1975 on the Main Course album, which was more R&B oriented, and which brought them to the sound of disco.

Fanny cover on 4 track

"Fanny" was never performed by the Gibbs because of the layers of vocal harmony required; and it is quite intricate. They did sing it in a simplified acoustic version in an early 2000s concert.

For this cover attempt, I used the TC Helicon Vocal Harmony machine on two tracks to create 6 vocal tracks.

The back-up singer who never complains and is always on time

Track listing :
Track 1 - bass
Track 2 - electric piano, drums, strings, brass sequenced on a Korg Kross
Track 3 - lead vocals, harmony, guitar
Track 4 - back-up vocals, harmony, guitar

Depeche Mode's Somebody (Love Theme of Emo Couples)

I've been busy with MOOCs and I haven't had the chance to play much music. I was thinking of an easy 1980's song to play, and the choice was easy - Depeche Mode's "Somebody".

So here's "Somebody" recorded on tape

This is a rather weird song for Depeche Mode, a slight departure from their usual synth pop. It became a karaoke staple for suicidal couples. Thankfully, after more than a quarter of a century, it's now mostly forgotten.

The song has no guitars, nor bass (yay!!). Just piano, a heartbeat beat (redundundudndant) , atmospheric pads and monk vocals. For the heartbeat and the pads, I put to use the Akai Miniak (say that fast, it means something in Tagalog) and the Alesis Micron.

The Alesis Micron on the lower left (heartbeat); and the Akai Miniak on the upper right (pads)

I only used two tracks - the piano, heartbeat and pads on one track; and the monk vocals on another track.

Bernie Taupin's original "Candle in the Wind" lyrics

Candle in the wind cover
"Candle in the Wind" is from  the 1974 "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" album of Elton John, back when Bernie Taupin was still writing lyrics for Elton John's songs. Of course, in 1997, Elton John cashed in on this song, re-writing the lyrics for Princess Diana. It eventually became the 2nd biggest selling single at the time. It also became unabashedly corny. Nothing beats Bernie Taupin's original lyrics, written for Marilyn Monroe

I Am, I Said, DOM Classic

Clutch bag, check. Pajero, check. Gold necklace and bracelet, check. Soundtrack : Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck,..and Neil Diamond, check.

Welcome to the world, of..err nice old gentlemen.

Neil Diamond is pretentiously cool. I'm a believer (the Monkees), September Morn, Sweet Caroline and the obligatory diva duet, You Don't Bring Me Flowers. And the very first torch song I ever heard, "Love on the Rocks".

My favorite Diamond song has to be "I Am I Said". The next victim of My Analog (Mis)Adventures

Here it is in all it's DOM Classic Glory

To replicate the "balding crooner" effect, I sequenced and recorded the piano, strings, brass and drums on one track; sang karaoke style on the second track; did the guitar and backing vocals on the third track; and finally recorded the bass on the fourth track.

Go ahead and clutch that clutch bag while you climb aboard your Pajero!

Open Sesame!

The opening theme of Sesame Street!

Such a fun song to cover, with a 1960's beat reminiscent of a number of Beatles songs like "Good Day Sunshine", "Penny Lane', "Got to Get You Into My Life" among others.

I had to find the right key for a slightly McCartney-ish vocal, and settled on F-major. The drums, piano, brass and bells were sequenced, and recorded on one track. There are two tracks of mixed vocals and guitars; and the last track dedicated to the bass.

Jimmy Webb, Wichita Lineman

Jimmy Webb is an amazing songwriter.
This is my favorite Jimmy Webb song, a hit for country star Glenn Campbell. A search on Google reveals James Taylor also has a version.
Wichita Lineman

The Fool on the Hill, not with a Kazoo

Another day, another Lennon-McCartney cover.

The Magical Mystery Tour is one of my favorite albums, though it's not as cohesive or balanced as Revolver, Sgt Peppers and Abbey Road. The album's two hits - Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane, were originally recorded during the Sgt Pepper's sessions.

The Fool on the Hill remains one of the most poetic and melodic songs in the Beatles catalog, continuing McCartney's discourse on apathy that he started on "Eleanor Rigby" (and continued on with one of his solo songs,  "Another Day")

Fool on The Hill, 4 track tape cover

The main challenge here was what to do with the adlib portion - the only acoustic wind instrument I have (not counting musical farts) is a Kazoo :

Better suited for Wile E Coyote

But it sounded too Looney-tunish!
In the end, I opted to use the wonderful woodwind samples from the Emu Proteus.
Track 1 - I sequenced the piano part on the Korg Kross, and sang while playing the egg shaker
Track 2 - synthesized woodwinds played live on the Emu keyboard
Track 3 - Hofner bass
Track 4 - Epi Casino and back-up vocals played through a TC Helicon Harmony G

Hello Goodbye

In honor of Sirs John and Paul, here's Hello Goodbye, recorded on 4 track cassette
There's some degradation towards the end, both in tape quality and performance(!). Still, isn't this a great drinking song?

The bass and guitars used are the Beatles staples, the Hofner violin bass and the Epiphone Casino

Meant to be together

This is the 2nd track where I didn't use any sequencing or drum machines (the first was this), all tracks played straight into the recorder. The rhythm machine is still the egg shaker.

Anticipation , Hofner Bass, and the Egg

I re-discovered an old Mandy Moore cassette and played it - the covers album with some very tasteful Todd Lundgren and Elton John songs. I was particularly drawn to her version of Carly Simon's Anticipation, and decided that's going to be my test song for some new gear I'm trying out. The first, of course, are the cassette tapes I got from the bowels of Sulit.com.

The second is a ninety-peso egg shaker, which is the percussion of choice for this number :

scrambled please!

Fab!

The third is a Hofner violin-bass! This is the cheap version of the original German made bass of choice by a certain left handed bassist. I really haven't explored it a bit, but it's very light, sounds good, and makes me want to play bass!

So here it is : Anticipation 4 track cover
Very very quick recording, no edits! How can you edit with tape???
Track 1 - vocals / piano
Track 2 - vocals/ egg shaker
Track 3 - vocals / bass
Track 4 - vocals/ guitar

The guitar I used is the Epiphone Casino (of course!)

Woo-hoo Cassette Tapes!

1,242meters of High Bias tapes

After quite a search, I found cassette tapes without having to go through EkkkkBay.

I went the rounds of record stores and electronic shops -- most of the "kids" manning the stores haven't even heard of cassette tapes. Which is a good thing. I take this to mean that this format is now truly vintage. 

So everyday, I'd drop by a local buy and sell website and type "cassette tape" on the search window. Dud. But of course, it's also plentiful on EeekBay; but I'm trying to limit my dealings with  Customs people (who called the Jack Bauer action figure I purchased "Ken", but that's another story).

Anyway, this local website produced a jackpot - some guy was selling one lot of cassette tapes, around 40 in all, for 500 pesos. I asked him if there were "high bias" tapes among the lot, and he said yes. No-brainer, I bought it.

Yup, it's forty plus tapes from some aspiring singer. His "demos" of James Ingram songs are on the high bias tapes - around 9 of the 40 -- I'll take that. My only disappointment is that he preferred to use the 90-minute tapes, which are more cost effective (then), but have thinner tapes. Oh well, this will have to do.

So today, I tested and taped over his version of "Every Breath You Take" (ooo kent yoooseee... yoobelong toooo meeeee...) . The tapes seem to be in good condition. I have 435 minutes of 4 track glory. Let's get down to work.

Really rough vocals

I finally got around to putting rough vocals on "Anything..". But, with my track record, I won't be able to edit this and keep it as it is. The tape is showing its age, and there's a lot of junk there (the vocals being the biggest culprit)
Anything

Pretend Orchestra and Sore Throat

So I worked on this for a good part of the morning.
Just the Instruments
And I found out I sound like Oscar the Grouch (even more so than on other days).

The "cheat" here is that everything was played live into the Korg Kross' sequencer. What's unusual here is I recorded the drums last, finger drumming on the keyboard. I did not want it to sound like a "pop/rock drummer"; but as pseudo-orchestral, contributing more to tone color than rhythm. The rhythm is propelled more by the bass track.

Kristopher's Kross!

The Kross' cello sounds like a nasal clarinet (ugh!). But the neat thing is there's a switch that changes the sound to pizzicato, and I'm able to use that to record the cello track straight through.

There are two guitar sounds buried in the mix - the Casino and the Telecaster Thinline.

The Orchestra - real and faking it

I watched the Manila Symphony Orchestra last night perform Mozart's Symphony #39 and Beethoven's Symphony #3 (Eroica). Man oh man. Pure music. Time to quit pretending to play.

No effects required

.... Ok, that won't work. There was a time when all I listened to was classical music, and I used to smuggle a lot of CDs (which work as nice coasters today, vintage digital, never thought we'd get to that) as you can't usually find these in the Philippines (or usually mis-classified under "easy listening" alongside Lawrence Welk and his Orchestra).

So I wrote this tune, twenty years ago, and was track#10 in our 1996 album. It's pop, with elements of the orchestra sprinkled in. One record reviewer thought we had a real cello (it was an Emu Proteus)
Afterschool, "Anything But Love"

I'll recreate this today. I still have an Emu Proteus. but I'll use a new toy, the Korg Kross, which seems to have some nice orchestral sounds.

New !

Rough and Quick with Ms Domingo

A cassette has "60 minutes" of recording time - really 30 minutes each direction. The portastudio records in one direction, at double speed, giving 15 minutes of recording. So I'm going to maximize my one cassette.

"Miss Domingo" was track #8 in our 1996 album, inspired by the band Toto's penchant for making songs about girl's names. Here's the original recording :

Ms Domingo

Here's a rough and dirty and quick demo (approx 1 hour)
https://soundcloud.com/rommel-carrera/ms-domingo

Compared to the first four-track demo, the only cheat I did here was to program a drum machine, using an "analog modelling" drum machine this time.
Track 1 - drums, electric piano, organ
Track 2 - background vocals , guitar
Track 3 - lead vocals. guitar
Track 4 - bass
Gear used :
The drum machine is a Korg ER1, a wonderful sounding machine that doesn't pretend to be real drums

The organ is a Voce MicroBii, a "clonewheel" (copy of a Hammond B3) I bought from Seoul last year

The electric piano is from the Yamaha AN1x, another "virtual analog" machine

The AN1x, middle tier keyboard on the left

And the guitar is a Fender Thinline Telecaster 

The Search for Tapes

I purchased a bunch of high bias type 2 cassette tapes five years ago, hoping to use them for demos on my badly scarred Yamaha MT8x. I figured I'd buy four or five, as this is an anachronistic medium and will be gone in a few years.

Dang, I hate it when I'm right

I got to use one, promptly forgot about the rest, then went back to digital recording.

Now with a shiny new Portastudio, I can't find the tapes anywhere. And I made some feeble attempts to find some in stores, but failed.

Aaaaaarrrrrrgggh!
I'll just have to buy from EvilBay, which will make Mr. Customs Guy happy.
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2047675.m570.l1311.R5.TR11.TRC1.A0.H0.Xblank+cassette+tapes+high.TRS0&_nkw=blank+cassette+tapes+high+bias&_sacat=0&_from=R40

(this is the part where I say @$*&*&#%^ you Customs, but that's another story)

1st Blood on the 4 Tracks : Sleeping With The Lights On; Plus a Ten Peso Tour

I got excited about putting the Tascam through its paces, that I went ahead and recorded a demo of one of my band's old songs. I did forget to do two things :
     1. Clean the tape heads
     2. Get new blank cassette tapes. This might be a challenge anyway (who else still use them?). I used an old tape, and it shows on the recording -- there is a lot of sound degradation.

"Sleeping With The Lights On" is the title track of our 1996 album. Here's the recorded version http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=357691
(which I now realize is at a break-neck fast tempo)
And here's the 4-track tape demo, which I completed in about two hours
https://soundcloud.com/rommel-carrera/sleeping-4track-demo
Track 1 - sequenced drums, piano, synths, organ, and crunch guitar (played live)
Track 2 - lead vocals
Track 3 - backing vocals and clean guitar
Track 4 - bass

It seems strange dedicating one track to bass, but it seems to be the best way to do four-track. The Beatles did it in both Revolver and Sgt Peppers.

And a little tour of the gears used:
The drums sounds, piano and organ came from an Emu Proteus keyboard (actually an XK1 synth with the techno card replaced by Piano, Organ and Proteus cards). The yellow mustard color helps immensely :

A "techno" synth turned into a roots rock keyboard

The sequencer is an Emu XL7

The guitar is an Epiphone Casino, the Beatles guitar during their most creative period (1966-1969)

And the bass is a hohner headless (shown here with the Steinberger Spirit)

sorry, we both lost our heads!

The Tascam Portastudio

The Tascam 424 was my first ever multitrack recording device. Here's a rare photo - with a Roland D5 and an  Alesis MMT8 - that was all the gear I had in 1991

The Roland sounded much better than Lumanog guitars!

Fast forward a few decades, and here's the 424 Mark 3. This is a rather curious release from Tascam, in 2001, when hard disk recording was already becoming cheap. I just got this today, a bit pricey for what it is but the unit is in excellent, almost new condition

Feed me some magnetic tape!

I'll do a trial run in a few hours, I just need to re-learn (or re-plan) the analog workflow.

Commencement - My Analog (Mis)adventures

I'm not a professional musician by any stretch of imagination. But I do have a strong interest in music, play in a band, and can fake my way through singing, playing guitar, keyboards and composing songs. A band I've played with had a major label album in the 1990s where I composed all ten original tracks, played keyboards, sang vocals and generally made a mess.

This blog will be about recording music using the analog medium - analog tape on a cassttte multitrack. I started with the tascam 424 in the early 1990s, and used that to make demo tapes of the original songs we played as a band. Our commercial album was also recorded on analog tape- a 24 track machine, but mixed to digital.

For the novices, this is analog :

yes it's a cassette tape! 

And this is digital :

Reaper asking if I want to buy the software as I've been evaluating this since the presidency of Gloria

I was probably one of the earliest adopters of affordble digital multitracks and PC recording - the free Cool Edit software looked awesome (but slow)  in 1998. Then I got a free legal copy of Cubase (which came with the purchase of a Korg X5) in 1999; and , ahem, a try-before-you buy copy of Cakewalk Pro9.

DAW (digital audio workstation) softwares are great - easy to use, fast to make music with.  You can whip up a reasonably good sounding demo with loops and softsynths (assuming you have ready ideas). You can have a half-cooked idea, record some phrases and come back later to complete the song. Or come back later and over-produce the song.

A 4-track tape machine has limitations. Only 4 -tracks(duh) vs the virtually unlimited tracks of DAWs. You have to make decisions early on which instruments go to which track. You can't copy-paste your perfect "guitar riff" or vocal chorus every 16 bars- you have to play or sing them through. Hiss, noise vs the clinical clean of digital.

Even with these limitations :
The greatest rock album of all time was recorded on a four-track machine. A historic 4-track machine, yes, but still four tracks. But look at how much fun George Martin had with those 4 tracks:

So I'm shunning my desktop PC running Reaper (legal and free!) with a Native Instruments interface. And going back to a Tascam 424 mk3 analog tape track for recording demos and the occassional mushy cover.