Fred Leo

I still don’t know what the lyrics will be for this thing,but I think this will work for the lead-outro. Suggestions welcome. I was thinking of making it about Nuevo Laredo, but to make it genuine I’d have to actually go there, and I don’t want that.

rocksketch 1-28-10 outro

UPDATE 1-27

Made some progress on the riff-based track, though the bass still needs fixing here and there. Thinking of dropping out a guitar at the tail for a lead outro.  Lyrics TBD…I wonder if Rome is burning. No I don’t. it is. Anyway, here’s the latest.

1-27 riff sketch progress

For the truly curious recording types, this was played on a Godin Exit 22 through a Vox VT30, headphone out to 1/4 inch ins of a Focusrite Saffire. Bass is from a Roland VG-99.

Thought I’d explore something if the riff-based, old school genre, and I think I’ll press ahead from this. Yeah, it started after watching a vid of a ZZ Top rehearsal. Just two guitars, bass and a monotonous drum loop now, but I think with some work it could move.

One of the many uses for Antares Autotune is to use it as a tool to practice vocals with the ultimate goal of not needing it. You put down your best takes then compare tracks with and without it. Here’s my cover of Tom Petty’s “Southern Accents,” one with Autotune and one without.

southern accents3 A
southern accents3 B

Singing is no walk in the park for me. First, I’m not crazy about the sound of my voice, and second, I don’t have the control over it to satisfy the precision my ears want in pitch.  (And as I’ve grown older, for some reason it’s harder to tolerate anything off-pitch. Weird.) We won’t even discuss range. In short, if my voice were a guitar, it would be carelessly made import that was never set-up.  Tragically, I’m all I have available, so not soon after I first started home recording I sprung for Autotune. I think it came on a diskette, and though I’ve upgraded fairly recently, I still don’t have the current version.

It was a great time-saver because it might take me hours to get a solid take, especially since I prefer getting one good take top-to-bottom so I don’t have to do a lot of digging around and editing. With Autotune, I could get something usable quickly, and usually with no major artifacts, even though I’m no expert in using it.

But soon, I took it as a personal challenge to try to get takes that didn’t need Autotune, the theory being that such a goal would help me develop some control. It wasn’t easy, and it still isn’t, though it’s easier — or at least possible. Eventually.

Anyway, Autotune seems like a good way to work on your vocals, and I know it’s also a great time-saver.

Oh, and by the way, in my non-vocalist opinion, after doing this cover, I’m pretty sure slow songs with drawn out words make a much bigger briar patch.

UPDATE: A friend writes “I think what you hate about your voice is what I like about it.” Processing….processing…processing….I’ll take it.

Still working on it. Here’s how it sits at the moment. Southern Accents Cover Demo 2.
Mr. Croaky made a special guest performance, unless it was Mr. Acid Reflux. Haven’t gone through all the vocal takes yet; this is just the last one. Tiiiiirrreeed…

UPDATE Mon: Hmmm…sure hope I can beat that vocal. Otherwise, it’s autotune as a public service.

I have mixed feeling on the subject of covering great songs. On the one hand, it can seem insulting to the artist, as if the person doing the covering is saying “Hey, here’s how ya do that song.” On the other hand, a cover is a way to pay homage, to keep the song out there, to say “thank you.”

Ultimately, I think the reasons to be in favor of covers outweigh the reasons to oppose them — depending on the cover, of course. Sometimes they’re just slaughterings, and that might be the case here, though I sure hope not.

I just did a test of Petty’s Southern Accents, and it’s so down and dirty it’s subterranean. It was kind of spur of the moment, so I didn’t download the lyrics and screwed them up from memory. In fact, i’m pretty sure I forgot the last verse. I also wanted to see how things would work micing the new amp, but the mic was a paperweight, so both the guitar (the Epi Sheraton) and vocals on this are with the $25 radio shack mic.

I can’t believe I hadn’t heard this one until the Live Anthology came out.

UPDATE: Paperweight stereo mic, soooooyou want a battery? Fine, second chance for you. Also, the actual lyrics to the song seem to be this:

There’s a southern accent, where I come from
The young’uns call it country
The yankees call it dumb
I got my own way of talkin’
But everything is done, with a southern accent
Where I come from

Now that drunk tank in Atlanta’s
Just a motel room to me
Think I might go work Orlando
If them orange groves don’t freeze
I got my own way of workin’
But everything is run, with a southern accent
Where I come from

For just a minute there I was dreaming
For just a minute it was all so real
For just a minute she was standing there, with me

There’s a dream I keep having
Where my mama comes to me
And kneels down over by the window
And says a prayer for me
I got my own way of prayin’
But everyone’s begun
With a sou thern accent
Where I come from

I got my own way of livin’
But everything gets done
With a southern accent
Where I come from

As you’ll see in a previous post, I put some guitars on the wall, mainly because I need more floor. I used the nifty Hercules hangers, and I wanted to see if the heavy Gold Tone resonator would hang okay, so up it went. Then, since I also do my alleged vocals in this room I gave that a whirl and heard the resonator calling back. Then I actually sang into it and recorded it with the little Edirol R-09. I thought it made kind of an interesting effect, like a tuned or harmonic reverb. It might be interesting in a mix.

Here’s what I’m talking about. And yes, I felt silly singing into a resonator.

resonator echo sing

I’ve just started working on a track for a friend with a radio show in New Zealand. Or maybe Australia.  It’s long because I thought maybe in the holes between redundant verses he could insert audio clips from the news of that week and use it for a show intro. Still rough. Here it be.

(As always, you must click the post title to get the audio) Well, I finally realized that this fine Gold Tone resonator has twin pickups, and to take advantage of it one needs a stereo cable, so I did a little test of another song I hope to cover. Two tracks of guit in this and a loop so far. Can anyone name the tune?

Hints? This band has a tune that is still insanely popular with advertisers. One of the best rock vocalists ever. Small tight band that was wonderfully engineered.

English.

This tune, I don’t believe, was one of their hits, though it’s a fine one, in my opinion.

Yes, liberties were taken. Here it is. (You have to click the post title for the link to appear with this theme.) One of these days I’ll actually plan on doubling vocals instead of thinking about it at the last minute.

As you can tell, it was kind of a quickie. One track of guitar, a cash-esque drum loop, and vocals. The bulk of the time was spent mixing.

Weirdly, those are new strings on the Taylor, though the bottom strings sound old. Must be the capo.

7-26-09 Uh-oh, remixed it with headphones this time.

Better, yet, I found this, you bindlestiffs.

Here’s a concept demo for HVAC outfits wanting to do a little radio. A good friend did the vocal work. Obviously, the annncr is for example only. I think it’s just silly enough to get some attention.