Tag: Song

  • Creative Time Cut

    Creative Time Cut

    It’s been an odd day. I woke to a feeling of not wanting to get out of bed, which isn’t common for me at all. Likely it stemmed from lack of sleep and a developing issue of an eyelid with irritation. The one thing that brightened my morning was a random tweet by Lisa Loeb. She appreciated my tweet about Ed Cherney passing yesterday (Tuesday). I wrote a tweet to her in appreciation and she responded. That little gesture from her was super sweet.

    Mind you, she doesn’t follow me on twitter. It’s highly likely she doesn’t remember me auditioning to play guitar for her on a tour. She also probably doesn’t remember when we bumped into each at NAMM talking to a mutual friend. Either way, she’s a lovely person and it brightened my day.

    I felt like a task master getting rolling. Chris Hellstrom and I got our second podcast/broadcast recording in the can today. Compared to the first episode last week, this episode went substantially smoother. I pretty much had the outputs of the audio and video within an hour of finishing the recording. Compared to the 8 hours it took last week. that’s a huge savings in time. Massive creative time cut.

    My goal for next weeks episode is to have everything output and ready for releasing within 30 minutes of getting all files. But that might be a little optimistic, as it does take time for Final Cut to export the video. Then for me to upload it to YouTube. And we’re only doing episodes in 1080. Imagine if it were 2k or 4k. It’d probably take a bit longer.

    As I was waiting for Final Cut to export the video and Logic to export the audio for the podcast, I worked on yet another lyric video output for the vertical lyric video version for Hero Unexpected.

    Once all those outputs were done, I shifted gears back to checking the mix for another single. A song that I co-wrote with Manda Mosher. I made a couple of minor tweaks to my mix and deemed it done. Thanks to some new mixing templates, I was able to output multiple mixes at the same time. Passed it over to mastering and got a master back shortly thereafter.

    I sent a copy of the song to Manda and another friend Jesse Stern who played bass on the recording. Both of them enjoyed the mix and the song. I’m looking forward to getting the song into the release schedule for next year. We’ll see when. I’m also looking forward to hearing Manda do an Americana version in her style. I think she’d do a killer rendition of it too.

    No, I’m not using something like LANDR for mastering, I think that it’s a joke and I don’t believe in it – and no I wouldn’t recommend using it. But I am working with a mastering setup that can do a fairly quick turnaround with a great sound.

    When I look back at the work output for this day, a podcast, a podcast video (both of which are an hour long), a lyric video, and a song single. It feels like a pretty damn productive after a late start for a day where I didn’t want to get out of bed. That seems pretty impressive as I’m looking back on the day. And I’d like to thank Lisa for the kind words and response that helped set the day on a good path.

  • Thumping In A Song

    Thumping In A Song

    Thumping in StudioThumping right along… That’s what I’ve been up to with getting these singles done and finished with my co-producing friend George Leger III. We put the final touches on yet another song called “Thump Thump Thump”.

    That put’s the count at 3 songs completely finished.

    The excitement is building as the impending release of single #1 draws nearer. Amazing and magical is how I describe it. The word that those few who have heard it is: Wow!!!

    Pretty cool responses. Most of the time, music doesn’t make people say “Wow!!!” Now it does.

    Thumping

    How do I contain the restraint to releasing it? Good question. This is by far the absolute longest I’ve had to sit on a finished product. Main reason is not for building hype. No, it’s more simple than that. I really want to make sure the song gets the best possible launch it can have. That unfortunately takes time. Time, that a lot of people don’t have the patience to control.

    Heck, I’ve had moments where I’m like, Fuck It! Lets do this!

    Then the moment passes and I remember that there’s a plan. It’s a good plan. A winning plan based on those who have been asking and talking with me about it.

    At this point we’re on to single #4, it’s so close to finish I can practically taste it…

  • I'm Yelling Timber

    I'm Yelling Timber

    vine-timber-jody-whitesidesTimber is the word I need to be yelling as I’m finally getting my head around Twitter in a positive way that is building momentum. I’m starting to play around a bit with their video service known as Vine. As part of my New Years vows I told myself that I’d start to take more pictures on Instagram and do more videos on YouTube and start up with more Vines. So far, most of that is going well. Though I’m still working on the Vine thing and getting up to speed with creating more of them. Below is my first 6SecondCover. I recently heard this song a couple of weeks ago and really dug the hook, the flow ain’t bad either.

    Timber

    “It’s going down. I’m yelling Timber. You better move. You better dance.”

    It was pretty fun knocking that out. In the process that took a few minutes due to my voice being nutty early in the morning. I think some ‘viral’ Vines were missed with me hacking up some phlegm. Dang it.

    Thanks Pitbull & Ke$sha for a fun tune.