Bring Back Card Walker

Tips for Setting up OSX bash files

2011-06-07T16:08:00.000-07:00

If you have just installed or upgraded OSX and are interested in setting up your bash environment, here's some quick tips that will enable you to load all of your setup configuration customizations into a login shell or an interactive shell from a single bash startup file.

When a login shell is created (via logging into the console, opening iTerm/xterm or opening a new iTerm tab), bash reads these startup files in this order:

1. /etc/profile
2. /etc/bashrc
3. ~/.bash_profile

HOWEVER, in step #3, bash actually looks for and reads only ONE of the following files - if found - in the following order:

1. ~/.bash_profile
2. ~/.bash_login
3. ~/.profile

If you 'ls' your home directory and find '.profile', it's okay to rename it as '.bash_profile'. I suggest going with '.bash_profile', for no other reason than the fact that .bash_profile is the first file that bash looks for in your home directory.

If you ever create an interactive shell (typically by calling 'bash' from within a login shell), the following files are read in this order:

1. /etc/bashrc
2. ~/.bashrc

So here's the deal. I want to put all of my bash environment customizations in a single file that will be executed whenever a login shell is created or when an interactive shell is created. I could put all that in /etc/bashrc, which executes for all users (not just for the current logged-in user) in both scenarios, but it's better store all bash customizations in my personal home directory. What to do?

The solution is to create ~/.bashrc and load it with your environment customizations. Then, invoke it from within the one user-specific bash file that you know will always be executed when a login shell is created: either ~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile (depending on which one you prefer).

Somewhere in your .bash_profile (or .profile) file - preferably at the bottom (after the paths are exported) - add this line:

source ~/.bashrc

This command invokes ~/.bashrc within the current login shell. Because ~/.bash_profile (or ~/.profile) is always executed when a new login shell is created, your .bashrc customizations will always be loaded into the shell.

And, remember that when you start an interactive shell within a login shell, bash will invoke ~/.bashrc automatically.

For more details and cool customization tips for .bashrc, see http://blog.toddwerth.com/entries/4

Song A Day 2011 Recording Diary

2011-03-05T01:43:00.000-08:00

2/24/2011: Mr. Hanley

Not much to say about this one except that the song is weak and the recording is awful. I recorded this one the weekend before Song A Day started as an emergency filler - just something to post in case I ran out of time or ideas. Probably should have left it on the shelf.

On the positive side of things, it's so bad sounding, it makes the recordings created afterward sound better.

I did record one new song, which is Elvis Costello. It's my response to one of Chris' songs for which the notes in the lyrics describe it as 'me doing Derek doing Elvis Costello. Later, Jonathan did a song about himself doing Derek doing Chris doing Derek doing Elvis Costello.

2/25/2011

No recording this day. Too wiped out. I wrote Byron Park, spending considerable time on the lyrics.

2/26/2011 Byron Park

Devoted most of the weekend to recording this ambitious number.

Frustrated with the weak sounding bass guitar, I moved the U87 back so that it was 2 1/2 feet from the speaker cone and set it to a figure-8 pattern. This got me closer to the sound I wanted. I switched the amp's midrange frequency center from 200hz to 800hz, but in retrospect I'm not sure that was a good move.

I played bass with my fingers to get a thicker sound and rolled off the volume knob a bit to reduce some unpleasant distortion picked up by the mic. Can't tell if the graphic EQ stompbox is causing that.

Unfortunately, got a horrible 60hz buzz on the bass track that I couldn't filter out. Oh well.

Used the Les Paul for the lead guitar part. Again, the graphic EQ was the only effect used. Nice guitar tone!

Hunted around for the right Reason strings for the ending section and settled on the regular orchestra strings.

2/27/2011 Caught in a Crowd

A pretty ballad, but sung badly. I should have spent more time working on the vocal, but I was just too wiped out after the marathon sesions for Byron Park.

2/28/2011 Goodbye to Song A Day

Also worked on this during the weekend. The recording went pretty quickly. The usual drum setup wasn't working for me, so I substituted the U87 as an overhead for the SM81 to get more body out of the kit. That worked.

Like an idiot, I accidently deleted the floor tom track while mixing. Thankfully, the drums don't rely on it heavily. But still, pretty dumb move.

Used the same bass setup as for Byron Park, but played with a pick. I regret switching the amp midrange frequency center from 200 to 800 hz, as it sounds better when the track is soloed than when blended in with the other tracks. It's not a bad sound per se, it's just not the frequency center that I gravitate towards. It brings out the characteristic Rickenbacher tone.

The horrible 60 hz hum plagued the bass recording again.

For the rhythm guitar parts, I wanted to get a Chris Greacen wall-of-sound type of production, so I spent time experimenting. The key discovery here was swapping the U87 and Sennheiser 906 mics such that the U87 was aimed at the top speaker. This gave me the proper frequency balance and at long last - after four years of experimentation - I finally achieved the Chris Greacen effect. It's just Les Paul into graphic EQ and into Tremolux, but it sounds big.

Oh, another critical change came about after experimenting with the graphic EQ settings. I lowered the 3kz slider and beefed up 200 and 100hz. I also increased the amp's bass setting to 6.

As a side note, I tried using an overdrive box to see if it could add more harmonic complexity, but all it did was soften the sound and make it mushy.

Used the unplayable Jay Turner guitar for the dueling lead guitars at the end. I love the tone of that guitar, but it would have been easier to have played the solo on a banjo. Any attempt to bend strings above the 12th fret result in a complete fretting-out and subsequent muting of the sound.

And thus endeth Song A Day 2011. I'll post my post mortem soon.

Song A Day 2011: 2/24/2011

2011-02-24T15:43:00.000-08:00

We're in the home stretch! I'm wiped out. Here are some more notes on the latest recordings.

Halfway Through Song A Day: 2/16/2011

Nothing much to say about this straightforward recording of acoustic guitar and voice. The lyrics worked out to two lines of mention for each of the nine participants. If we had just one more participant - or one less - it wouldn't have worked. Got lucky on that one.

C1: 2/17/2011

My venture into pure Electronica. I did the bulk of sequencing in Reason and added some more tracks in Cubase, with all Reason sounds being merged into Cubase via ReWire.

At this point of the month, I was feeling burned out on writing pop songs and struggling to sing them. This track helped to recharge my batteries.

Could It Be Meat?; 2/18/2011

Another simple, one-off acoustic + vox recording. I wrote this one while sitting in Taco Bell.

2/19/2011

I took a break this day. Just too worn out to even think about recording

Long Way to Anaheim: 2/20/2011

I came back full force with this one. Used a nice blend of Miroslov low legato strings and mellotron strings. Still struggling with getting a good bass sound. There's no easy answer to it. I just have to try different things - play with amp settings, graphic EQ stompbox settings, moving mic around (aimed at center of cone or off to the side? closer or further way?) and mixdown effects such as 1176 compression and multi-band compressor, plus EQ.

Here Come the Vegans: 2/21/2011

I absolutely LOVE this song. Just two guitars (Jay Turner and Les Paul into Tremolux through graphic EQ - nothing else) with the usual two mic setup (U87 on bottom speaker and Senheiser 906 on top speaker). Had lots of problems with tuning the Jay Turner. It just cannot be tuned. I noticed that the 906 gets a thin, strident sound and the U87 picks up some muddy, woolly signals. When combined through the multi-band compressor, it usually results in a decent recording. But I'm not satisfied with this approach. Next time, I'll swap mics and see what happens.

For the life of me, I couldn't get a good bass sound. I worked on it for hours, but never achieved what I heard in my head. Used tons of EQ/compression/multi-band, etc to forge a usable sound out of it. Blech.

Had fun singing this one. Finally got a decent vocal performance. I was hoarse the next day after singing the high-pitched la-las at the end.

For the drums, I used the U87 in place of the SM81 for the overhead, simply because I couldn't get enough beef out of the SM81 for this tune. I think it worked ok. The U87 doesn't pick up cymbals as nicely as the SM81, but it captures more of the body of the drum kit. There are some insane drum fills on this one, particularly near the end. I'm proud of the drum performance overall.

2/22/2011

Took a break from recording and just worked on remixing Here Come the Vegans. Spent 2+ hours on the remix, but not satisfied with the results.

What Do Ghosts Like to Do? 2/23/2011

I close mic'd the Martin guitar and played fingerstyle. Also sang VERY close into the mic and used a lot of compression. Threw on a spooky organ from Reason and that was it. This one came out very nice and spacious.

Afterward, finalized the mix for Here Come the Vegans and uploaded it. I think it's better than previous efforts.

Song A Day 2011 Recording Diary

2011-02-16T01:21:00.000-08:00

We're at the end of week number two of Song A Day. I'm already feeling burned out. There has to be an easier way to record my songs.

2/14/2011 Animatronics

Another all-day recording, though a substantial proportion of that was spent writing the song.

While recording the bass, I discovered to my horror that the intonation was completely off on all four strings. Removing the felt strips under the bridge saddles had thrown everything off! So I adjusted the intonation until it was in tune with itself. Nevertheless, when I listen to the final track, it's obvious that the A and D strings aren't in tune with the other instruments.

Boosting 200 hz on the amp and the graphic EQ box helped fill out the sound some more, but it's still not where I want it. The mic picks up a different signal than what the ears hear in the room, and I must adjust the sound in the room to please the mic rather than myself.

I'm fed up with recording bass guitar. Maybe it's time to switch over to using a keyboard for that.

Had problems with the drum recording. There's too much hi hat leakage into the snare mics and the tom mics. What am I doing wrong? The mics are about 4 inches away from each drum. Should they be closer?

The high guitar parts are just me plucking the strings on the acoustic an octave up from the main rhythm part. The result is almost mandolin-like.

2/15/2011 Wind Up

Another full day spent recording - and probably the last one for this year's Song A Day. I was determined to tackle the issues with the drum sounds.

I recorded some takes with the usual mic setup and listened to each track individually. Here's what I heard:

The under snare mic sounds okay, but has too much sloppy rattle in the sound. Leakage from other drums is barely acceptable.

The over snare mic sounds like garbage. There's as much hi hat bleeding into the EV 906 mic as there is snare drum sound, which has a boxy, wimpy sound. That's a problem.

The overhead mic is even worse. It's picking up.... nothing much at all. Just some faint cymbal sounds, the ugliest frequencies from the hi hat, and boxy-sounding, feeble taps on the other drums. I don't get it! I'm hitting the drums good and hard. Why does it sound like I'm playing with my fingertips?

The kick is muddy, dumpy and lacking definition. I've tried moving the mic around - inside the hole and out, but nothing ever seems to make it sound great.

Both tom tracks have way too much cymbal and hi hat bleed to be useful. For some recordings I've resorted to manually cutting up the track to remove everything in the recording when the drums aren't being played.

So now that I had a handle on the problems, I busied myself moving the mics in closer.

The overhead is now a mere 18 inches above the cymbals and aimed between the snare and the kick. This resulted in an immense improvement!

I moved the tom mics to within 1.5 inches of the drums. Likewise, this reduced the ambient bleed and strengthened the tom sound.

The top snare mic was also positioned within an inch of the top head, aimed at the center. This helped the sound a lot, but it's not capturing anything magical either. Still, it's good enough to be EQed (dip around 300hz to remove boxiness, boost at 250 for body, boost at 1k for tone, boost at 3k for clarity).

The under snare mic, on the other hand, did not fare well with the new position. I moved it back down a few inches so that it's about 9 inches from the bottom head.

For the bass recording, I switched to using a heavy pick instead of the softer guitar pick that I had used for the last two weeks. I figured that I need to transfer more energy into the strings with each pluck to give the mic a good signal. I also boosted 200 hz and the treble EQ on the amp some more while backing off on the amp's bass EQ slightly. This yielded the best bass sound I've ever achieved on a Song A Day recording! It's very similar to the Fender Jazz Bass sound on Golden Slumbers by the Beatles on Abby Road. I still had to use a multiband compressor and other plugins to give it the right polish during mixdown, but I'm pleased with it.

I also experimented with adding midrange boost to the vocal tracks, since my vocal recordings tend to sound thin and bright.

This is one of my favorite all-time songs and recordings out of everything I've ever done for Song A Day.

Song A Day 2011 Recording Diary

2011-02-15T13:25:00.000-08:00

Valhalla 2/6/2011

I've decided to use Reason for most piano parts recorded for this year's Song A Day instead of using the awful Alesis QS6.1. There's more effort involved up front, but the sounds are definitely better.

The main riff is supposed to evoke images of Vikings stomping around. I have no idea why I wrote a song about Norse mythology.

A Knock on the Door 2/7/2011

Slightly creepy ballad with 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' lyrics. I went for maximum dynamics between verses and choruses.

I'm less happy about the bass sound. Looks like I need to work on the recording setup some more.

Autistic 2/8/2011

Simple folk song with an Irish jig feel. It's just one vocal, but I used a doubler effect to make it sound like two. It covers up some of the out-of-tune singing.

Goodbye and Goodnight 2/9/2011

I took the day off work to record this one. It's one of the most elaborate arrangements I've ever attempted, with 10 or more vocal tracks. The guitar solo is a 3-way poly-rhythm, which took considerable time to work out. I really like this one!

Had more problems with the bass sound. Notes aren't playing out clearly - there's a buzzy sound that required a lot of EQ to reduce. I'll spend some time trying to debug when I record another bass track.

Bring on the Dancing Girls 2/10/2011

There's this guy who sings Johnny Cash songs in the tube leading to the Montgomery Street Bart station with a spot-on vocal imitation of Mr. Cash. I wrote this song on the BART ride home and recorded it very quickly. The vocal performance was a single, unedited take. I was surprised that I could even approximate a Johnny Cash type of vocal, but it turned out to be very easy to do. The lyrics are, of course, demented.

I used my ancient Yamaha acoustic for this one. It doesn't sound as nice as the Martin, but it worked for this song.

What Did I Do? 2/11/2011

A quick knock off recording with horrible singing and playing. They can't all be gems.

Maker Faire (Glorious) 2/12/2011

One of the most commercial songs I've ever written. I spent an entire day on this one, polishing the arrangement until it was good enough for Song A Day. The tune and lyrics are a musical pun on Scarborough Faire, with the meaning twisted around to reference the annual nerd-fest known as The Maker Faire. I hope people will look up the word 'Arduino' to see what I'm describing.

The main guitar riff at the beginning is the cheapo, unplayable Jay Turner guitar, straight into the graphic EQ and the Tremolux. I'm convinced that using two mics (U87 and the EV 906) is the ticket to getting a decent recording of electric guitar.

The solo was performed on the Les Paul into a Stamps Drive-O-Matic. I'm happy with how it turned out.

Of all the parts, the arpeggiated guitars (Les Paul into Tremolux) at the end of the song were the most technically challenging to play. It didn't come out as nicely as I heard it in my head before attempting to play it, but I can live with it.

Figured out what was wrong with the bass sounds and learned a lot in the process. I had stuck strips of felt under the bridge saddles to mute the strings slightly. Turns out that was a bad idea, so I removed them.

After a lot of playing and listening to the bass amp, I realized that plucking near the neck was further choking the sound, so I've changed my playing technique to use palm muting behind the bridge, which is rather awkward on a Rickenbacker bass.

The microphone (U87) 'hears' a feeble, tinny, metalic sound that is pretty useless, so I worked a lot on adjusting the amp (SVT) EQ settings and the Danelectro graphic EQ. I ended up switching the amp's midrange frequency from 800 hz to 200 hz. This provides a bit more of the mid-bass thump that is missing from the bass recordings.

Five Percent 2/13/2011

This is an amalgam of early Rick Derringer, Grand Funk Railroad, Cream, Edgar Winter, and others from the golden age of hard rock. I pulled out my ancient Cry Baby wah wah pedal for the lead guitar part. Unfortunately, the capacitors seem to have dried out, so the tone on it is no longer very musical. I'll probably have to replace it.

All guitars were Les Paul into graphic EQ and Tremolux. For the solo, I used the Drive-O-Matic for some extra fuzz. To get some more beef out of the guitars, I aimed the U87 and EV906 at different speakers, but at the same distance to the cones. Each speaker has different frequency response (one is designed to emphasize low mids, the other is more trebly), so this gave me more control of the sound during mixdown.

I struggled with the guitar solo, which came out pretty lousy considering that this song should feature 'hot' lead playing. I just ran out of time to get a decent take. The drum performance was also bad. So's the singing. Despite all that, the overall effect is okay. I'm not proud of how it came out.

I'm now interested in improving the drum sound on future recordings.

Song A Day 2011 - Recording Diary

2011-02-06T00:01:00.000-08:00

It's time again for Song A Day. This year I intend to improve a lot of deficiencies in my past recordings. There's still the limitation of having only one day to record each number, so I have to live with first takes and sloppy playing. If I can improve the guitar, drum, bass and vocal sounds, that's good enough for me.

2/1/2011: Welcome to Song A Day

This is a typical kick off song, but I tried to write a good one this time. Past attempts have been pretty weak.

The drum recording setup is similar to that of 2010, with one major improvement. I bought a new preamp, a GA Pre-73, dedicated to the kick drum. Because it has a separate output attenuation control, I can now record the kick without having to deal with the distortion and clipping that I experienced with the GrooveTubes Brick. The new setup is as follows:

Overhead: Shure SM81 into Millenia HV-3B
Under Snare: AKG 414C (the old gray model with a C12 capsule) into Millenia HV-3B
Over Snare: new Sennheiser e906 (highend boost enabled) into FRM RNP
Kick: AKG D112 into GA Pre-73
Rack Tom: Shure SM-57 into FRM RNP
Floor Tom: Sennheiser 421 into GrooveTubes Brick

Having an additional preamp allows me to use a full compliment of mics on the drums. I'm still going for mono (though on occasion I'll pan the toms around a bit), cause I don't have enough mics/stands/preamps for a stereo OH pair. That's okay by me.

Unlike previous Song A Day recordings, I attached the front skin on the kick drum. I also changed out the snare top/botom heads to Evans Hazy 300 on the bottom (was previously a Evans Hazy 200) and Evans Genera HD Dry on the top (was previously a Remo Coated Controlled Sound Reverse Dot). I think it sounds pretty good, but not sure if it's dramatically different from before. We'll see how the mics respond to the changes.

The drum recording for this song came out ok - nothing special. I'm playing a very busy pattern on the toms for this one.

For guitars, I tried using a combo of U87 into HV-3B and the new Sennheiser e906 (in flat mode), with the e906 close to the cab and the U87 farther away. The results were murky and unimpressive, so that experiment didn't work out. I'm still playing the '79 Les Paul Custom into a Tremolux through a Danelectro Fish and Chips graphic EQ for a bit of boost.

I recorded the bass in the usual manner: Rickenbacker into a 70's SVT, using a combo of DI through the GrooveTubes Brick and U87 (aimed at the 10" speaker cab) through the HV-3B. I had spent considerable time placing felt mutes into the bridge saddle pieces and trying to play with a heavy pick near the neck, but the result was as bad as always: indistinct, toneless and wimpy. Got to improve on this in future recordings.

2/2/2011: Charlie Trotter

Simple acoustic ballad. I'm satisfied with the guitar sound, captured via U87 into HV-3B, aimed at the 12th fret from a foot or so away. The small-bodied Martin M3SC is pretty easy to record.

I experimented with singing very close into the mic (all vocals are captured with the U87) and got decent results. Adding a healthy high-end boost during mixdown gives the vocal a nice polish.

2/3/2011: Deadly Virus

Another acoustic ballad, recorded using an identical setup to Charlie Trotter.

2/4/2011: If I Had a Mac

Yet another acoustic ballad, necessary because I'm recording late at night with Amy and Emma fast asleep in their rooms. However, this time I decided to break with tradition and record a live performance; one mic aimed at guitar and voice - captured in the first take. I didn't bother to try another take, as the first one was good enough. I had fun adding wacky effects to this single track recording during mixdown.

2/5/2011: I Lost It

It's Saturday, so I can record something loud and obnoxious. After recording a scratch piano track, I produced the vocal tracks first, including background vox.

Next, I used the U87 and e906 combo on the guitar cab, but this time the two mics were positioned equadistant from the center of the speaker cone, aimed slightly inward. I recorded a rhythm track with the Les Paul and a lead track with the Jay Turner guitar, both into the same Tremolux amp and 2x12 Scumback speaker cab. The results were somewhat better than my attempts on Welcome to Song A Day, but in the end I had to use a multi-band compressor on the stereo guitar bus during mixdown to give them some life. Both guitars need new strings. What else can I do to improve the recorded sounds of distorted, loud rock guitars?

For the drums, I moved the 414C further away from the bottom of the snare to ensure that no capsule overloading or clipping occurs - I think it helped. I moved the kick mic out of the drum shell and aimed it at the mic hole to get more depth in the thump. It definitely helped. The only other change was I used rim shots on all snare hits. Turned out great!

I knew that I had done something right with the drums when I realized that all of the transients were coming through the bus compression, and minimal EQ was used. Usually, I have to create a separate bus just to blend in uncompressed drums (to get transients lost in the main bus compression) and use lots of EQ on individual tracks. This is a first for me.

When it came time to record the bass track, I was determined to get a decent sound - for once! I switched over to the 1x15 cabinet and aimed the U87 at the center cone about 2 feet away. Rather than trying to pick near the neck (which was creating a toneless, blinky sound), I palm muted (difficult on a Rickenbacker) and switched to a softer nylon guitar pick instead of the usual heavy bass pick. Finally, I changed the midrange filter on the SVT head from 3K to 800hz and, for the first time ever, used the Danelectro graphic EQ to dial in the desired tone. I spent considerable time experimenting with different EQ settings on both the stompbox and the amp, but eventually eliminated the nasty plinky sound and achieved both a solid low-end thump and an interesting, bright midrange.

Success! The combination of these changes, plus the fact that I'd recently changed the bass strings to use a much heavier gauge, finally yielded a good sound on 'tape' that needed minimal processing to be loud and clear in the mix.

Song A Day 2010: Almost Viral

2010-02-10T01:27:00.000-08:00

This is a keyboard improv with a few overdubs.

Song A Day 2010: Awake In The Dark

2010-02-09T01:23:00.000-08:00

Wrote this one on the spot. The acoustic guitars are insanely squeaky. Oh well. I like the sound of the keyboard bass part. My next recording will be all-keyboards.

Song A Day 2010: Superbowl Weekend Part II

2010-02-08T01:08:00.000-08:00

Finished two songs: I Am Serious and Where Is My Cool

Used the Shure SM81 as overhead on the drums, with a 414 aimed below below the snare, an AKG D112 on the kick and a Sennheiser MD421 on the floor tom.

For the bass tracks, I plugged the Rickenbacker 4003 into a '64 Fender Bassman. I used a guitar cab for I Am Serious, which sounded interesting. I tried it again for Where Is My Cool, but it developed a rattle mid-way through recording, so I switched to the Ampeg 4x10 cab. Used DI + 414 for both recordings.

Guitars were through a Dan Electro stomp box EQ to add some midrange and into the Fender Bassman, again recorded using the 414.

I had problems with the vocal sounds on Where Is My Cool. For some reason, they came out muddy and midrange-heavy, almsost as if I had sung through a cardboard tube. I didn't see too close to the mic, so it's puzzling. Attempts to repair using EQ proved fruitless. Maybe I shouldn't sing from the desktop chair. Bad resonances in that area perhaps?

Song A Day 2010: Superbowl Weekend

2010-02-07T02:34:00.000-08:00

On Friday I had to work from home until midnight, so I didn't have a chance to write and record anything. Went to bed feeling bitter.

On Saturday, wrote and recorded tracks for two songs, but neither is completed. I figured that I might as well go for some production on these songs.

I Am Serious:

Wrote the tune on BART the previous day and wrote the lyrics today. It's a snappy-paced pop song.

REcorded two acoustic guitars, a bunch of vocals and bass. The bass recording was cool. I didn't have time to set up the SVT and struggle with getting a usable sound, so I just plugged the bass into a 1964 Fender Bassman and a 2x12 guitar cab loaded with Scumbacks. After a bit of experimentation, I came up with this setup:

Used the bridge pickup on the Rickenbacher and used my palm to mute. The real surprise was how quickly I could dial in a good bass sound in the room:

Used the guitar channel (it's brighter than the bass channel) with the bright switch on, treble maxed out on 10, and the bass rolled almost completely off. Hard to believe, but coupled with the bass DI signal, it gives a cool plinky sound with good low end. If I dialed in a touch more of bass on the amp, I could probably get a nice, fat tone as well. Mic'd with the 414 about 2 ft away, aimed at the center cone of the top speaker.

Where is My Cool:

The melody has been floating around in my head since Song A Day 2008, but I never took the time to develop into a complete song. I cranked out the lyrics in a stream-of-consciousness manner and dived into the recording. The ending section sounds jarring to me. Given time, I'd re-write it. But this is Song A Day, where it's all about capturing the first ideas for a song. The rest of the year can be devoted to refining the rough sketches.

Recorded 2 acoustic guitars, piano and a lot of vocals. There's a lot more work to do on this one, but I'm happy with the way it's turning out.

Song A Day 2010: Michelin Star

2010-02-05T02:22:00.000-08:00

As was trying to find a subject matter of my next song, I came up with the idea of a restaurant critic writing a bad review of a once-great establishment. While googling the correct spelling of 'Michelin', I stumbled across a news item announcing that one of Gordon Ramsey's award winning restaurants had just lost a Michelin Star.

Too much of a coincidence.

I performed the guitar and vocal in one live take, using only the U87 positioned several feet away. I added a bit of extra vocal on another track and the song was done.

Song A Day 2010: Nothing Part One

2010-02-04T15:13:00.000-08:00

Part one of what is bound to be a series of songs with no lyrical content. Sometimes I just can't think of anything to say, so that becomes the subject of the lyrics.

I was interested in writing a simple folk song with a contrapuntal bass part, and this is the result. I'm learning how to mix on headphones; this one came out sounding okay.

I've have a fairly reliable setup for getting hi-fi vox and acoustic guitar. As long as the U87 is aiming down at the sound source and a good 8" - 12" away, I get a balanced sound. I add a bit of EQ (hi pass rolloff plus 2db of 10k and a touch of hi mid boost), followed by compression. Less compression yields a bigger, clearer sound.

Song a Day 2010: Stuck on a Ferris Wheel

2010-02-03T01:39:00.000-08:00

Another song written and recorded in a couple of hours. I forced myself to stick with experimental first takes, with minimal or no punch ins on any of the tracks. And it shows.

I used keyboards for all of the instrumentation this time around. Mixed using headphones, which is probably a bad idea - but I'm really worried about waking up the family.

The idea behind this song was to write a song in a style that I've never tried before. I imagined Jack White pounding on a piano and singing at the top of his range. That's not how it turned out at all.

Song A Day 2010: I Would Really Like to Rock

2010-02-02T02:07:00.000-08:00

Song A Day

Wrote and recorded 'I Would Really Like to Rock' in a couple of hours. While singing the high harmony, Emma woke up and wandered into the living room. I escorted her back to bed, waited about 20 minutes for her to fall back asleep, then continued working.

The arrangement is about the same as the previous song ("Good Luck"), but with a DI bass part and some background vocals added.

I'm realizing how hard it is to sing in tune when I don't know the song. It would also be easier to belt out the vocals a bit more, but as the lyrics explain, the rest of the family was in bed, so I had to sing very quietly. At least the other instruments are horribly out of tune as well, so it all kinda averages out in the end.

Song a Day begins again: 2010

2010-01-31T21:47:00.000-08:00

It's time again for Song A Day. I spent the weekend writing up some notes with ideas for songs, but this time around there is a distinct lack of material from which to forge new songs.

As I've done 2 years running, I wrote a kickoff song about Song A Day itself. The song itself is pretty ho-hum, but a few of the lyrics are funny. I recorded everything (piano, acoustic guitar, vocals) in about 70 minutes and spent no more than 10 minutes on the mix. The main vocal was done in a single take, with a single punch-in on one line. Guitar and piano were also recorded quickly, with all mistakes left in the final mix. Song A Day is all about immediacy. There's no room for craft.

Vox and guitar was recorded with the U87 into the Millenia Media HV3B as usual. I fed the vocal signal into an 88RS (hi pass filter @ 240hz + 1-2db of 10k and 5k), and finally into a Fairchild 660 at the fastest release setting. As long as the mic diaphram is pointing down at my nose - about 10" to 14" away - the sound is pretty accurate.

Song A Day 3/05/09

2009-03-05T18:36:00.001-08:00

2/27/2009 Contest Winner

The crowd noises were taken from Sgt Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band (the title track). You can hear bleed-through of Paul's bass during the fadeout.

2/27/2009 Nothing Is Impossible

The lyrics are either expressing wide-eyed optimism or vicious cynicism, take your pick. It's not a particularly good recording. Drums were recorded using a modified Glynn Johns mic setup, but with a 414 as the main overhead. As a (failed) experiment, I recorded the bass using a close mic (U87) plus a distant mic (414 - about 6 feet away from the speaker cab). Both mics picked up a muddy, indistinct bass sound. On the other hand, the electric guitar (Jay Turner through Tremolux, no effects) came out nice.

2/28/2009 Lincoln Ought to Be

I wanted to end song-a-day 2009 with a hard rock song, and here it is. The meter changes from 7/4 to 4/4 and back again, which adds a bit of variety to what is otherwise a straightforward tune.

The guitar tracks were Les Paul and Jay Turner into a VVT Earthquake 5.1, a frighteningly loud and powerful hand-wired, all-tube monstrosity that was custom built to Peter Johnson's exacting requirements. Thanks for letting me borrow this amp, Peter! It's got 3 separately controlled gain stages in 'lead' mode, so I spent a lot of time tweaking the knobs until I found the kind of tone that was right for the song. Note that I used the middle position on the pickup selector for the solo to get a smoother, less strident kind of 70's guitar sound.

Drums were recorded using the Glynn Johns mic setup, with a 57 as the main overhead. Bass was a combination of tube DI and U87 miked 4x10 cab through the SVT. As an experiment, I tried to get a low-mid kind of bass tone through the amp. After mixing everything, I think it's usually better to get more of an upper-mid, thinner kind of miked sound.

Song A Day 2/27/2009

2009-02-27T15:47:00.000-08:00

We're nearing the end of Song-A-Day 2009, which is a huge relief. I've delivered 19 songs so far, which is a decent amount of output.

2/22/2009 DCA

I tried something different for recording the drums on this one. Rather than using the 414 as drum OH in a modified Glynnn Johns configuration, I used a Shure SM 57 instead. The idea was to increase the amount of snare drum attack and impact by using a dynamic mic rather than a condenser mic (which tends to compress loud transients) and to attenuate the high frequencies of the cymbals. When the OH track is soloed, the sound is typical MS 57, thin and peaky with with a lot of high mids. However, when blended with the U87 mic positioned near the floor tom and aimed across the snare at the rack tom, the overall result is pretty good.

I had left the U87 on the Omni pattern by accident from a previous recording, but I like how it picked up the room sound, which was exaggerated by the drum buss compression. Accidents like this can be very cool.

As another experiment, I minimized the amount of snare drum muffling (used a single moon-gell) to get more tone out of the drum so that the compression would bring it out to create a more powerful snare sound. It worked! Only other weird thing I tried was to remove the rack tom from the kit completely. Why? Laziness and fear. It takes 1 full minute to attach it to the kick drum, and I didn't have a minute to spare.

The two guitar tracks were Les Paul into the Tremolux, cranked to 10 and passed through a THD Hot Plate to reduce the output level. No effects were used, as usual. I aimed the U87 directly at the center cone of the closed back, bottom half of the 2x12 cabinet (loaded with 65 watt Celestions) in Omni mode. I tried using Cardioid as well, and that sounded maybe a bit better to me. I'm not exactly sure whether I ended up using Omni or Cardioid in the final recordings, but the difference between them was very subtle.

I'm not thrilled with the lack of low-mids that I can get out the amp/speaker/guitar combo. I'd like to get more of a meaty, low-mid grind happening, similar to what Chris gets on all of his guitar tracks. With very little time available to experiment, I tried moving the mic around a bit (further back from amp, off-axis to the speaker cone, etc), but ultimately preferred the close mic'ed, center-cone approach. Used some EQ during mixdown to dial in some low mids.

Experimented with the bass recording by using an old Fender Bassman instead of the SVT and mic'ing with the 414 instead of the U87. I used the neck pickup on the Rickenbacker and played with a thin guitar pick. As usual, the felt mutes were carefully adjusted to provide the right balance of pick attack and sustain.

Impressions: The bassman didn't do much for me. I really prefer the clarity and tone of the SVT. The 414 was pretty much a disaster. I positioned it a couple of feet away from the center cone of a speaker in the 4x10 cabinet, but the track was dull, muffled, and weak-sounding. I used a LOT of heavy EQ and compression during mixdown to create a decent bass sound. The DI track was mixed about 50/50 with the amp track.

Vocals were handled the usual way, with the U87. Overall, I'm happy with the mix, the song and the performances.

2/23/2009 Lillian

Straightforward acoustic ballad with a bit of Alesis QS6.1 piano thrown in at the end. Although I tend to use Propellerhead Reason pianos for most recordings, I'll use the Alesis when I'm in a big hurry or if I want the out-of-tune, thick piano sound it provides. Used the U87 for guitars and vocals.

2/24/2009 Bagel

This throwaway piece of garbage features the old Harmony Rocket into the Groovetubes DI and U87 vocals. Nothing else.

2/26/2009 Dig Deep

I really, really like this song, but the recording represents a major step backward in terms of sound quality. Sometimes, things just go wrong and there's no time to fix them.

Although I recorded the acoustic guitars through the U87, for some reason the sound was especially dull and wimpy. For one thing, the strings on the Martin are pretty much dead - not surprising given the heavy use of this guitar all month. Secondly, the mic was positioned a bit further away than my usual set up of 10" -6" from the 12th fret. Also, I aimed the mic more at the guitar body than the spot where the neck joins the body (in hopes of getting more low-end in the recording). This certainly didn't help. In the end, I added gobs of EQ to save the guitars, but they sound horrible.

In my frenzied attempt to finish tracking before 2:00 AM, I threw up the vocal mic with no time spent on positioning to get a good sound. Rather than using the time-tested approach of having the mic at forehead level and aimed slightly downward, I ended up singing more or less directly at the diaphragm. I should know better by now! Results were muddy and wimpy sounding, just like the acoustic guitars. Again, I loaded on pounds of EQ and compression to salvage the vocal tracks. Yech. For Song-A-Day, it hardly matters. Nevertheless, the takeaway lesson is this: always strive to get the best possible sound directly from the mic, with no effects or sweetening. You really can't 'add' clarity to a muddy track.

On the positive side, the bass track turned out great! It's the Rick into the tube DI with 1167 compression and aggressive EQ used for mixdown (added a big midrange peak and a bump around 150hz). It's a bit on the boomy side perhaps, but somehow I just love the sound.

Used the Alesis for piano again.

For guitar parts, I ran the Jay Turner into a Bad Monkey overdrive and the tube DI. The strange 'honky' midrange tone of the intro lick was achieved by selecting a combination of the first and second P90 pickups. Neat sound!

Song A Day 2/22/2009

2009-02-22T15:52:00.000-08:00

2/17/2009: Welcome to Pleasanton

This number has a lounge-jazz kind of feel up until the chorus, where it switches to more of a Loving Spoonful type of sing-along song. I plugged my 1968 hollow body Harmony Rocket into the tube DI (Groovetubes Brick) and used the neck pickup to get a bassy, 'bloopy' sound. U87 used again for vocals.

2/19/2009: Solid Ground

Another acoustic ballad. Used the U87 for everything. At this point, I've worked out a simple production template for these kinds of songs. I aim the U87 at the 12th fret of the Martin M3SC acoustic guitar and add some gentle compression (usually the Urei 1176 UAD plugin) and (depending on my UAD cpu 'budget'), the Pultic EQ to add a bit of 8-10k and 3-5k. For vocals, I position the mic stand to the left of the workstation monitor, with the U87 aimed downward somewhere between my nose and my mouth. I'll either use the UAD Fairchild 670 compressor or the Waves Rvox plugin during mixdown. For reverb, I add a touch of Plate 140 (another UAD plugin). I master using the UAD UltraMaximizer plugin, using the moderate 3-band limiter setting.

2/20/2009: Waiting

Ho hum, another acoustic ballad about Disneyland. It's just too easy. Added a melodic bass part using the Rickenbacker 2003 directly into the Groovetubes Brick. For bass, I prefer using the 1176 compressor plugin, though I've used the Teletronix LA2A (UAD)plugin. 9 times out of 10 I'll use the Waves Renaissance EQ to tame boomy low frequencies and add a midrange peak.

Peter told me that the opening riff sounds identical to Led Zeppelin's Going to California. He's right, but it wasn't intentional. Call it unconscious plagiarism.

Song A Day 2/18/02

2009-02-18T13:32:00.000-08:00

2/08/09: I Am the Man

Wrote this one while ice skating in Dublin, CA. It's an homage to Seth's Peace on Earth video and song that was making the rounds on Facebook (and elsewhere). That song made me realize that it's okay to say what you're thinking in a lyric, even if it exposes your political/philosophical views to a hostile world. Now everyone's going to think that I'm a tax-and-spend, bleeding-heart liberal who is naive enough to believe in things such as 'we are all one' and 'love is the answer'. On the other hand, I'm very much a lost soul who stumbles blindly through life, with little interest in anything other than E-ticket rides at Disneyland and a properly-cooked steak. I'm no activist.

Anyway, I'm trying to write songs that are completely out of my comfort zone in terms of lyrics, so tackling this kind of subject matter was very difficult - painful, even. I have a fear of what I call the 'Neil Pert Lyric Syndrome', where horrible, unmentionable words such as 'society' are used in lyrics without a sense of irony. It's especially egregious if the singer didn't write the lyrics; otherwise, the 'Niel Young' effect may mitigate the this effect, whereupon the singer is considered to be so sincere that we forgive forays into self-righteousness and usage of words like 'society'. In any case, I applied what I call the 'John Lennon' effect, where a sardonic tone makes any words or sentiment acceptable, regardless of whether the lyricist and the singer are one and the same.

I used the U87 for recording everything. This is one of my very first attempts at recording a lead vocal that is not doubled throughout. I'm becoming interested in the idea of 'naked' singing, which eschews the usual production sweetening effects of doubling and heavy processing. So what if I'm a lousy singer. I'll get better.

2/12/09: Taxonomy

Wrote this piece of nonsense while serving jury duty, including the arrangement. Recording was straight-forward; a couple of acoustic guitar tracks and some vocals. Used the U87 for everything.

2/13/09: Hawaii

This was an improv with Emma singing and yours truly strumming a ukulele. Her performance was brilliant; I absolutely love the lyrics (especially the punch line at the end), though I was startled by the line about 'fancy drinks', which is an odd thing for a 6-year-old to sing about.

For this recording I used the U87 in an omni pattern. Later on I added some light kicks on the kick drum - picked up by the U87 in the omni pattern.

2/14/09: Monkeys and Clowns

This is an old-school 'Beanpole' type of track. I was still feeling uncomfortable with the process of writing lyrics for I am the Man, so I thought about other subjects and words that are unacceptable for most song writers. And this is the result.

The weird vocals following the first verse are intended to imitate the one instrument that I associate with both monkeys and clowns: a pipe organ. I picture an organ grinder with a giant handlebar mustache, cranking away at the organ strapped around his neck while a clown juggles a few rhesus monkeys before a few disinterested tourists at Pier 39 in San Francisco.

2/15/09: All You Can Eat Buffet

I slaved over this one for the entirety of a 3-day weekend, save for a few hours that I spent producing tracks for my very talented singer-songwriter-playwright friend John Hamilton on Sunday. I wanted to go for a full production on this one, so I went nuts with the tracking.

There's a basic harmonic/structural concept behind this song. It has two parts: A and B. Part A has choruses that never properly resolve before moving on to the next verse or bridge. This is because Part B does nothing other than resolve the chord sequence introduced in Part A over and over again. Given some more time to master the track, I would fade out Part B, which would further reinforce the chord resolution concept.

Drums: used the modified Glynn Johns mic setup (4 mics) as usual, but left the floor tom mic (U87) in an omni pattern rather than cardioid. The new Remo Blackdot head has improved the snare sound tremendously, though I want to get more of the percussive impact of stick hitting drum that what I'm currently getting with the two overheads and the under-snare mic. It's all still too mushy. I'll add a 57 as a top-snare mic the next time I record drums. I worked on the drum tuning for hours and it was well worth the time spent, particulary the kick. Adding a new Evans EQ Pad kick drum muffler (plus a pillow) seems to help too. I think the new wooden 'stage' has improved the overall mic response to higher frequencies as well.

Used the Les Paul through Tremolux setup again, but the results were kinda lousy. To hide the intonation problems, I slapped a flanger/chorus plugin over the guitar tracks. I used a multi-band compressor with a lot of low-mid boost to provide a bit of meatiness to the tone.

Note: I spoke with Chris to find out his secret sauce for capturing such thick, meaty, powerful guitar tracks. Next time I record rock guitar parts, set the U87 on omni mode (to minimize proximity effect) and aim at the closed-back bottom half of the speaker cabinet rather than the open-backed top half. This should add some beefy low-mids to the sound. Also, Chris uses a low wattage ZVex tube amp. Because output is so low, the mic diaphragm is able to capture all of the impact and detail of the waveform without distortion. I'll just turn down the volume on the THD Hotplate unit that I've borrowed from Peter.

Bass came out pretty good. Split the signal at the tube DI (Groovetubes Brick) into the SVT, and positioned the U87 in front of the 4x10 speaker cab. I tend to prefer this cab to the 1x15, simply because the bigger speaker pumps out too much sub-lows for my purposes. For a change, I used the bridge pickup on the Rickenbacker 4003 to get a plucker sound. It's not thin-sounding ... especially when blended with the DI signal. I've finally overcome my fear of the Rickenbacker's bridge pickup.

For vocals, I positioned the U87 about 3 feet away from my mouth and sang upward into the diaphragm. I'm beginning to understand how to use this mic for my vocals. In a nutshell: never use the bass rolloff switch, control low-end response by moving further or closer from the mic, and aim the mic down at my nose rather than parallel with my face (improves clarity). Usually sounds good with the UAD Fairchild 670 compressor plugin with the Release switch set to position #2. Sometimes I may add a bit of hi-mids or lower-treble with the Pultec plugin - depending on my UAD cpu 'budget' for a particular project. At last, I'm starting to like the U87.

Song A Day: 2/10/2009

2009-02-10T18:30:00.000-08:00

02\06\09: Me and the Pope

I had some time on Saturday to write and record a rock song, so I worked very quickly. Threw down the guitar tracks first, consisting of:

1. Jaguar clone (Jay Turner) with 3 P90s (Vintage Vibe) into '63 Tremolux w/ 2x12 Celestions.

2. Les Paul Custom into same amp.

Aimed the U87 at the center cone of the top speaker.

Recorded the vocals (U87). Used a modified Glynn Johns miking configuration for the drums (414 OH, U87 just above the floor tom and aimed at the rack tom, D112 in kick (with front head removed) and SM81 below the snare.

I constructed a 1" deep wooden floor out of 4x8 OSR planks, complete with metal brackets to prevent the kick drum from sliding forward. Drum sounds have improved as a result. I'm not very happy with the Evans EC head on the snare, however. It makes the snare drum sound too boxy and timbale-ish for my taste. I've already ordered a Remo Black Dot (single ply) as a replacement. Oh well.

Bass was recorded through a Bad Monkey overdrive into the Groovetubes DI.

This needs to be properly mixed.

02/07/09: Second Life

Used the U87 for vocals and the same mic setup for the drums. The mix that I uploaded (around 2 AM Monday) isn't quite right, so I plan to upload a better mix once Chris sets up the track editing feature in the admin tools.

Song A Day: 2/06/09

2009-02-06T20:26:00.000-08:00

Song-A-Day: 2/06/09

Jury Selection

Jury duty is a worst-case scenario. The selection process, which I must attend daily from 8 AM to 1:30 PM 5 days a week, may drag on for weeks. Once jury selection is over, the trial phase is expected to last another 7 weeks. I swear that if anyone tells me that jury duty is justified because it is my 'civic duty', I will place that person's head in an electric pencil sharpener.

I used a completely different process to write this song. First, I sat down and wrote out some lyrics. Next, I noodled around a guitar while speaking the words aloud until a basic melodic shape began to take form. Then it was a matter of polishing the melody, lyrics and chord sequence until it all made sense to me, followed by a quick recording session (mostly first takes).

I used the 414C for guitar and vox. It generates an extremely low output; I had to crank the Groovetubes preamp gain to 11 in order to capture a usable signal on disk. Still, the sound is pretty good. It doesn't have the ugly bass build-up and metallic, shrill presence peak of the U87, nor does it have the slightly attenuated midrange response of the M81. Treble response is pretty good and the midrange is solid. Overall, it lacks the authoritative midrange power of the U87 and the percussive transients of the MS81. I'm happy to have 3 condenser mics with complimentary strengths and weaknesses across the audible frequency range.

Song A Day: 2/5/2009

2009-01-22T10:57:00.001-08:00

We're 5 days into the Song-A-Day project hosted at songaday.netscrap.com.

I wrote down some snippets of lyric ideas last month as part of preparation for this project, but I've far less prepared this year than I was for last year's event.

My plan is to spend minimal time on production, which means that there will be more badly recorded sounds and out-of-tune/inept instrumental/vocal performances than usual. I cringe at every little mistake I hear (especially vocals), but I've decided to accept each and every clam. Song-A-Day is (to me) about cranking out content very quickly, thus bypassing my internal quality control filters that usually prevent me from writing anything at all. Song performances only serve to deliver what matters: half-conceived music and lyrics.

Also, even if a song cries out for an arrangement with drums and electric guitars through a cranked amp, it's unlikely to happen. I may go for more elaborate productions on a song or two before the project comes to an end... time will tell.

I've learned a few engineering techniques that are being put into practice this month. For example, I should never sing directly into the U87. Instead, the mic should be positioned above my nose and angled down slightly, without using the hi-pass filter. I have to adjust the low-end boost (proximity effect) by standing closer/further from the mic.

The U87 adds a slightly harsh-sounding presence boost to vocals that isn't as nice as the high-end sheen imparted to recordings captured by the SM81. On the other hand, the U87 offers superior low-mids and midrange than the SM81. After years of experimenting with both mics, I'm still trying to figure out which types of vocals are served best by either mic.

I'll use the 414C for some tracks as well, just to see how it stacks up against the others. My 414 is pretty old and crusty. Unlike modern 414s, it houses a C12 capsule instead of the standard 414 capsule and doesn't provide a hi-pass filter.

I spent considerable time last year learning how to interpret the frequency response of my Event 20/20-BAS powered monitors in terms of how tracks mixed on them translate to typical stereo speakers. The training has begun to pay off, because the first 4 recordings I've completed this week sounded about right on my Logitech 3-way computer speakers. Compare this to last year's song-a-day event, when I was continually frustrated by tracks that sounded good on the Event monitors while collapsing into a mushy, boomy, muddy mess on the Logitech speakers or a car stereo.

2/1/2009: Song A Day

This is my launch song for this month-long project. Recording notes: 2 acoustic guitar tracks were recorded with a combination of SM81 aimed at the 12th fret and a U87 aimed at top of the guitar body (angled inward slightly toward the sound hole). Used the U87 for vocals. Plugged the bass directly into the Groovetubes mic preamp/DI and played using fingers through the bridge pickup. I'm planning to use DI'd bass for most of these recordings, even though this produces lifeless bass tracks.

2/2/2009: Jury Duty

Tried a different songwriting process for this one. I recorded myself singing and playing guitar 'live' with absolutely no lyric or chord/melody ideas worked out beforehand. I wrote down the improvised lyrics and recorded one more 'live' performance of singing/playing - just one take and without the aid of a click track. I added the bass track immediately afterward, again committing to a single take. I'll probably use these techniques on future song-a-day recordings, though I don't particularly enjoy listening to the results.

Guitar was recorded DI through a Guyatone TZ2 fuzz box. Bass was recorded DI through a Bad Monkey overdrive. I spent no time trying to get usable sounds - or even to tune the instruments.

2/3/2009: Where is Walt

Stuck to the usual writing/recording process this time. This one's about the Disney company's transition of leadership from Card Walker to Michael Eisner. As an experiment, I used the SM81 for recording guitar and vocals.

2/4/2009: Disneyland

Yet another song about Disneyland. I didn't have the time to record an interesting arrangement, so it's pretty sparse - just piano and bass. Vocals were recorded with the U87.

I went for a 1960's kind of plucky bass sound, which is difficult to achieve when going direct rather than miking up a bass amp. The trick is to apply the Rickenbacher 4003's felt mutes and to pick aggressively but cleanly between the neck and the neck pickup, then add heavy compression and EQ.

10/6/08

2008-10-06T11:34:00.000-07:00

Set up this new blog for articles about Disneyland, audio engineering/recording and maybe some webdev hints/tips