The Year of Twelve Songs, Pt 8
This Month’s Song
This song is several years old now. I originally wrote and sang it as sort of a plaintive Dylanesque acoustic number. The lyrics were co-written with a friend, who sent me a loosely structured lament (could be called a rant, I guess) on the state of humanity, political and otherwise. He basically posed that old Dave Letterman question, is this anything? Being like-minded about the lament/rant in question, I was inspired to make a song out of what he sent. Thanks, John Moorhead.
Like I said, originally an acoustic solo number, but I long had a niggling vision of this as more of a rocker—distorted guitars, something like war drums, etcetera. So, this is my attempt to realize that vision.
Performance & Production
My most ambitious song yet in terms of the Year of Twelve Songs project. I played almost all the instruments manually: three guitar parts plus the bass part, which was played on my Taylor hybrid but run through a MIDI program that turns guitar notes into bass notes (or almost anything else). And I doubled the vocals (even tripled at one point). I used GarageBand’s digital drummer to create the drums.
Many days of big fun was had. Maybe too many! ;)
Gear & Software
(Tech shit)
Guitars: Taylor T5z
Plug-ins: Waves CLA Vocals; MIDI Guitar for GarageBand
Educational Resources: Colin Cross, TheBandGuide.com; Joe Gilder, HomeStudioCorner.com
Hardware: MacBook Air 2020, with AOC 27-inch auxiliary monitor.
Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Audio Interface
Beyerdynamic DT900 ProX Open-back Headphones
PreSonus E5 Studio Monitors
PreSonus M7 Cardioid Condenser Microphone
AKG P170 Small Condenser Microphones (2)