As I mentioned in my last post, I felt that my attempt at the rhythm section for “Fool Play” resulted in plodding along instead of having a desirable groove.
Today I attempted to get the groove back and find the “feel.”
I decided to just play the bass along with the metronome (115 bpm for those “scoring” at home). I then sang, first with hand claps – which were overbearing and not always quite on time, then alone – though you can hear my hand slapping my thigh if you listen closely (a special treat).
I attempted to add some cymbal, but was experiencing the delay I sometimes get after recording analog parts. So, when I struck the key (in this case just using the computer keyboard), the cymbal sounded a bit later. This was extremely unhelpful to someone who was already finding it challenging to keep the beat. I tried quantizing and moving cymbal hits and got close, but did not achieve “cigar.”
Here is the vocals and bass with some effects applied. I am “feeling” better – though I am thinking of putting this one on the back burner for a little bit and moving on to another. Perhaps my muse will guide me.
With regards to my previous attempt to “be” the rhythm section, my good friend, and Get-Up drummer, Alan said: “There are moments of rhythmic harmony though also enough off beats that would make it hard to build upon.” (That could be said of the state of the planet.) Alas, I had listened with a fresh ear prior to receiving his text and realized that it would have to be fixed or re-recorded.
I dug in this morning to see what I could salvage.
Alan recommended:
“…if you’re close to the beat quantizing can help.
Also, lots of programs have visual screens to be able to literally move the notes to the beat.
…consider a click that you record to then ultimately delete.”
I have worked with the quantization feature of my DAW before and did a search to see if I could find out if I was using it correctly. The results of the search were both disappointing, there were a lot of YouTube tutorials (I prefer text & screen shots), and intimidating – I was reminded that the great deal I’ve learned about recording is a minuscule portion of the whole.
I concluded that, for what I’ve been doing, I’ve been using the quantization feature correctly.
As far as the song pieces, I deleted everything except the drums. I found a section that was decent and looped it. I quantized – I think to the 16th note – and moved a few drum “hits.” After “committing” to the quantization, I tried applying a Swing “groove” – a software feature about which I read during my research that’s supposed to give the beat a more “human” feel.
I feel that the result is better – though I’m not quite there yet. I leaned hard on The Spinners’ “I’ll Be Around” in the hopes that I could achieve something close to that soul “feel.” I recorded bass again – streamlining the part to support the desired result. I practiced some singing, borrowing some of the phrasing from the classic track.
I think, a while back, I said that I would only be posting “finished” stuff from then on out, but it’s harder than I thought it would be. Back to Alan: “Timing is tough, especially if you are building the songs track by track.”
Here is my latest imperfect effort with some practice singing.
Worked on the base for Fool Play this morning. Kinda modified Dory’s parents’ advice and just kept drumming. Using my Casio keyboard to drive the midi, I believe I kept time well-enough using three fingers to tap out the kick & snare drums plus a cymbal – the basics.
In keeping with traditional wisdom – bolstered by E-Home Recording Studio’s Music 101: The Four Steps to Recording a Song, I added the bass line to complete the rhythm section for the track. I then used some organ for the basic harmony and attempted a little Motown-ish staccato strum on acoustic guitar.
I practiced some singing over it, but nothing worth sharing or saving. Here is just-under-a-minute of everything but the vocals.
