End of year project review
It has been ages since I finished a track for the James, Not Jim project. But, now that the semester is finally over, there may be hope. I decided that I'm too much of a perfectionist when it comes to audio and that I should take the open source mantra of "release early, release often" to heart. So dug through my James, Not Jim project folder and did quick and dirty mp3 mixes of everything that looked remotely promising. Here they are, warts and all. Tell me which ones you like, which ones you don't. Constructive criticism and outright snarking is welcome:
Araby
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Brahms Lulaby
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Chang, Chang
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Circus
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First Run with Gearbox
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Funky Wav
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Loopy Llama Test
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One Four Five
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Portrait
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Postage
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Second Run with Gearbox
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Smoove
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If you'd rather download the mp3's, just hit the audio folder:
jamesnotjim.com/audio/
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December 19th, 2007 - 11:55
My impressions after a couple of listens:If the melody weren’t so immediately recognizable, your “Brahm’s Lullaby” sounds like contemplative pre- or post-gunfight music from a Western. Not quite Leone (and hence, Morricone) or Peckinpah, but a nice, solid John Sturges effort.Twenty-two seconds of “One Four Five” is not enough. I’d like to hear where you’re taking that. It deserves a longer treatment like “Araby,” which I also like.”Circus” in particular sounds nimble, but on both it and “Portrait,” I wish the percussion, which is a little too metronomic, was mixed at a lower volume so not to distract from your playing.”Postage” sounds like something The Police would have recorded, circa Zenyatta Mondatta. A little repetitious at first, though; I might like to hear the changeover come sooner than the 1:18 mark.And I get the strongest Stanley Clarke vibe from “Funky Wav.”
December 19th, 2007 - 13:18
Thanks, Shepcat. I knew I could count on you for some commentary. I decided to do “Brahm’s Lullaby” for my (soon to be born) son. I had planned an entire EP of lullaby’s. So far, this is the only one I’ve worked up. But, maybe I should take the backing tracks and try to come up with another melody for it, to make it an original work.
“One Four Five” is one I had entirely forgotten about until I did this bit of winter housekeeping. I’ll expand on that one. I can noodle over that progression forever. The trick will be finding a strong melody for it.
“Araby” is a track I’ve had around for years but have never recorded. That one is close to done. Some of the bridge parts (toward the end) are brand new. So I’m still tinkering with them.
Good point about the percussion. I really could use a drummer as a collaborator. I lay the drum track first and rarely revisit it. But all of the drum tracks need work. And I’ll take your advice about mixing them in lower.
I recorded “Postage” as a backing track for a guitarist friend, who was going to add some lines over the top. But that never really happened, so I’m going to take it myself and add a melody to it. I have another mix of it where all the parts are repeated half as many times. So I’ll go back to that one and try to find a melody. Good call on the Police vibe. That whole piece stared out with the electric guitar, which is a Telecaster (like Summers’) and the most Police-ish patch I could find. :)
December 19th, 2007 - 13:38
I just listened to these as mp3 and it’s amazing how bad the drums sound now that they’ve been compressed. I’ll have to check the settings on my mp3 encoder.