RPM Challenge 2011

eyeprod · February 11, 2011, 11:04:18 AM

alright dudes, got another one in the bag. Pretty doomy sounding shit. I ended up ripping off e wiz a little, but it sounds cool so fuck it

eyeprod · February 15, 2011, 11:10:35 PM

well I finished. Pretty happy with the results. I've got my 35 minutes worth of music, but ended up with a couple of tracks that don't totally fit with the others. Might try and write a couple more, or just go with it as is. Polishing it all up now. whew. This challenge really took a hold of me in many ways. I'm glad it did, but it's become a bit of an obsession. Now I have to slow down and let it go

Danny G · February 17, 2011, 11:54:27 AM

Well fuck you too, eyeprod

That's awesome.

I am diving back into this as my lady was in town for a week visiting. Didn't stop me from working on what I could as she loves hearing me play and loves watching me work.

But clock is ticking. Am going forward with the Split-EP idea, half regular instrumental music more or less like what I've done last 2 years. Other half will be music inspired by the book "House of Leaves", which may be just one long fucking song. So far have 11 minutes in 2 movements for that one. First EP has basic tracks done for one song with another idea I've demo'd which I ain't 100% on.

Today will be doing keeper drums for the House of Leaves behemoth, dig the flow I had just farting around with the original two ideas-second idea came into being after I forgot how the drum part originally went at end of song and started playing something else entirely, was able to fade in a second drum track and just went for it for another 5+ minutes. Sounds pretty cool so far.

neighbor664 · February 18, 2011, 12:19:56 AM

I've been more practicing recording than laying down usable tracks. Things have been so busy at work that I've known I wouldn't have the time or the environment to record as I'd like. This means I've had to refine how I was going to record within the constraints I've got. A few being...... I live by a Caltrain station, a busy intersection AND an airport private planes. There is allot of ambient noise! This makes for problems using a sensitive condenser and acoustic guitar. I've mostly been writing on acoustic these days. Most of the guitar is chord changes to support the vocal. No real "riffing" to speak of.

I've got my amps at home but it is an apartment with thin walls. I was certainly getting some nice sounds out of my amp, but I'll have to save those for the more produced, less hurried versions of these songs. As a courtesy to my neighbors I pretty much try to only record in the window of time between when I get home at night and 10pm. Many times that's only left a short amount of time. Add to that a cold that wouldn't go away and I didn't get much (tangible) finished. Lots of trial and error and practice.

For this project I've been recording on my Zoom H4 using an Sm-58 for vocals instead of the H4's condenser mic. The guitar is using the amp models in the Zoom heated up a bit with od-808.
It's going to be a bare-bones, field recording. The plan is to do guitar and lead vocal in one live take then minimal overdubs limited mostly to leads and a few vocals.

My company is putting me up at a nice hotel in Monterey for a few days next week. The hours are not too bad and I should have a few evenings free to record. I am hoping my presumptions about how the room will be come to pass. If they do, I'm going to do the bulk of my tracking there.

eyeprod · February 18, 2011, 02:46:18 AM

good luck dudes! I got lucky, and am lucky to have lots of free time after work, three day weekends, and can get as loud as I want. Made most of my tracks from a drum/bass starting point. Every tune I tried to start on guitar failed right away because my drum skills are limited. I got one acoustic song that has no drums, so that is the only one that is based on guitar.

giantchris · February 18, 2011, 03:20:20 AM

I need to re-record the guitar on the one thing I got and possibly re-arrange it. Then I need to program drums for 4 tracks and write lyrics to 2 of them. Gotta improvise 2 guitar solos and a bass solo though. The guitar solos will most likely blow but I'm going to give it a shot. Lotta work to do still :d

I think what I'm gonna do is try to get 2 7 minute songs and one of the 3 minute ones done and then finish with this really long isis style instrumental I am writing where I basically wrote a bunch of really long chord progressions with 3 long riff/chord parts and am just going to jam over the progressions and use the written parts as transitions.

Everyone post your stuff when its finished!

Danny G · February 18, 2011, 12:08:22 PM

N664, you should leave all the ambient noise in there. Like that Zeppelin song that starts off acoustic, you hear a plane flying over and Robert Plant says, "Nah, leave it!"

Looks like I'll be re-tracking at least half the drums I did yesterday. Again, tempo too fast and losing the initial groove. Right now working on parts 1 and 2 of the concept idea based on 'House of Leaves'. Added a third part as well. Is it RPM cheating if I breathe new life into something I wrote in 1994? heh. My rock singer housemate says she'll be working on vocals for the 2 previous songs this weekend, very excited to hear what she'll come up with.

Waiting for her boyfriend to wake up so I can get to work--the last thing a drummer battling the flu needs to hear in his sleep is lackluster drumming...

neighbor664 · February 19, 2011, 05:10:45 PM

SOME of that ambient noise could be ok if it happened in the right spots and didn't drown out some quiet delicate part or break my concentration. I'd forgot to mention another noise. My fucking heater makes all sorts of noise. An arrhythmic, random ticking. Not good for stuff with no drums. Not good while it 's cold.

Danny G · February 20, 2011, 12:05:40 PM

OK, posted what I got to my RPM page. Basic rhythm tracks and rough mix for 3 songs: "Sunrise on the Sea Floor," "untitled," and parts I and II of "House of Leaves".

First 2 awaiting guest vocals and possibly guitar (and a title), and need a remix as the bass is waaaay too boomy. Third awaiting one or two more parts, might go back and clean some things up or add some more layers.

This is about 21 minutes so far. Have material for rest of the album, just need to finish it!!!

http://rpmchallenge.com/userplayer/7723/01%20Sunrise%20on%20the%20Sea%20Floor.mp3

http://rpmchallenge.com/userplayer/7723/02%20Untitled.mp3

http://rpmchallenge.com/userplayer/7723/01%20Untitled.mp3

neighbor664 · February 20, 2011, 12:41:13 PM

that's awesome Danny! I hate you.

eyeprod · February 20, 2011, 05:59:20 PM

sounds good, Danny! I like that last track. Quite a few nice changes. Pretty clean sounding playing and recordings overall. I had to utilize noise as much as possible. Whenever I try for that kind of clean sound I fail. How many mics are you using on your drum kit? Share some of your methods, if you would. I was only using one on the kick and an overhead pointed towards the snare, but am pretty happy with what I got using compression and eq.

Danny G · February 20, 2011, 06:49:39 PM

Am using my PA mixer for 3 drum mics: kick, snare and overhead. PA output is mono so no panning, recording that onto 2 tracks and splitting them up a little for some depth.

All bass and guitars are my Epi Valve Stnd 15w chassis powering either my Marshall 4x12 or a 200w Ampeg 4x10. Mic's are pretty much up close to whatever speaker w/duct tape to mark the sweet spot. I try not to be too picky with sounds. Experiment w/mic placement a bit and stick with what sounds good right away.

Have an EQ at my disposal which, time permitting, I may experiment a bit with it in mixing down, use it on the drums and bring out some more frequencies.

Just added another 5:30 to House of Leaves. And can probably still add on to that. Will have to split it into 2 separate songs for mixing/uploading purposes. Darn.

eyeprod · February 20, 2011, 07:13:26 PM

cool. I was also using my sunn pa head as a preamp for everything, then going from there into my usb soundcard. For guitar and bass, I used my ampeg v4 through an open back 2x12. On a couple of bass and vocal tracks I went direct. Then on some bass parts I miked the cab close, and used the gibson falcon amp also miked close for vocals. It's got a great reverb and tremolo. I just used what stage mikes I have, an sm58 and an audix i5.

I did use several plug in effects in cubase. I ended up getting one nice sounding mix, then copied that setup to all of my tracks to keep some sonic consistency. Each one I tweaked a little on it's own. It was fun.

Danny G · February 26, 2011, 03:24:02 PM

Very rough mix of part 2 of "House of Leaves". Had to break "House of Leaves" into 2 separate songs for uploading and mixing purposes. No bass, and you can hear me coughing in the background because apparently when you mix down on my 8-track and there is a mic plugged in it will record sound.

I am already admitting defeat for the RPM deadline. Have too much goin on in my life I need to attend to and was sick for 3 days with a full gig schedule. However, I will finish this music in my own free goddam time and do it right.

House of Leaves pt. II http://rpmchallenge.com/userplayer/7723/02%20Track%2002%201.mp3

neighbor664 · February 27, 2011, 01:42:05 PM

Seeing that Danny wont be making the deadline makes me feel a little better, though his project is much more ambitious than mine. I can't pull it off this year. I would be very curious to know what percentage of people who do complete the challenge are actually gainfully employed. I barely pulled it off las year and I was out of work then. This year it has been damn near impossible to have any time at all for it.

My intent for this project was simply to "demo" some songs to use to show to other musicians for the real recording. I may post some of the tracks anyway but not as RPM.

giantchris · February 28, 2011, 04:26:03 AM

I didn't finish mine either although I wrote enough material. Had to research and buy a new car/fix credit rating and it ended up taking up the last week or so. I did however write a whole bunch of great stuff which I want to finish arranging and consolidate into a strong set and play some shows later this year.

I also work 60 hours a week at 2 jobs so that didn't really help. This is a great writing exercise though I am glad I did/tried to do it. What time I did have I really accomplished a lot I have about 7 songs with 40 minutes of music give or take from it and the month of Jan which I cheated and started early. Just need to do drums and write a handful more parts and I'm pretty much good to record.

eyeprod · February 28, 2011, 09:44:09 AM

Hemisaurus · January 03, 2012, 07:37:40 PM

bump

RacerX · January 03, 2012, 07:49:26 PM

Why bump last year's contest?

Hemisaurus · January 03, 2012, 08:28:23 PM

because thatvwas whatvchille linked to