Monday, February 15, 2010
Lyrics:
Giorgio Tuinfort, Aliaune Thiam, David Guetta, Jean-Claude Sindres
Music:
F. S. Merriwether
Recording Process:
So, usually when I write a song, I’ll do a quick and dirty recording that’s just vocals and either guitar or banjo, just so I can remember how the song goes (in addition to the tablature I write up for myself). Usually, the actual version differs greatly from the rough version, but this time, I really liked the super-mellow guitar and vocals I had for the rough track. Heck, I even liked all the mic hiss. I considered dousing it with synth strings and harpsichords and such (I even messed around with trying to play the French horn I have lying around), but, in the end, I just decided to stick with my original rough recording. I added a uke to make the guitar sound a little fuller, and I tossed in a single harmony track on the chorus. A super simple bass part and organ backup on the chorus and lead-in, and I think it’s done.
My Version:
Actual Version:
Summary:
You know, when I first played the song to my wife, we both had a good laugh about the “without being disrespectful” line that leads into “Damn, girl, you’re a sexy chick,” and I commented that, if nothing else, at least it wasn’t “you’re a sexy bitch,” but I have since learned that’s exactly what the line is, in the non-radio friendly version. My version’s pretty minimal, but I’m kind of fond of it. It’s kind of nice to record a song without layering on a dozen extraneous track. Although maybe it could have used more Godzilla noises….
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Lyrics:
Christopher “Tricky” Stewart, Terius “The-Dream” Nash, James Bunton, Corron Cole, Thabiso Nkhereanye
Music:
F. S. Merriwether
Recording Process:
I actually wrote this one back around Thanksgiving (I believe the same day I wrote my version of “Down”), but I’ve been having trouble recording it and getting it to sound all right. From what I can tell from the lyrics I have, it’s a horribly structured song. It basically consists of a short verse, followed by a pre-prechorus, a prechorus, and a chorus, then another short verse, and the pre-prechorus, prechorus, and chorus again. It just ended up sounding boring, and the music I came up with for it was verging really close to being cloying. I messed around for it for quite a while, but it wasn’t until this weekend that I came up with something I was happy with.
Actually, it wasn’t until I’d added both the drums (which I think sound much better than my drums usually sound, especially the kick drum) and the Godzilla roar noise (which, if anyone’s curious, is the “Golf” sound on my PSS-380, after some tweaking in the on-keyboard synthesizer and fed through a chorus effect and the ‘57 Fender Tweed Deluxe amp emulator) that I was really happy with the song. Vocals were kind of a pain, but I did the same trick I did for “Battlefield” and doubled my singing vocals with a track of growly vocals, which I think makes my singing less twee than it might otherwise.
My Version:
Actual Version:
Summary:
What is that kid, like twelve? Wikipedia claims fifteen, but I’m not buying it. Anyway, I didn’t really think this song would be sung by a prepubescent pop star, but I guess with AutoTune, age, gender, and singing ability don’t really make a difference. Also, what’s up with the lyric “My fight is your fight”? Is that supposed to be romantic? Doesn’t it seem like a bad idea to inform this girl you’re trying to seduce that you apparently have some sort of ongoing feud of which she is now a part?
But I digress. The actual song is incredibly boring. There’s really no chorus to speak of, so this is certainly one of the cases where I like my version better. Though I realize after watching the video there’s a whole bridge I forgot to include. I probably should have scrolled down in my lyrics file, but I kind of feel like this song might have worn out its welcome if it went on for another minute.
Lyrics:
Gavin DeGraw
Music:
F. S. Merriwether
Recording Process:
This one was a request from my lovely wife, whose workout class apparently includes this song in the workout mix. The lyrics were pretty odd. The vaguely religious symbolism made me think this guy was some sort of Prince wannabe, so I did my best to make this sound like a Prince song (or at least as close as I’m ever going to get to writing and recording a Prince song). Of course, my version also features banjo heavily, so perhaps things went a little off-track. Anyway, usual instrumentation – acoustic and electric guitars, banjo, drums, bass, organ. For some reason, the song’s in A#, which isn’t really a great key for me to sing it, but I think the fact that I was pushing way up past my upper register made it a little more Prince-y.
Oh, this is also my first song recorded entirely using Reaper. I’m very fond of it now. The built-in plug-ins are pretty awesome, and it’s kind of nice using an editing software that sort of feels like it was built for something other than Windows 3.0.
My Version:
Actual Version:
Summary:
That opening piano part and my opening guitar part aren’t that far off, really. That’s kind of odd. From that point, though, the songs diverge pretty dramatically. He’s significantly whiter than I expected, and the song is a lot less interesting than I figured a song with such crazy lyrics would be. I mean “you favorite fruit is chocolate covered cherries/and seedless watermelon ooooh” deserves to be in a crazy song, not a dull piano AAA number. I am pretty pleased with my version, even if the vocals aren’t quite as good as they should be.
Lyrics:
K. Jhooti, D. Carter, J-Remy, Bobbybass, Jared Cotter, & J Perkins
Music:
F. S. Merriwether
Recording Process:
I spent a long time working on this one. I started recording it, and couldn’t quite get the tempo right, then spent a while trying to get comfortable using Reaper, as my usual recording software is now well over ten years old and not entirely functional. I couldn’t quite get my mind around Reaper, so I gave up and went back to Saw Plus. Once I got back into my comfort zone, the song came together pretty quickly. I started out with the banjo, then added a fairly percussive guitar track and some uke. Usual instrumentation followed, but then, once I got to the drums, I happened to play some drums while I had a mic on going through some goofy amp modeling. I thought it sounded pretty awesome, by which I mean it sounded like a crummy drum machine. So, even though it sounds like this song uses a drum machine, it’s actual drums. The trickiest part was definitely the vocal recording, though less so due to my usual dislike of my vocals and more due to the fact that I crammed in way too many words per line, so it’s not really physically possible to sing this song straight through without the aid of some studio trickery.
My Version:
Actual Version:
Summary:
Wow. I don’t think I really realized that really goofy Euro-disco was a viable pop genre in this country now. I mean, I guess that’s sort of the lesson I’ve learned over the past few songs (Lady Antebellum aside). Anyway, I like my song. It’s catchy, even though it’s yet another I-IV-V banjo-driven song. Plus, I kind of feel like I did a pretty decent job replicating the Lil’ Wayne verse. Minus the AutoTune, of course.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Update:
My sister is visiting for Thanksgiving, and, since she can actually sing, I have roped her into re-recording vocals for the last song I did. It’s pretty exciting to hear one of these songs with a vocal track that’s actually in tune. Anyway, thanks to my awesome sister, Grayson, for helping out!
New Version:
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Lyrics:
Dave Haywood, Josh Kear, Charles Kelley, Hillary Scott
Music:
F. S. Merriwether
Recording Process:
As usual, the basic melody came together quickly, but I went back and forth on the tempo a few times. It’s been a while since I did one of my usual upbeat folk pop numbers, but this one kind of wanted to be a power ballad, and, since I’ve never done a power ballad before, I figured, “Why not?” Started out with the three acoustic guitar parts, then put on the electric guitar for the choruses and second verse. The electric guitar solo took me forever to record to my satisfaction and led to a lot of cursing, but I’m fairly happy with it. Once I got it down, though, it only took me a couple takes to play roughly the same thing on the acoustic guitar for the intro bit. After that, drums, then the usual struggle with vocals. I ended up feeding one of my takes through Autotune, then doubling it with the original, so it gives a slightly greater sense of the intended melody without completely making me sound like a robot. I put these two tracks through compression and reverb, which really filled out the song, then recored a couple harmonies. Finally, I dropped in a little organ, and it was pretty ready to go.
My Version:
Actual Version:
Summary:
I’m still not satisfied with my vocals (surprise), but, otherwise, I’m pleased. I’m so unused to ever doing guitar solos, that they’re still kind of a pleasing oddity. The actual song here is pretty disappointing, really. It’s so slow. I mean, mine’s slow, but theirs is really slow.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Lyrics:
Kesha Sebert, Dr. Luke, Benny Blanco
Music:
F. S. Merriwether
Recording Process:
As usual, I managed to have a rough version of the song done after about ten minutes. I started with the chorus and did the sleazy C#m bit first, then built the rest of the chorus around that. The original version was much more normal in its chord progressions. I messed around with that a bit and ended up with a different set of chords that is much more unusual. I honestly have no idea what key this song is even in.
I started in recording the guitar parts (one main one, then an auto-wah’ed one and a flanged one to come in on the choruses), added bass, then worked on the drums. I had a hard time getting the bass drum to sound quite right. I don’t have a proper bass drum mic, so it’s often a problem. I really felt this song needed a big, dance-y bass drum sound, so I ended up just using a synth for the bass drum. I kind of like the mix of synth bass drum and actual snare and cymbals. Anyway, a fair number of organs after that, then a whole bunch of vocal tracks. I am not entirely satisfied with my vocals on the pre-chorus bits. I was trying to go for sort of a Lou Reed-y feel (probably because of the A-D transition (or, rather, C#-F#) and the lines about boys trying to touch my junk), but it didn’t even come close. I did, however, like the distorted vocal effect.
My Version:
Actual Version:
Summary:
Mine didn’t really come out the way I expected. In my brain, it was kind of a Franz Ferdinand number, but I don’t really know what this was. Anyway, the actual version is kind of weird. Between this and the Lady Gaga song the other day, I have to assume that pop music these days sounds like mid 80’s Madonna fed through Auto-Tune. Strange.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Lyrics:
Adam Young
Music:
F. S. Merriwether
Recording Process:
This song had a wonderfully straightforward rhyme and meter scheme, so it took less than five minutes to come up with a version I could play on guitar. This version was very jangly and folky sounding, very much in a Kimya Dawson sort of vein. I tried working with that for a while and had a version with the usual acoustic string instruments, plus drums and tin whistle, but I ended up recording it at such a fast tempo that I couldn’t really get the vocals right.
I did another version that used a bunch of synthesized parts I had lying around. This wasn’t bad, but it was a little slow, so I shifted it up to D and that worked much better as far as singing goes. I added in a ukulele part, just to make it feel a little more organic.
My Version:
Actual Version:
Summary:
I’m still not really satisfied with my vocals here, but it’s not too bad. I like the goofy, stutter-y drum track. The actual version is fine, but the Postal Service derivativeness is a little off-putting. My vocals may be a little cutesy, but I’m not sure how else to do a song that talks about getting hugs from bugs.
Lyrics:
Lady Gaga, Rob Fusari
Music:
F. S. Merriwether
Recording Process:
I actually had a melody in my head before I started working on this song, but once I got the lyrics, it pretty much demanded to be a slow, major key, vaguely country-ish number. It was once again in G, which I hate, so I moved it up to Bb and recorded the guitar, followed by the snare and cymbal. I recorded a quick vocal track, then sped the whole thing up so I could play the organ parts in C. I then added banjo, since the guitar part was a little too arpeggiated, then the reverb-y electric guitar. It still needed a little something, so I added an accordion part (also played in C, then shifted down), and a ukulele track. Lots of vocal tracks and some more whistling. I actually recorded another guitar solo (my third!) that I was going to use instead of the whistling, but the wife liked the whistling, so I stuck with it.
My Version:
Actual Version:
Summary:
I’m not crazy about my song. It’s nice enough, but it’s a little boring, and doesn’t have the energy of the previous songs. I messed with it a fair bit, but it really wanted to be a slow country-ish song, so, you know, what can you do? I’ve never actually heard Lady Gaga before. She sounds much more like early 80’s Madonna than I realized (though her lyrics are almost certainly worse).
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Lyrics:
Wayne Wilkins, Louis Biancaniello, Sam Watters, Ryan Tedder
Music:
F. S. Merriwether
Recording Process:
I went to see Team Dresch Saturday night, whom I blame entirely for the rockin’ nature of this song (though I think it ended up much closer to Jawbreaker than to Team Dresch). I started out with the rhythm guitar part, then started in on the guitar riff. I don’t usually do very well at coming with guitar parts beyond a rhythm guitar track, and this one’s not particularly complicated, but I think it really helps the song. I even recorded a guitar solo, which is fairly sloppy but it’s only my second guitar solo ever, so I’m fairly pleased. Added in totally half-assed bassline and took a couple passes at lead vocals. I was actually pretty happy with the vocals, so maybe I should record more punk-sounding numbers. Added in some oh-oh-oh’s for the choruses, then went to work on the drums. The drums are kind of a mess, but, you know, punk rock.
My Version:
Actual Version:
Summary:
Obviously, the style is pretty different, but I’m not sure I was really too far off on the melody. I probably would have done the chorus a little differently if I’d heard the song first, but it’s closer than it really deserves to be. I’m really pleased with this song, actually. My songs tend to fall into a fairly standard folk-pop sound and can get a little samey, so nice to change do something in a different style and have it come out reasonably well.
