So yesterday, I was looking after my grandson. He was in La La wonderland on the new Mac. In GarageBand (GB) music recording land. He loved playing a Steinway, synthesised keyboards, hitting the little drum pads, finding trombones, tubas and trumpets, and many other keyboard proffered wizardry, and singing weird operatic vocals over plinkety plonkety tunes he’d ‘composed’ off the cuff. “I love ‘classified’ music” he says. I know. He’s told me on numerous occasions. I introduced him to it as he doesn’t like music that is “Too noisy”. ‘Classified? It’s ‘classical’ I tell him. But I’ve told him this many, many times. But ‘classified’ it remains.

Bite the Bullet: Enjoy yourself…….

It’s a strange experience when exploring new undertakings. I often marvel when you begin to see all the little imagined worries fade away. The developing settling nature one feels, regarding intense learning or experiences, is often littered with little much welcomed lightbulb moments. I purposefully took the photograph of the monitor screen above in ‘Off’. The dark screen represents those perceived spooky hidden challenges. Turn ‘On’ the monitor, see the lighter side of life and simply get stuck in. The brain and emotions welcome the light far more.

The Perfect Ergonomics for Harmonious Comfort.

These photographs above show a new found musical intimacy in ‘The Den’. My room for recording music and general chill and relaxing has the name ‘The Den’. Here in the photographs? Everything close and in touching distance. A bass playing at a lower and soothing volume, next to my desk, is lovely and comforting. The Shure MV88 small microphone choice is able to be simply turned directionally towards either the bass or electric guitar amplifier or over the desk towards myself singing or playing acoustic.

The Sound. The Vibe. The Initial Process. The Possibilities.

In closeness, that fantastic wonderfully balanced bass volume into the room’s ambience of other sounds washes over you. The Fender Rumble 500 amp and Fender Jazz bass guitar combination is a marriage made in heaven. Also, through the ‘quality’ headphones, balance to record is achievable within the direct ‘isolated guitar sound’ heard too. Note separation in those headphones is mesmerising. I did muck about with playing bass on its own last night onto the system. Once recorded, its sound finds a solidity of energy and drive which was surprising when listened back on. Also, any single instrument track recorded can be cut and tailored from any mistakes. Cut and moved to wherever is suitable in a song’s framework or deleted completely. Play an awesome bass pattern and mess up its outro, it can be salvaged. This is the experience of modern recording it seems!

From now on:

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”.

Once the monitor screen is ‘On’ and the GarageBand (GB) music recording site is opened, a plethora of fast or slow learning curves sit waiting to be understood. Thinking of curves, an EQ (equalisation) setting I found took a bass line I ‘laid down….Maaaan’ (recorded basically) to the most strangest of places. Five minutes spent playing with this EQ offering. You have to have discipline in all this technology. Internal magic on this GB platform takes you down very many musical rabbit holes. Madder than Johnny Depp’s wonderful Mad Hatter role in his happy to sinister tea party scene. I found myself doing the EQ-uivalent of seeing the little Alice version and happily jumping on the tea party table causing chaotic jumbling’s. As said, the journey begins with a single step….but not by walking down three tables next to each other to become one, whilst kicking everything on it akimbo.

Layering the different sounds:

Which drum pattern to choose? I downloaded all of the available drums and percussion offered by GB by mistake. Hit the ‘bulk’ download button instead of single choices, which took 2 hours plus to finally finish. A very slow rural internet speed maybe! Took about 10 seconds to upload fix them into my GB system.

A plan has developed. Currently at base level it is essential to have a metronome or an inherent choice of one (from the, as said, many available GB drummers) playing a beat to play the bass guitar along to. It adds a tempo consistency to each song. I’m ‘acoustically’ recording my bass with the Shure MV88 microphone in front of my combo amp/speakers. So need a guide beat as you would playing in the band. The microphone is currently set in the direct Cardioid position.

From the Shure internet site:

‘The Shure MV88 classic mid-side stereo microphone technique uses two coincident capsules: one cardioid pointed directly at the source, and one bidirectional aimed toward the sides. This configuration allows the user to adjust the stereo width and provides excellent mono compatibility.’

That little Shure mic can also be turned away from the bass cab and towards myself playing an acoustic guitar or singing vocals and harmonies to capture and add on top of bass and drums tracks. Also by, for example, adding a single vocal line and acoustic on top of bass and drums, four separate recordings, it is possible to isolate any one of them to listen back to. Or two or three out of the four. Bass, vocals and drums. Bass, acoustic and Vocals. Vocals, acoustic and drums. All four together. I can lay up to 180 plus tracks on top of each other! I could become a 100 piece choir or a badly played orchestra……Crazy.

Practicing and the solidifying of the song’s numerous parts:

Before committing to pushing the ‘red’ record dot on screen, you can capture self confidence in knowing your song is rhythmic/in tune/not too quiet or loud. By simply pressing ‘play’ you hear yourself playing and practicing over an inherent single ‘chosen’ drum pattern. Once drums are chosen and in place, you can simply add bass, vocals separately and then listen to all three alongside each other too whilst playing. My initial messing about with Bass, drums and vocals, even though sparse without electric guitar, is quite thrilling after months of sitting singing with just your bass as accompaniment.

When you do decide to record. If a bass playing track for example does go completely wrong, you just go back to the start and re-record over it again. Like you would an old fashioned cassette tape.

Afterwards, instruments like acoustic from myself can be added. Then to future consider added instruments from others playing at distance, that is from hundreds to thousands of miles away, they can be Airdropped in. The wonder of it all.

So…….Over the next week……or two?

Plan is to:

1: Find drum beats at correct song choice tempo and keep them catalogued. I must definitely also ‘fountain pen’ write and record all the drums and other settings like chosen drummers, alterations to beats, styles chosen, speed/tempos played at, bass amp settings, etc. Put them all down on proper paper! It’s the tempo/speed especially which is important for all further input instruments and vocals considerations. It would be sensible to only work on one or two songs. I can’t finish them without the other guys involved.

2: Practice play some bass guitar riffs over the top of the drums. Maybe play out one or two of the song’s two to three verses. No chorus, middle 8’s or Bridges unless the straightforward drum pattern allows it. The drums are currently a simple continuous pattern, so a full song cannot be realised. I can’t really programme drum dynamics yet. Don’t actually know how to! Don’t actually want to know how either. I’ll probably use the systems metronome when playing a whole song. The drums, on the songs’ recordings will be deleted anyway.

3: Record the Bass. Audio has the atmospheric vibe sound through an amplifier and cab speakers. An interface direct plug in for the guitar to go straight into the computer creates the electronic GB sounds. No thanks.

4: Record on top of the bass and drums the acoustic guitar with jangly or warm chords to add a brightness and some gentle soul for my peace of mind.

5: Record vocals. Maybe try out harmonising vocals with myself. But the plan is to get other voices on the songs. Much more eclectic.