Thread: Musicians Central

Hey LC....was wondering where you were hiding. There's some good content on your website, decent tips.
Yes, MySpace muddies the mixes...those players aren't so good.

Originally Posted by moderan

Hey LC....was wondering where you were hiding. There's some good content on your website, decent tips.
Yes, MySpace muddies the mixes...those players aren't so good.

Thanks Moderan.

-E.

Originally Posted by Ungood

This might be a great topic to ask.

What music do you like to listen to when you write?

There's a thread here that has to do with it...though usually those threads are about band-name-dropping or how kool I am.

I make my own, is my answer. Ambient and electronic stuff...here is one example of each:
Midnight Drive by the Lake-ambient
Threnody 3-"bubbletronica"

Wow, nice tunes, guys. Comparatively I have nothing to show, except my little Halloween ditty.

Midnight at the Graveyard

There's at least two other jingles that I could post up, and may soon, neither of which are very long. However within months I should be finished my first "song" complete with lyrics and chords and epic solos, then I will descend upon this thread like a hawk--HNGNYAAAAAACAAAAACAAAACAAAAAAAA!!!!! (that's my hawk screech) In fact my song will be nowhere near that splendiferous, but damn it, it will be pretty gangster.

Originally Posted by caelum

Wow, nice tunes, guys. Comparatively I have nothing to show, except my little Halloween ditty.

Midnight at the Graveyard

There's at least two other jingles that I could post up, and may soon, neither of which are very long. However within months I should be finished my first "song" complete with lyrics and chords and epic solos, then I will descend upon this thread like a hawk--HNGNYAAAAAACAAAAACAAAACAAAAAAAA!!!!! (that's my hawk screech) In fact my song will be nowhere near that splendiferous, but damn it, it will be pretty gangster.

caelum... you realize that with that kind of lead in, you've just raised our expectations a lot, now the pressure is on to deliver!!

just playin, even if you think it sucks, post it up anyway, id like to hear it.

also, ive decided that this weekend im gonna finish one of the million songs i started but never finished, even if it doesnt turn out so good.... so sunday (my time) i will post a new song.

lol, yeah I'll post 'er up when I have it semi-presentable, though it may take me a while. I'm having a hard time singing the chorus and doing the guitar chorus, but hopefully I'll have the guitar down enough soon that it should be okay.

Anyone wanna give me some feedback on my singing? I uploaded me singing karaoke some of Upside Down by Jack Johnson.

caelum singing Upside Down, or some of it anyways

Originally Posted by caelum

lol, yeah I'll post 'er up when I have it semi-presentable, though it may take me a while. I'm having a hard time singing the chorus and doing the guitar chorus, but hopefully I'll have the guitar down enough soon that it should be okay.

Anyone wanna give me some feedback on my singing? I uploaded me singing karaoke some of Upside Down by Jack Johnson.

caelum singing Upside Down, or some of it anyways

not bad caelum, you can stay in tune and your voice is decent for singing. although in the future back away from the mic a little so you dont get so much of that overload when singing certain syllables more forcefully. one trick i learned when doing recording in my parents' garage was a cheap way to make a pop stopper. bend a clothes hanger into a lollipop type shape where it is round on top and straight on the bottom. then get some panty hose and put it over top the round part of the clothes hanger and then tie up/cut off the extra part of the panty hose.

the whole thing will be very cheap to make since you probably have clothes hangers (ill let you decide where to get the panty hose from...). the nylon material will reduce the popping noise when you sing words with P's and such. it will also force you to be a set distance from the mic which helps keep the vocal recording consistent (especially useful when mixing/editing). or i guess you could just spend the 30-40 bucks on a real one...

also, when you do karaoke recordings... please...for the love of God and all the that is holy, turn the music up louder so it's not you singing acappella!!

Thanks, Sigg. Yeah there were a few syllables there that popped pretty bad, I definitely need to get a better mic or make a pop stopper like you said, and keep it at a uniform distance. The volume on my laptop was as cranked as it can go, but if I ever do do a karaoke thing again I'll play the song through like a stereo so it doesn't sound like me naked in the middle of winter. I would love to get a nice webcam+mic setup and stuff, and will one day.

Hey Caelum,

For karaoke recordings, I suggest downloading a free multitrack recording software such as Audacity or, the one I use, Reaper.

What you'll do is copy the karaoke track in to the multitrack, and then record your vocals on a separate track. This allows you to adjust their volumes independently so that you can determine where your vocal sits in the mix. Reaper also comes with some great fx and presets that will help your vocal sound a bit crisper and cleaner.

Good luck,

-E.

Audacity
Reaper
More goodies

YouTube - askjaskjaskjaskj's Channel

Link to my youtube page. Videos taken at performance classes in school.

There were crappy days and there were good days. Some of them I'm really proud of. Others not so.

Audio quality is rubbish - recorded with a digital camera, and some with my laptop (Which I have no idea how to improve)

Shamelessly showing off the skills that I do not possess.

Enjoy.

You're too hard on yourself. That's some good stuff. The audio is a little rough but can be worked with some...anyway you have skills and the band as a whole is very enjoyable. I like fusion at any rate.
There's free software in the links above that can help your presentation...and you can get an external soundcard or interface device for the laptop that can improve your sound 100%. I use an ART mic pre and Acid/Audacity in mine.

really cool stuff keng, im not just saying that. it reminds me of how much more fun it is to play with a real drummer than trying to create your own beats via looping programs... ive been playing by myself so long now that i had forgotten the important dimension that a talented drummer adds to the jamming experience. i was fortunate to have a buddy in highschool who was very talented (and a little spoiled by his parents so he had a massively expensive set).

he's the guy i mentioned before who went (possibly still goes, im not sure) to UCLA and is studying music. although he moved away from the drumset and does mostly symphonic percussion type stuff.

you also have an interesting way of holding the stick with ur left hand. the stick is backwards, to give a fatter sound to the snare hits? and you hold it like a fork, like i see the drumline guys do in the college marching bands. doesnt that diminish your control when you go to hit things other than the snare with your left hand?

anyway, i agree with modern, dont beat yourself up so much, you've got some chops to be sure

EDIT : after watching some more of the vids, you dont use the stick backwards in those, was it just the first one on the list? or am i just blind and you werent doing it there either?

@Sigg,

My grip in my left is called traditional grip. It's the old marching drum method of holding the left stick. You can look it up. With proper technique is no different from holding it the same as my right. As for the reversed stick, I don't usually do it, but on that particular occasion the sticks were cracking at the tip and it was virtually unusable so I flipped em around. I can't throw them out when they're not completely 'wasted' hahaha.

@moderan,

Yeah I know there are ways to improve the sound especially recording with my laptop, but I can't really afford the hardware right now.. But these videos aren't really for quality anyway, they're more for keeping track of my own playing and for showing my folks back home.

well ok, i finally figured out how to upload shiat to last.fm...

All my Shiat – jreiber – Listen free and discover music at Last.fm

there is 1 old one (JR9) that i didnt upload to the myspace page i linked to earlier, because i dont really like that one even though it is "complete".

and also, there is a brand spankin new one on there (JR1.... it's the first recording ive completed in years, i had to relearn a lot of the recording/editing/mixing stuff that i havent used in a while..

anyhow, let me know what you think of the new one!

EDIT : lol i just realized it turned the # into an emoticon... the song is "Southern Sunset (JR 1 8 )