Monday, October 24, 2011

Song 4: Route 66

Can’t believe this is song number four already!
(For more info on what this is all about, please visit my first post about lessons with Buddy)
All parts except the rhythm guitar were played/programed by Buddy. Buddy operated the computer and recorded me when I played the rhythm guitar

The process:

Session 01: I imported the original song into my recording software. Buddy then sat and (under my supervision) laid out the “geography” of the song. This involved adding markers at various points to show the different parts of the song. (E.g “Intro, Verse, Chorus, breaks etc.)
Session 02: Buddy started programing the drums. First the kick and snare, then hihats and cymbals.
Session 03: Continued with drum programming. Buddy copied-and-pasted the different drum patterns to the relevant sections of the song.
Session 04: Bass. Buddy played the different bass parts in & then copied-and-pasted them.
Session 05: Keyboards. Same as before: recorded a few bars & then copied and pasted.
Session 06: Buddy played the improvised guitar solo. I left the solo as is (ie I didn’t quantize any of the notes). The solo we used was his second take.
Session 07: Buddy operated the computer & recorded me playing the rhythm guitar parts/
Session 08: Vocals were recorded in one session. Buddy sang a verse at a time until he was happy with the take. Most of the vocals were first or second takes. We did a few more takes to try and get the difficult stop sections a little tighter.
Can’t believe this is song number four already!
All parts except the rhythm guitar were played/programed by Buddy. Buddy operated the computer and recorded me when I played the rhythm guitar

Notes:

I try to outline the objective of each lesson first so that Buddy knows what we are trying to achieve.
The sessions always follow a pattern: We start with rhythm sight reading exercises. (I find the iPad app “ReadRhythm” an excellent tool for teaching reading.) My rule is that Buddy must tap two exercises perfectly before we can move onto recording.
We then move onto recording.
Homework every week is to listen to the original song and practice a particular part for the following week.
(For more info on what this is all about, please visit my first post about lessons with Buddy)
You can read about Buddy’s other recordings here: Lessons with Buddy