The second song on Tetrahedroseph's new album Mutation is "COVID Family Circus Act 1" It has another one of those clickbait titles we can all love to be sick of. (no pun intended, stay safe!)
The image above is part of the fun, right? Create a specific image for the songs and release it as a single. It could happen. If I make a single, some of the work is already done. Anyway, I'm attempting to parody other visual themes from the album Mutation. Act 2, the sequel to this song will have a similar image. (That was a spoiler.)
Hopefully these new Wordpress "blocks" allow us to see the cool embedded players below. Listen and enjoy this silly tune.
...and maybe this player is better...
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=4065202306 size=large bgcol=333333 linkcol=ffffff tracklist=false artwork=small track=1553552740]
SONG DETAILS:
COVID Family Circus Act 1 is in the key of C major and the tempo is 190bpm because Tetrahedroseph's theme is still COVID-19. There are 147 bars in this arrangement and that makes this song three minutes and four seconds long. There is nothing cute about that number in this example.
Demand dictates efficiency and limited time frames. Tetrahedroseph has plenty of other songs and albums full of long songs. This project wants to meet the demand.
COVID Family Circus Act 1 also makes use of background noises. This all started in April or May... looks like my GarageBand project says May 24th 2020 as the creation date. I was recording #TheBrokenYellowGuitar during a "family game night." A night when a few friends and family member gather around a "JackBot" or "YouDontKnowJack" type of video conferencing games. All this lockdown and quarantine stuff seemed like the perfect opportunity to record music. When I want to record, I find a way. I'll make it work.
Recording Details:
Let's take a look at the GarageBand project tracks for COVID Family Circus Act 1.
The first four tracks in the image below are just more fake instruments. Fake instruments and the performances that fell into my hand while I was casually picking music from a tree as I headed to Amazon.com/Spotify temple for castration. The first track is a drum part, followed by one organ track and two bass tracks.
"I played the parts with my iPhone 7. While taking a shit."
The ska tunes in the family games night games are fun. I found them inspiring. I've always like the Hamond Organ in ska. They did a great job creating lots of different songs that sound like this ska classic .
The image above shows 6 tracks with fancy boxes in them. Those are guitar amp icons designed to look like a VOX guitar amp. It is a famous amp. It's still a "live" and record performance with #TheBrokenYellowGuitar, but the track has been run through that amp simulator (fancy eq/preset). This helps the guitar sound like I actually played it though a famous guitar amp. I play the electric guitar acoustically and record it with the iPhone acoustically.
Replay COVID Family Circus Act and listen for all the silly background noise. I was trying to participate in the family game night games and record guitar parts at the same time. You can actually hear other game participants counting down with a time that's running donw while I record. I end the recording and try to press the keyboard to answer, but...
💥Parental desertion is advised💥
The image below shows a software guitar instrument track. I used one of its presets and then chopped it up a little for my song. The guitar part is imitating that plucky plucky type guitar sound we hear in some reggae... it's not doubling that bass. I would sheepishly say that it this part usually doubles the bass. Not always though. It was originally probably requested to help the bass parts standout in recording. We still do that. Motown did this tactic a lot (guitar doubles scare in Motown).
The bass pans I use are made of two oil drums cut in half. If you haven't already, trip out on this cat video featuring the weird bass pans.
The red icons in the image above are those weird bass pans you've heard me talk about before... I hope. I have them in almost everything. I can probably say "everything", but I would need to double check to be sure. I've spent a lot of time recoding the weird bass pans with the iPhone 7 and it's great. I also use the C1000s I have set since COVID. They both work. iPhone is faster and the song project is already there. If these futherfuckers can get away with the mumble-teach-ignorance-autotuned shit, I can get a pass for using the iPhone first. Thanks.
STEEL DRUMS ARE FROM TRINIDAD."
In the image above, striating from the top, notice the four tracks under a red steel drum icon. These four tracks are bounces/mixdowns of that section of the song. I've used them to doubles of parts to create a bigger and more balanced sound. They are mislabeled. It's not "Lead Vocals" and the icon doesn't match the sound of a guitar only. Several other instrument are also on those bounced tracks. Similar to the technique called "re-amping." It's different sound, but useable. All you gotta do is play the track or tracks soloed through speaker you like and record it with a microphone. I used the iPhone to do it. The singing background voices were originally meant to be part of the brain storm process. Considered "scratch tracks" that I used anyway. More re-amping to come. Do it.
Under those 4 tracks in the image above we can see a plug and play keyboard thing synth patch thingy. It reads, "Planetarium FX" and that's what the track sounds like. I love planetariums. Space noises like the 50's movies, theremins and stuff. Boop, BLEEP, BLep, Bleep, bleeb, blee ble...
"NOT ALL REGGAE IS THE SAME."
The next image is the part you've all be waiting for. ANIMAL SOUNDS!!! Look at all of them go. See that cluster in the middle? No, you can't shoot it... that's the climax of the song. I might have a real dog sound in there, but most of them are shredded samples of animal sounds available in GarageBand.
After those animal tracks, the spark icon track is a car horn sample. All free samples in the GarageBand sample library.
Vocals on this song? It's not singing vocals. Those tracks are the laughs and giggles we hear behind the music. They are hand crafted and come from the exotic dimension known as family game night.
The orange/brown colored tracks are the stems I talked about in the previous post about song 1 Rude Immunity.
Yes, I record lots of parts with the iPhone. I've mentioned all the iPhone recoding stuff before. Staying true to splurge tradition, I use it to create rough mixes for quick reference. After I export the song's project file from the iPhone's GarageBand I use the MacBook version of GarageBand to finalize the project.
The computer's GarageBand is the "real recoding" device. (bullshit) I use it to record and do all the normal studio stuff, but sometime I actually go back to the iPhone to record parts over again. This helps to guarantee similar sound textures because I'm using the same microphones as before. Consistency makes it easier to mix. Too maybe double parts, redo parts, finalize the mix and to do "mastering." I've done a lot without the MacBook, but it's easier for my hands, eyes, and back to get off the phone for editing and mixing and mastering. Did I mention the screen has been cracked for blah able alhalbala ... Beast mode, bru.
RECORDING TIP: "Export something to listen to at the end of every recording session and backup/save all the progress up to that point."
#TheBrokenYellowGuitar
I used #TheBrokenYellowGuitar on all of Mutation's songs. I always record it acoustically with my iPhone 7 and maybe with an C1000 and laptop. I don't think I have yet... memory doesn't serve me here, but I don't even know why I would use something other than the iPhone to record #TheBrokenYellowGuitar. Also, the guitar is broken. It was functional once. I used it in a fun band called CHLORINE. I'll open it up when I have necessity. It needs to earn the money for parts anyway.
The recorded guitar part's rhythm is probably considered an actual "skank" rhythm for COVID Family Circus Act 1. Rude Immunity was more like a Slowhand part. (long note on 2 and short note on 4).
Probably lots of opinions on this topic. I'm open.
For COVID Family Circus Act 1, the guitar is playing on beats 2 and 4 again, but this time it's playing accented quick short notes on beats 2 and 4. This short note approach drives a more anxious pulse. Yes, it's a faster song, but this nuance is intended to make a person want to hop instead of dip and stop like a person on the moon. Enough guitar talk... oh yeah there are many parts, it should be obvious. Doesn't it sound scrambled like a rambunctious circus. That's because the over dub performance if rhythmical "off" compared to the other guitar part in that moment. Easy to do for a chaotic song.
[bandcamp width=100% height=42 album=2506727025 size=small bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 track=1652253697]
Click here to purchase some previously released and currently available DIY STICKERS!!!
1️⃣ I'll probably still be at it. Look for more posts about creating merchandise for Rude Immunity or Mutation. I need to make CD's for Mutation. I learned a lot in the previous run. This will be easier. DIY Sticker post show might be done!
2️⃣ Look for another video or two featuring more of that city life/#steeldrumlife stuff.
3️⃣ Look for the continuation of this series with blog post titled something like,
"MUSIC DIY: Songs Inside Tetrahedroseph's album Mutation: 03 Quarantine Life Studio Sessions 1"
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