The board's server will undergo upgrade maintenance tonight, Nov 5, 2014, beginning approximately around 10 PM ET. Prepare for some possible down time during this process.
FAQ    Search

Board index » Word on the Street » Release




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 65 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4  Next
Author Message
 Post subject: Re: Mobile Phonography (new first post)
PostPosted: Wed July 31, 2013 6:27 pm 
Online
User avatar
NEVER STOP JAMMING!
 Profile

Joined: Wed January 02, 2013 1:56 am
Posts: 21745
McBump for the new starter post.

_________________
(patriotic choking noises)


Top
 
 Post subject: Re: Mobile Phonography (new first post)
PostPosted: Thu August 01, 2013 11:20 pm 
Offline
User avatar
Polluted
 Profile

Joined: Tue January 01, 2013 10:27 am
Posts: 4202
Location: PM me, I have everything.
Vacation starts in less than a day. I will digest these, Scab.


Top
 
 Post subject: Re: Mobile Phonography (new first post)
PostPosted: Fri August 02, 2013 12:03 am 
Online
User avatar
NEVER STOP JAMMING!
 Profile

Joined: Wed January 02, 2013 1:56 am
Posts: 21745
:heartbeat:

Still trying to work out the volume differences between the two tracks.

I don't know why I just told you that.

_________________
(patriotic choking noises)


Top
 
 Post subject: Re: Mobile Phonography (new first post)
PostPosted: Fri August 02, 2013 3:02 am 
Offline
User avatar
Legacy of Love
 WWW  Profile

Joined: Tue January 01, 2013 5:33 pm
Posts: 78182
Location: Anarchist Jurisdiction
Because you care. Because you care.


Top
 
 Post subject: Re: Mobile Phonography (new first post)
PostPosted: Fri August 02, 2013 1:27 pm 
Online
User avatar
NEVER STOP JAMMING!
 Profile

Joined: Wed January 02, 2013 1:56 am
Posts: 21745
durdencommatyler wrote:
Because you care. Because you care.


So, if I worked out the differences this morning, does that mean I can get back to not caring now?

_________________
(patriotic choking noises)


Top
 
 Post subject: Re: Mobile Phonography (new first post)
PostPosted: Fri August 02, 2013 10:50 pm 
Offline
User avatar
Polluted
 Profile

Joined: Tue January 01, 2013 10:27 am
Posts: 4202
Location: PM me, I have everything.
McParadigm wrote:
Doing a lot of recording via cell phone, lately.


How did you get recordings of this quality by recording via cell phone? These sound pretty fucking great.

Spoiler: show
This Water / Fontanelle is my favorite of the ones in the header post. The distorted vocal on the right... I love that. Really? A cell phone? Dick.


But there's a lake in Minnesota
Mississippi can't forget
But there's nothing in it for you now
And there's a way that the water leaves the lake
That it must allow


This is why I don't write lyrics...

Also, Cicada needs to be completed. Cool riff.

Dick.


Top
 
 Post subject: Re: Mobile Phonography (new first post)
PostPosted: Sat August 03, 2013 12:34 am 
Online
User avatar
NEVER STOP JAMMING!
 Profile

Joined: Wed January 02, 2013 1:56 am
Posts: 21745
A thousand times thank you.

I literally didn't do anything to enhance sonicality. I just downloaded the DAW, thinking it would be a good way to demo or screw around, and I ended up laying the foundation for This Water in the forest while we took a break. Man, that sounded weirdly good to my ears. I just couldn't figure how that could be. I went home and finished it that same day. As far as post, I just compressed a teeny bit and, once I'd e-mailed myself the mix, dropped it in Audacity just to cut 2 dB out of the 250k range. 2 goddamn dB. That's literally all I did. With Lake, I didn't even bother to do that much. So I am seriously 100% not responsible for any sound quality here.

I'm not even careful about how I do it. I just hit record (on an iphone for god's sake), set the phone somewhere (or walk around with it), make some noises, and call it done. Even the distorted vocals on Water are total happenstance...I put down the lower voice, hit record again, and let go...really vented it out, hollered and hooted...which distorted the voice in a way that turned out to be perfect for the song.

Cicada's lyrics are halfway finished, and should be done this weekend. I've been trying to match the writing to the incidental nature of the other stuff, to keep it 'feeling' like it belongs together, so if I get 15 minutes that's all I'll need. Then I can sing them into the phone on the way to work on Monday, or something.

I dunno, man...with the ease, the uncontained creativity, and the removal of the music from empty, lonely rooms...I'm not sure I care to ever go back to a studio setting.

_________________
(patriotic choking noises)


Top
 
 Post subject: Re: Mobile Phonography (new first post)
PostPosted: Sat August 03, 2013 1:39 am 
Offline
User avatar
Polluted
 Profile

Joined: Tue January 01, 2013 10:27 am
Posts: 4202
Location: PM me, I have everything.
I still can't fathom how 'This Water / Fontanelle' was recorded on an iPhone. I spend hours at the knobs, and I'm all proud and shit, and then I hear that...

I've also realized that I'm just a guitarist. Sure, I can write songs, but I'm just a guitarist. Everything I've ever written is unfinished.


Top
 
 Post subject: Re: Mobile Phonography (new first post)
PostPosted: Sat August 03, 2013 1:45 am 
Offline
User avatar
Polluted
 Profile

Joined: Tue January 01, 2013 10:27 am
Posts: 4202
Location: PM me, I have everything.
Thanks for that, by the way.


Top
 
 Post subject: Re: Mobile Phonography (new first post)
PostPosted: Sat August 03, 2013 4:35 am 
Offline
User avatar
Poster of the Year
 Profile

Joined: Tue January 01, 2013 2:04 pm
Posts: 37156
Location: September 2020 Poster of the Month
Tape Machine is a pretty good recording app for Android.


Top
 
 Post subject: Re: Mobile Phonography (new first post)
PostPosted: Sat August 03, 2013 10:40 am 
Online
User avatar
NEVER STOP JAMMING!
 Profile

Joined: Wed January 02, 2013 1:56 am
Posts: 21745
Self wrote:
I still can't fathom how 'This Water / Fontanelle' was recorded on an iPhone. I spend hours at the knobs, and I'm all proud and shit


I can relate to that, 100%. I think that's why I'm so excited about this. I'd basically been coming up with lots of ideas, the last two years or so, and getting very little done. It's just too much for me to need the kind of time alone that it takes to set up, record, and mix a song. I have a family, and my children are both of an age where noise from downstairs causes investigative urges. I've probably written thirty songs, in that time, and recorded four, just because laying down another guitar means waiting two days until I have an hour to myself, hurrying to get it all taken care of in that time, and then waiting another two days to mix it.

Suddenly I don't have to do any of that. And, like I said, I think the sounds that sneak in because I'm recording in forests, or at parks, or in the car or whatever, are all welcome additions. Now that I'm doing this, it seems absurd to look back and think about trying to create music in that sort of controlled vacuum space. That doesn't fit the kind of music I'm exploring, anymore.

Quote:
I've also realized that I'm just a guitarist. Sure, I can write songs, but I'm just a guitarist. Everything I've ever written is unfinished.


A few years ago, I came to terms with the opposite. I'm a songwriter who can't really play guitar for shit. There are a few things I can do well, but the operative word is 'few.'

What's funny is, for all the myriad of musicians I've worked with over the years...drummers and bassists and trumpet players and trombone players and violinists and etc....I never actually worked with another guitarist. Occasionally I had someone who was competent enough to strum a rhythm while I did something kinda meh, but that's about it. Never got another geetar player on my songs. Weird, seeing as how they're so prevalent.

_________________
(patriotic choking noises)


Top
 
 Post subject: Re: Mobile Phonography (new first post)
PostPosted: Mon August 05, 2013 1:08 pm 
Online
User avatar
NEVER STOP JAMMING!
 Profile

Joined: Wed January 02, 2013 1:56 am
Posts: 21745
There's something flat out awesome about recording vocals by shouting yourself hoarse into your phone while doing 90 down the interstate.

This is especially true when you have a song with a lot of attitude, but don't have finished lyrics on hand. I don't know of any other way to end up with scratched, yelped cries like "the devil's buying stock in all the company you keep."

Mobile is to recording as knees are to bees, kids.

_________________
(patriotic choking noises)


Top
 
 Post subject: Re: Mobile Phonography (new first post)
PostPosted: Wed August 07, 2013 5:48 pm 
Online
User avatar
NEVER STOP JAMMING!
 Profile

Joined: Wed January 02, 2013 1:56 am
Posts: 21745
Cicada is now finished. I've added it to the front page, and also...


https://soundcloud.com/mcparadigm/cicada

It's probably not the kind of song that is going to win anybody over, but it IS the perfect example of why I love this recording method so much.

I no longer feel like I construct songs...I chase them. I breathe in, and they come out. I go about my days, that's all. The music seems to happen whether I intend it to or not.

Here's how a song like Cicada comes into being:

1. I take my kids to the park, and as we're running around playing tag I slap the equipment real hard. The ringing sound is awesome, so I record myself slapping out a rhythm while they play on the swings. Twice, I have to stop for a moment because my hands are getting sore. I figure I'll worry about those empty spaces later.

2. I listen to the playback in the car on the way home and start vocalizing snotty melodies over the top of it to make my kids laugh. They really like one in particular, so I stick to that and we have a bit of fun. I play it on guitar when I get home, recording it in one run while the kids dance. During this, I also notice the cicadas that I hadn't really realized were being so loud, and decide to name the song after them.

3. The next day, I go downtown to the old market and there's some street musician playing the living shit out of his trumpet. I dig it beyond measure, so I record him for a while (making music this way has made me very proprietary about other people's lives, by the way. All your base are belong to my music). I don't have any real intentions for the sound...maybe I'm just recording it so I can listen to him again later.

4. That night, the cicadas are loud as fuck, and I decide to record them. I dunno why...I already have plenty of cicada sound...but I go out on the deck to grab a few minutes worth. No sooner have I stepped out than thunder starts rumbling to the north and the air force base system blares out a warning. Serendipity....between this and the horns, I have some good things brewing.

5. Over the next few days I add sounds (my son and I stomping on the floor, another guitar that popped into my head as I was driving home from work), and jot down a few odd lyrics when they come to me. But then I find myself alone on the interstate, so I figure what the hell. I take out my phone and put an earbud in, and spend the trip playing the song over and over, shouting at my phone and inventing lyrics as I go...almost a primal scream thing that I later realize is mostly related to my dad's death. After a half dozen runs, I record the vocals there in the car. Done.

-
See, like a lot of people who love music, I probably think about it a lot more than I actually realize. Only now, instead of having two different realities going on (1. I think about music all the time, and 2. Sometimes I make music), they're happening simultaneously. Not one moment of this or the other two songs came about because I sat down to write, or wanted to create a sound or mood...they just came together, usually in pieces, eventing naturally and befriending easily. In the context of dealing with a loss, it just feels so much more connected and expressive than it ever did when I let crafting and technical effort intrude on what is really a personal journey.

_________________
(patriotic choking noises)


Top
 
 Post subject: Re: Mobile Phonography (new first post)
PostPosted: Wed August 07, 2013 5:58 pm 
Offline
Misplaced My Sponge
 Profile

Joined: Tue January 01, 2013 2:11 pm
Posts: 5825
A Lake In Minnesota reminds me of my father.


Top
 
 Post subject: Re: Mobile Phonography (new first post)
PostPosted: Wed August 07, 2013 9:18 pm 
Offline
User avatar
Poster of the Year
 Profile

Joined: Tue January 01, 2013 2:04 pm
Posts: 37156
Location: September 2020 Poster of the Month
I want a cassette of these.


Top
 
 Post subject: Re: Mobile Phonography (new first post)
PostPosted: Wed August 07, 2013 9:37 pm 
Online
User avatar
NEVER STOP JAMMING!
 Profile

Joined: Wed January 02, 2013 1:56 am
Posts: 21745
You could always just stare at this while you listen:

Image

_________________
(patriotic choking noises)


Top
 
 Post subject: Re: Mobile Phonography (new first post)
PostPosted: Wed August 07, 2013 9:53 pm 
Offline
User avatar
Mind Your Tanners
 Profile

Joined: Thu January 10, 2013 2:19 am
Posts: 8888
Location: SOUTH PORTLAND
totally serious and if it's out of line just tell me you don't feel comfortable sharing this on a pearl jam message board... but:

do you feel as though you missed out on anything with your father and therefore feel (1) an urgency to create because life/time is fleeting and (2) you need to capture/include your own family nexus in this endeavor so that your interactions are documented and live on forever?


Top
 
 Post subject: Re: Mobile Phonography (new first post)
PostPosted: Wed August 07, 2013 11:51 pm 
Online
User avatar
NEVER STOP JAMMING!
 Profile

Joined: Wed January 02, 2013 1:56 am
Posts: 21745
Ha. Alright. For real, then.

Image

Honestly, I had a strange relationship with my dad. My parents divorced when I was 12 or 13, and my mom handled it poorly and made some things up in an attempt to assuage her own guilt (she had an affair and initiated the divorce). I effectively ended up estranged from him until a little after my 23rd birthday. By that point he was hard to recognize...married to a woman he didn't love, who he didn't think loved him (I still believe that she did, but it says a lot about what losing his wife and kids did to him that he preferred to stay in what he perceived to be a loveless but stable marriage), and almost adolescent in his lust for life and need for reassurance. We bonded really intensely, but what that bond was depended on the time of day. He would come stay with us for a week at a time, a couple of times a year, and would call or e-mail on a weekly basis all year round. Sometimes he was a father figure, I suppose, but a lot of the time it felt more like our roles were reversed.

When you add all the little complexities of life into that teeny little paragraph summation, and all the confusion of dealing with death on top of that, I'm honestly not entirely sure what it is I feel or want. That could be a part of why this feels right...I can't really form any coherent thoughts on the matter, but just vomiting everything up without pause seems to present patterns over time.

For example, in retrospect I see This Water as being borne out of a desire for unfolding events to make more sense ("organized by size...for later classification...") and a sense of shock about the crass way the funeral was handled mixed with a desire to get away from it ("They're laughing at us now....there's life outside this water...."). The fact that I felt the need to tag the ending with a little snippet I recorded while with my family? Where you can audibly hear the kids in the background? Well...

And again, I really am guessing to a great extent, but I see Lake in MN as being about wanting to move on ("Your heart is broke down on the line....and I'm just trying to get by"), and Cicada as just being frustrated, angry, and disappointed by how his life turned out...and maybe he let that happen ("So close that coffin lid, and lay you down to sleep...the devil's buying stock in all the company you keep").

Now that I've babbled all that, I'll answer the actual question you asked: it's very, very likely that you're right...that facing death (an early one at that) has me desperately wanting to make make make, and that the inclusion of my family is (on some level, at least) about documentation. I mean, I even put my kids on the cover. But I think the third reality at play is that I'm not even sure to what extent 'father and son' was the relationship I lost, or who spent more time in which role if it was...so in many ways I like taking down the barriers of conscious writing because I'm trying to figure myself and my feelings out, and you have to cede some control in order for that to happen.

_________________
(patriotic choking noises)


Top
 
 Post subject: Re: Mobile Phonography (new first post)
PostPosted: Thu August 08, 2013 12:10 am 
Offline
User avatar
Mind Your Tanners
 Profile

Joined: Thu January 10, 2013 2:19 am
Posts: 8888
Location: SOUTH PORTLAND
McP, thank you for letting us all into this incredibly personal and conflicting time in your life.

The songs are great. This wave of creativity is understandable and admirable (all things considered).

The project... from the method, to the process, and finally to the daily updates we get to follow in nearly real-time, is tremendous.

So... simply put, know that if we could (I presume others here feel the same), we'd want to make things easier for you and yours and we wish you nothing but the best moving forward.

Again, thank you for including us in the journey.

:peace:


Top
 
 Post subject: Re: Mobile Phonography (new first post)
PostPosted: Thu August 08, 2013 12:47 am 
Online
User avatar
NEVER STOP JAMMING!
 Profile

Joined: Wed January 02, 2013 1:56 am
Posts: 21745
Thanks, ell. It's a thing.

_________________
(patriotic choking noises)


Top
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 65 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4  Next

Board index » Word on the Street » Release


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 8 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
It is currently Thu March 28, 2024 10:21 pm