Tag: show-your-work

Songs

“I’m On Fire” – final cut! 🎸

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After vacillating a bit on the final arrangement for my I’m On Fire cover, I finally headed some advice from Teddy Roosevelt and picked a direction. 

While I liked the extra guitar part on the previous take, I also felt like it was a bit too much. It sort of changed the song from a “singing” song into a “guitar” song.

After a fresh listen, my buddy Joel had a helpful suggestion.

I’m wondering if you could use the clean version but bring in the guitar at some point under the whistling to add a little depth there.

I tried it out and… bingo. 🎯 This was the best of both worlds. The guitar comes in at the bridge and mixes things up at just the right time. Thanks, Joel.

My kids say the vocals are pretty “echoey”, but I’m hoping that adds to some mysterious ambience. Believe me, you are not ready to hear me singing raw just yet. 😉

Coming soon to a streaming service near you. 😎

Final GarageBand tracks
Drawings

Austin river sketch ✍️

patmcg1 Comment

Playing around with this Sketches app on my iPad, today’s goal was a to learn how to “trace” something by hand. But what? I needed something simple to start.

The Colorado River snaking its way through my city of Austin, Texas came to mind for its irregular curves. Using a Maps screenshot of Austin and layers in the Sketches app with my nifty new  Pencil, I got a rough but realistic hand-drawn shape of the river.

Then I used the app’s ruler, fill, and text tools to make a quick, fun sketch of my town by neighborhood.

Here’s the project with the Maps screenshot layer shown.

Songs

“I’m on Fire” (v2.5, Cosmic remaster)

patmcg1 Comment

A few things were bugging me about the second take of my I’m on Fire cover, so I decided to give it a touch up in a few places.

This version includes the following upgrades:

  • A slightly longer drum intro for better lead-in; added a high-hat 🥁
  • Adjusted the rhythm section volumes: quieter drums, more bass, more lead guitar 🎸
  • Consistent panning (guitar left ⬅, vocals right ➡)
  • Vocal improvements: less echo, more volume 🎤

I did this remix on a foray to Cosmic Coffee & Beer Garden on this lovely day, thus the version name.

Stay tuned for with one final pass on the vocals and guitar, with the goal of being streaming-ready with my first solo song by year’s end. 🤞

Songs

“I’m on Fire” (take 2) 🎸

patmcg1 Comment

My first cut at Bruce Springsteen’s song I’m on Fire was probably “good enough” for a first solo song done just for fun.

Before “officially” releasing it, I wanted to play around with a couple of other ideas.

  1. Try adding some lead / fill guitar
  2. Try whistling (yes, whistling!) for the “woohoo” parts
  3. Redo the vocals with a wind guard to keep the spitting sounds down 😆

Here’s take #2.

I think the guitar is an interesting addition, although it’s a bit messy and still needs work. I like the whistling but might like the “woohoo” vocals better. It’s still experimental mode here haha.

What do you think?

My GarageBand file has lots of tracks now, with more than half disabled. Welcome to music production, I guess. 🤷🏻‍♂️

GarageBand getting out of hand.