Reviews: Vol1 Part1

I'm going to try to get through all of Volume 1 today, but I'm going to have to take a break to go meet with an artist I'm going to be working with to produce an album.

So here goes!

Andrew Miller--The orchestration is great. Hacking the Mainframe has a lot of great ideas in it and I love the electronics thrown in there. There were only a few things that I would change though. The constant 16th notes in the beginning are cool, but I got a little tired of them around the last minute of the piece. I'm not sure what instrument you were using, sounded a little like the side of a snare maybe. I also really like the section at 1:53 with the guitar and the strings. Gives it a cool delay feel. A Peculiar Afternoon was a nice change of pace from HtM. I felt it was a little long and could have ended about a minute or so before it did. Intermission had a nice driving feel to it. The glock sound (or crotales) got a little annoying after a while though. Limbo of Infants was by far my favorite. I absolutely loved the wind/noise that ou used and how you covered it up with the acoustic instruments and brought it in and out. It started to remind me of John Adam's Transmigration of Souls (a little...) around the 5:15 mark. Loved it, especially when the boys choir came in with the call and response with the orchestra.

Overall, I enjoyed this. The production, orchestration, and sound quality was terrific.

Big Sholders--First, I love the concept for this album; going out and recording street musicians in Chicago. Awesome!
1. Great Plans: I love the opening piano and what sounds like a sitar strum. Absolutely love the lyrics. It has a real melancholy yet uplifting feel to it. Great.
2. The Harvest is Great: I would have liked to see more done with this sample. Maybe something along the lines of Steve Reich's "Come out to show them."
3. For the Love: I love the distorted drums. I'm not really a fan of rap, so I couldn't really get into it for that.
4. A CBS Newsroom Drama: I love the instrumentation and all of the musical ideas. It really reminds me of the Beatles. The only thing that took away from it were the vocals. A little pitchy.
5. Sounds like I'm Hearing Chords...: Again, like in 2, I would have liked to see more done with the field recording. BUT, I like how you went into...
6. Waiting for your Call: I got a couple really good chuckles out of this.
7. I heard it from back there!: It's a good sample, but again, I wish something had been done with it.
8. It's a Chi-town thing: Great sound. Again, I'm not a big rap fan, but this was well produced. A much different sound than the other songs on the album.
9. Welcome to the Subway: Nice field recording, I wish something had been done to it though.

Overall, I really liked the songs on the album. However, I guess I had thought the sounds from Chicago were going to be used in the songs as opposed to being between the songs.

Luxi--I absolutely loved the sounds you got from the synths. Also, your vocals fit really well within the mix. I wish I had the lyrics though because sometimes the words were a little hard to understand.
1. Moonday: I like the slow tempo and the kind of dubstep feel to it.
2. Alchemy: I love the instrumentation and your vocals. The asian feel is great. I'm not really a fan of rap or hip hop generally, so when A.T. came in I kind of started to space. I liked the trance-like feel of the song in general though. Could have done without the autotune.
3. Coral Castle: Same story as the last two, I love the instruments and the downtempo feel. Vocals are great. The distorted instruments are great.
4. Wrecktronix: Kind of reminded me of Ke$ha... but not horrible. The autotune on this one really blew it for me. I like how you played with the panning on the vocals.
5. Spirographik: Basically the same comments as above.

Overall, I really liked the feel of the album as a whole. There was enough variety that it kept me interested which is good because I don't usually listen to rap/hip-hop.

Rob Fisher-- Years to Remember: I really, really enjoyed this. Simple instrumentation plus great vocals and great lyrics. I love the backing vocals too. Terrific. I only wish you had done more. Would love to hear more from you in the future.

Osmin-- It's all very raw. I couldn't really get into the first track on the album Que te Ha Dado esa Mujer. Run was interesting. The mixing could be better. It all feels very raw. Macario en Macondo was fun to listen to. I've always been a fan of spanish guitar. But, again it felt very raw and a little sloppy. La Caida de Tleyotl was a refreshing change of pace from MeM. I love everything that flows perked my ears up right away with the glockenspiel. Definitely my favorite piece on the album. (it's the avant-garde in me) I really liked the vocal in the left speaker. I wish it traveled between the channels though. I think more dynamic panning would have made this a lot better. Definitely interesting and it has a point. In Your Head returns to the style of Run. The random screaming kind of turned me off though. It didn't really serve any artistic point IMHO.

Reality Calls--
1. Endless Night: Guitars sound great, as do the vocals. The hi-hat sound is really distracting though. Most of the drums just don't really work. Good vocals and harmony though. I'm not really sure what happened at 2:45. The eq changes abruptly and it's a little unnerving.
2. History with no Beginning: The acoustic guitar in the beginning sounds really good. Drums sound better in this song. Vocals and harmonies are good. There are some chords that sound way too metal/rocky for the subject matter.
3. Bloody Rags: I was expecting something more along the lines of a song about menstruation by looking at the title and not the lyrics. Not the case. The guitars sound good, but I felt like the bass didn't quite fit. Might be better down an octave.
4. Monotony: Guitars sound good. I'm sure if it was supposed to make me laugh, but laugh I did at the Beastie Boys sound.

Strange Battery--First, I must preface this by saying that I laughed out loud on more than one occasion. It reminds me of a more edgy version of this childrens band I used to listen to while I was growing up in Albuquerque, NM, the Green Chile Jam Band.
1. Brushy Blues: The lyrics cracked me up, seriously. The only thing I found distracting were the toms. They were a little too ring-y for my taste.
2. Flossy Funk: Not much to say about this one. It's Funky, it's Flossy. I think I'm going to play the last 2 songs while I'm brushing my teeth and flossing.
3. Ready to Dance: I was totally thrown off when the chicken dance came in. I almost fell out of my chair laughing. I'm imagining these kids at like a middle school dance and this metal band playing and they're all like "um... what" and then they're all like chicken dance! YEAH! Then... Mosh to the chicken dance! Epic.
4. Bath Time: Definitely a change from RtD. I think you could make a living making children albums.
5. Clean it Up: The quintessential clean your room song. I think my mother sounded like this on more than one occasion while I was growing up.
6. Monster: I love the bandoneon sound. I'm going to play this for my children (when I have them) while dressed in armor and wielding a large ax when they tell me to look for monsters.
7. Everybody Poops (And Everybody Pees): The only thing I would change would be the eq on the toms. It's a little boom-y again.
8. Orlok's Vowel Tango: I absolutely love this. (Minus the missing vowel)
9. Saturday: This reminded me of System of a Down. Loved it. The vocals were a little phasey though. Also, wish the spoken words were a little more understandable over the instruments. They get covered a little.
10. Bonus Track: I love the variation within all of your songs, but especially like the use of the electric piano.
11. Be Yourself: Uplifting. Good production.
12. Finally: Nice little piano finish to an epic album.

I would have liked the vocals on a lot of the tracks to be more understandable and more up in the mix, but over all I thoroughly enjoyed this. Congrats.


Good job to everyone!

First batch of reviews (from Oryx and the Crakers)

LUXI- loved this record, which is saying something because i am usually turned off by 93% of underground rap/anything involving (or sounding like it involves) autotune. LOVE the instrumentation, love the vocals. It's all very Portishead meets gangsta street cred. Very groovy, and catchy, but also kind of dark. --really dig the shamisen (?) sample in the first track. Coral Castle came out really beautifully, sexual but not obnoxious, and i dug the pared-downness of the effects and beats, it's not beating you over the head with supersaturated breakdowns like the shit that's on the radio right now. It's like popular music but filtered through true musicianship not tainted by commercialism.

I don't know what it's called but it sounds like a soundtrack? Dan's roomate.

Love this, and don't get mad but it sounds very Inception-influenced to me; 'they're hacking the mainframe' reminds me of Mombasa (yes I realize I'm going to offend some music technology majors by saying I liked the Inception sountrack, sorry Dan). Totally jealous of the technology at your disposal, and in awe of how you used it. Limbo of Infants was creepy and expertly done. Was leary of listening to it at night while hanging out with my girl Mary @_@ so it's very effective.

LOGAN BRADLEY--really dug the guitar on this, very Thom Yorke meets Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. The guitar intro on the first track reminds me of the Antarcticans. Also dig the combination of genre, using slide sounds over a metal beat. Great drums, love the use of tom. The riffs are...very 90s to me, which is good. I think that has to do with the grunginess left on the guitar tracks, and that contrasts well over such clear cut beats. Bitchen vocal loops.

STRANGE BATTERY--I have to hand it to Dan for the ballsiness of this idea. It's like Raffi goes Metal and hangs out with The Frogs along the way. Excellent bavarian/sort of mariachi intro to the Bonus Track. The Pop Tarts breakdown in Saturday made me lol. Great use of snare. The opeth-y keyboard breakdowns are cool. Has the D. Waldkirch trademark of going metal-lite on the bridge in Clean It Up. Like the Vowel tango, reminds me of Sebastian A. Bach a lot. Props on album art. My only criticism is that I would have loved to seen what you could do with some double bass/blast beats.

RT Wrap Up

I didn't post during the process, but I'd like to throw in my thoughts post-show style.

I did all of my writing and recording between 9pm and 2am and then woke up at 8am for another super long day of driving and working. Luckily I had most of the weekend free to wrap it all up. Somehow this was the most relaxed RT I've done. This is my fourth RT but it's my first post-college. I think the lack of homework and the ability to do work every day, no matter how little, took a lot of the pressure off. Though a relaxed Rt experience still means writing all of the lyrics two seconds before hitting record at 7pm Sunday evening.

Anyway, for this record I chose not to continue my string of apocalyptic, distortion-saturated albums that I did for RT IV and V. Instead I sort of reverted to my first RT mindset of creating a wide variety of songs in styles that are currently on my mind. I wanted to focus very heavily on constructing solid songs that follow the rigid pop-rock template. This lasted for one half of one song before I was bored so I started my musical wandering without going too far. The tracks are all still very much songs and none of the song structures are of particular interest, but they're not quite as tight as most contemporary pop-rock.

I ended up with only about 17 minutes of music, but it's spread out over 6 tracks all in very different styles. Length is a real non-issue for me when it comes to composing. If anything, I would rather leave more to be desired than outstay my welcome. That's not to say long is bad by any means, but with me it probably would be.

I was inspired, happy, frustrated, disappointed, unmotivated, and then properly pleased by the end of it all. I'm really happy with how my album turned out, both in content and quality. I've been building my guitar setup specifically for recording since moving out to LA and this record helped reinforce my choices. I love the guitar tones I got on this record and I learned a couple more mixing and mastering tricks while doing this record.

A success all in all. Record Time gets better and better with each iteration, so I can't wait to hear what everyone came up with this year.

I went ahead and included some pictures of the gear I used for this RT.



Here is my ridiculous vocal isolation...desk mic



Guitars, cab, and new 6w tube amp. I used a Sennheiser 906 to track all of my guitars.



The whole shebang. The cat was on the printer almost the whole time. When I locked him out he cried and my room mic picked it up, so he got his way.

- Logan

Finished!

Hello all,

For my Record Time VI project, I intentionally didn't really have much of a plan starting out. I wanted to simply start writing and see where it took me. About halfway through Monday, however, I decided that I wanted to use this week to produce at least one demo track that I had been wanting to write to promote myself. I had been wanting to compose an orchestral action/thriller demo piece that incorporated electronic or techno elements, much in the style of the music you hear in many movies, video games and tv shows today. So I started that on Monday, and since I wanted it to be as detailed and professional as I could make it within a reasonable amount of time, I worked exclusively on that until Thursday.

While I had been working on that, I decided I wanted to try a much more experimental 'sound mass' piece for orchestra. I chose to base it on the idea of limbo, and used orchestra with boy's choir. I began writing this on Thursday and finished it on Friday.

Saturday started off with me working on a composition for which I have had the melody for a long time. However, I ultimately decided to throw this idea out exclusively because it's a slow tempo piece and I didn't want to include two very slow compositions on a such a short album (the other being the sound mass one). So, I spent the remainder of the day adding finishing touches to the previous two pieces.

On Sunday, I started writing my first real attempt at some sort of Afro-Cuban music, which ended up also having some Thomas Newman-ish elements to it, which I'm definitely cool with. Also on Sunday, I went back and resurrected what I had originally written on Monday, touched it up, and presented it as an intermission track.

Overall, I can definitely say I'm pleased with my project. I didn't give it an album title because I don't really consider it an album, but rather a collection of unrelated pieces of music. Although it's only 4 tracks, it's longer in length than my previous Record Time album, and unlike it, every note of music here was conceived during this week. I'm definitely glad to have been a part of this again and look forward to hearing all of your music!

I didn't mean to make this post so long,
Andrew

VLOG - It's Overrr!

One last video... I ended up with a 5 song EP with a total length of 16.7 minutes. Short & Sweet.
Yesterday was definitely the craziest day I've had trying to get a project done in a long time. I got a couple people to throw a couple lil verses in and I like the contrast it added against my voice. I also appreciate that my boyfriend took the time to check over my mixes to make sure it was all legit... he also added a killer 808 to the last two tracks.
We burnt a CD and jumped into the car last night around 1 am to make sure the levels were all good, and I don't think I've ever had that much fun driving around so late on a Sunday bumpin an album I've just finished before. I hope that you all like it and take the time to burn it to a CD so you can jam to it in the car when you're rollin off to the clubz.
& I also hope someone made some relaxing music this week that I can put on my ipod and nap to, cause I don't know about you, but I need to hibernate now.

-Luxi

The Philosopher Stoned, stoned

Things got a bit ugly towards the end there, but by midnight I submitted my project. As of Sunday, I had yet to write nearly half of the lyrics and to record the lyrics to all but one song.

About one third of the album seems to be my infamous use of kung fu clips, but I did a little work warping them into something a bit more interesting, and my original music plays throughout these parts as well as the song portions. The entirety of the record is OVER 45 MINUTES, so I am certainly pleased.

At some point during the composition process, I was told the music is reminiscent of that of Shaq-Fu; I am definitely down with that! The use of phasing drums is effective, but at times seems to disrupt the flow.

For those of you familiar with my original plan (according to my first blog post), things have changed slightly, particularly my idea to use each tonic pitch as respective root notes in an album-long chord progression. I decided to treat this series of pitches as one specific voice following the progression, instead of necessarily making them root notes. The virtual chord progression is still there, but I felt this approach gave the album a more convincing melodic function. Additionally, I scrapped the idea of dividing the album into eighths.

BEWARE: Rhythms are loose and recording quality is low. Some sounds are at times difficult to hear while other moments straight up distort. That being said, I actually love this album. I feel that lyrically focusing on one story, combined with incorporating this "macroscopic form", has done much to give my submission for RECORD TIME VI an enjoyable and cohesive quality.

I hope you all enjoy "The Philosopher Stoned", and I very much look forward to reading other blogs and listening to other contributions.

Multitudinous congratulations to those of you that completed projects for this!

- Ed Mellen (The Killer Meteor)

Wrap Up

Well, this week I managed to write and record only 3 songs, and they aren't as finished as I'd like them to be, but it's something. It's been very fun and definitely a learning experience. I will continue working on these songs and others, at a more relaxed pace. I'm definitely participating next time (next year?) and set a schedule/goals/deadlines better and get at least a half hour. Looking forward to hearing everyone's work.