Saturday, March 12, 2022

Another dismal Saturday

Rain started falling on Thursday evening and has continued to do so, on and off, until now (Saturday morning, 9 am) and will probably continue all day. The rain is good for agriculture but not so much so for my soul.

I eventually finished "Rifts and drifts" yesterday. After listening to the 96 bpm version, I decided to speed it up slightly to 104 bpm. When I listened to what might have been a finished version, I felt it was too fast and could hear myself having difficulty with the pace. So once I again, I slowed the track down to 98 bpm; on Wednesday evening I sang a quiet vocal over this more as a demonstration than as a finished take. But when I listened to it on Thursday, I was quite pleased: the first verse was out but the rest was good. I then sang the song one more time: this new take became the lead vocal (in mono), whereas Wednesday's take (in stereo) joins the lead on verse two.

I felt that the vocal on the first verse was too 'naked'; I wasn't sure which effect would be better, chorus or backslap echo. I tried both on Friday morning and ended up with too much chorus that was completely wrong. In the evening I made yet another mix, this time with no special effect on the lead vocal, but with increased bass in order to make it sound warmer. Finally!

Whenever I wasn't fiddling with the vocals, I was changing notes in the coda. So many changes. Eventually I achieved what had been eluding me and now the coda sounds 'right' to my ears. Enough.


I watched a YouTube presentation about David Bowie's "Heroes". The top end of this (Fripp and Eno) is good, but the basic track presents a never changing rhythm that detracts from the rest of the arrangement. Apparently there are many covers, but the one that was presented was a live, orchestral, version by Peter Gabriel. Most of the lyrics have been discarded, but the orchestral arrangement is fantastic and TOO SHORT. It's good to have songs without drums or any other form of percussion now and then (as does "Rifts and drifts").

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