Project 5 is Here!!!!!!!!!!

Preamble..........

Ok, the first thing anyone needs to know about recording music is that it is exhausting. The second thing you need to know is that recording Beatles music is next to impossible. Weeks after the project 4 deadline I became obsessed with recreating an artist's music. This obviously translated into project 5 however I wanted to put an interesting twist to the process - I wanted to play on the fact that British musicians in supergroups such as the Beatles always quarrel! So much that it leads to breakups (The Who, The Police, Led Zeppelin, oh yea and The Beatles!). This is where the idea to recreate a Beatles song as an "unreleased track" came from as well as me conducting a fake BBC interview with the two remaining Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Star. The "mixed reality" concept is drawn from the idea that there are such things as The BBC, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Star. These are all indeed real things however my creation and rendition of these elements are purely fictional. Furthermore, I wanted to test my new music recording software and see how close of a duplicate I could make of the Beatles hit "Don't Let Me Down." So HERE IS THE LINK to the project blog which includes the comical BBC interview as well as my version of "Don't Let Me Down." Overall, the recording process of "Don't Let Me Down" took about 16 hours and the mock interview about 3 hours. Well, enjoy!


Here's how I did it................

*Equipment*

Bass Guitar - Fender Precision Bass (2000)
Acoustic Guitar - Ovation CS257 Special Edition
Electric Guitar - Fender Telecaster (2004)
Upright Bass - Devilli 4-string classic
Microphone - Sennheiser e835
Recording Software - Sony Acid Studio 2009 Edition (I think could be 2008...its the newest one)
Amp - Crate Combo Amp
Bass Amp - Fender Combo Stack
Headphones - Sennheiser

*Recording Process*

Step 1 - Acoustic Guitar. My first step was to record the song all the way through with just acoustic guitar. This would act as my skeleton track for all the other instruments to go off of. This took about 25 takes each 4 minutes each. I used slight reverb and slight eq on these tracks.

Step 2 - Chorus Vocals. On the part where you hear "Don't Let Me Down" There are 5 voices all overlapping and harmonizing. These all took about 20 takes and I had practically no voice afterwards. I used heavy reverb backed with dry reverb to give a concrete yet ambient feel to the vocals.

Step 3 - Verse Vocals. These were relatively easy for me. I had to do about 8 takes total each 4 minutes a piece. What I did was copy them and overlap them to thicken their sound.

Step 4 - Electric Guitar. Again, not soo bad. I did about 9 takes and this was all improvisational. Heavy rever and slight eq on these tracks.

Step 5 - Bass. I am most proud of how these bass tracks turned out. I feel like I nailed McCartney's bass sound right on the money. VERY VERY slight reverb and high eq to thicken the bass sound.

In a nutshell, that was my process and with mixing and all these tracks to make sure they all sound like they came from the same space was very difficult and actually consumed most of my time. I'm very happy with the finished products considering I'm not using the most Professional equipment.

The Interview.......

Step 1 - Get intoxicated. I wouldnt have been able to do anything like this if I didnt have some of my liquid love juice handy.

Step 2 - I recorded about 8 or 9 takes of this each about 8 minutes a piece. I chose the best one. These were all improved and all the voices are your's truly. My British accent is pretty good huh? Again, I used Sony Acid to record this.

Video Collage ...........

All I did was make a video collage with Beatles Pictures on Mindows Movie Maker. Nothing too hard. I wanted to use real Beatles photos to try to convince my audience a little better

Recording Pictures.............

HERE ARE SOME PICS OF ME RECORDING

The Beatles - Newly Released Rare Version of "Don't Let Me Down"

I have just received word that The Beatles, the best band of all time, are going to release a rare version of "Don't Let Me Down" free to the public. Here's the catch - it is not available for purchase in stores, online, or even on vinyl! The only place you can find it is on my blog. YES! Nate Maruso's freaking blog! Keep an eye out for this rare masterpiece around midnight on December 11th so you can be the first to hear such a GEM! Also, there will be a short interview with the two remaining Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Star. They will be discussing the release of this rare track, the recording process, and some other British jargon you probably won't understand. That's all for now.....Remember, you will only be able to hear it on my blog!

Project 5......

WRITERS BLOCK! I really have not had the time or the ethos to figure out what I want to do for project 5. That's about it.... I have to really gather my thoughts

Blogging......

People like blogs because it is a way to have your own 15 minutes of cyber space fame. It is freedom and expression exposed to the masses and best of all it is unfiltered, unedited, and raw. Blogging for me is more of a free-write rather than anything drastic or serious. I am attracted to blogging because it allows me to gain insight on some of my thoughts through others responses and that is a great thing.

Final Project

I am really coming up with nothing at this point for project 5. It's almost like I have too many ideas right now but they are not solidified yet. I'm sure I will figure something out sooner or later. I have always said that spontaneity is the best for creativity.

Project Four - "DREAMBLOG"

Conceptually, this was the hardest project for me in this class assigned to date. This was not due to the specific assignment parameters but more in the creative direction and execution I was to follow for it. Basically, I had no ethos for a while. I toyed around in my head with an idea to create a fake myspace profile about a really bad musician that thought he was great. I was going to record a couple of intentionally crappy acoustic songs and create a fake profile laced with arrogance. Really, I wanted to see how bad people could hate me. However, my pride as a musician took over and I decided to scrap the idea.
As for my current execution, as of late I have been extremely intrigued by alternate realities as they pertain to different states of consciousness. More specifically, I have been fascinated with dreams and the places we go when we are dreaming. Some people consider these places to be real while others dismiss them as self-manifested images that are born from subconscious desires. I do not take the latter route. I believe that dreams truly serve a purpose and that our mind is an undiscovered planet. My brother and I began researching lucid dreaming about a couple years ago; this is the ability to vividly interact in our dreams and control your actions. It has actually been documented that people have learned to do things while having a lucid dream such as tying their driving a car, or riding a horse. Though completely speculative, I still think that these dreams are phenomena of the human mind and should be examined much more closely.
This is where the inspiration for project four has manifested. In my research of lucid dreaming, I was told to keep a document of my dreams as they occurred; this was to be in essence a “dream journal.” My dream journal was kept under my pillow and when I would awake from a dream I would write down the events in that dream that unfolded (the average human has between 60-100 dreams a night, making many of them hard to remember). Some of these dreams were scribbled down broken thoughts that really made no sense and others I can still remember to this day. In fact, the goal of writing these dreams down was to enhance my overall memory of certain significant events that may have some meaning. What became increasingly disturbing to me was the notion that one day I could become so “good” at lucid dreaming I could possibly exist in a dream world that became more vivid than the current reality that I exist in. Essentially, I was afraid that I might not be able to distinguish between the real world and the dream world if I was to keep pursuing my studies. So, I quit with the journal and I try to get 8 hours of good sleep every night.
Even though I have turned away from lucid dreaming, I am still extremely fascinated by dreams themselves and love to hear about people’s dreams. This is why for my project I wanted to create a “dream blog.” In this blog I ask anyone to post a memorable dream they have had both past and present. I think it would be extremely interesting to see what kind of dreams people have and why. Do you dream in color? Black and white? Are friends and family involved? Do you have a lot of nightmares? I ask that whoever posts on this blog not be afraid of criticism or embarrassment and that they analyze their dreams and how they relate to their daily lives. Happy posting!

Here is the link to dreamblog. Never stop dreaming!

Regarding Project 4

I am pretty sure about what I want to do for this project. I don't want to get ahead of myself or give anything away but I want to play on the whole social networking thing by creating a certain phony page about an alter ego or personality. Vulgarity is going to be very important. My project will rely heavily on the shocking and what "cannot be said." This is one of those rare opportunities in academia where you get to do something like this.