Ahaha. Just my luck to get a song entirely made up from voicemails. I have no idea how to approach this, but I will... try. Something.
Lawwwwny this is ya mawwwwm, aw you theah Lawny? I love you!
Re: Covering random songs from the archive
Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2020 8:33 am
by Lunkhead
It's kind of a classic, tbh. I remember that fight and that song very well. I wonder how many other songs out there are made up of voicemails? I can only think of the Ben Folds Five song "Your Most Valuable Possession".
As an exercise in simplifying my approach to music production, and to force myself to practice lead vocals and mixing/mastering, Hanky Code took on some of the “stiffed” songs (songs assigned but not covered by whoever requested the assignment).
I over-over-overproduce every song I get my paws on, averaging around 25-40 tracks in any given project. So for these songs, I gave myself an 8 track maximum. And to keep it interesting, I randomized some of the track assignments by literally rolling the dice for each song:
Tracks 1-4 were not randomized; I figured I’d need dedicated tracks for a lead vocal, a doubled lead (or harmony) vocal, drums and bass, so that’s the first four tracks right there.
I rolled a 6-sided die for a rhythm track: 1-2 = distorted guitar, 3-4 = clean electric guitar, 5-6 = acoustic guitar.
Rolled the dice again for track 6, the lead/fill instrument track: 1-3 = guitar, 4-6 = synth.
Rolled again for track 7, the backing keyboards track: 1-3 = organ, 4-6 = arpeggiator
Rolled again for track 8, the ‘whatever’ track: 1-2 = bells, 3-4 = horns/piano, 5-6 = bonus backing vocal track.
The randomized part was, admittedly, geared towards my strengths. I was strict in following the dice rolls, except that after finishing the BSS cover I switched out the horns option for piano (because the Logic Pro X horn section track option is a glitchy, buggy, time-consuming mess). I believe the dice rolls sped up the process of covering the songs because I didn’t have to think much about instrumentation - the instruments are already assigned, and I only had to decide how to use them. Otherwise I don’t recommend doing this, because you might end up having to shoehorn an acoustic rhythm guitar track into a synth pop tune. Also the 8 track maximum sped things up because I couldn’t just keep adding more and more layers to the songs.
This project was a learning experience, but I didn't get exactly what I'd hoped out of it. I did not “find my lead vocal voice”; I got some practice doing lead vocals but I didn’t have any sort of breakthrough or improvement. The 8 track limitation probably didn’t help me to simplify my approach much either, and instead I (arguably) got better at making 8 tracks sound like 16 tracks, which was not my goal. My mixing/mastering did not noticeably improve, but at least I got some more practice.
Anyway if my math is right, I get one point per song (5), plus a half point per song for the PFJr bonus (2.5), plus a half point per song for the SoundCloud bonus (2.5), plus a half point Chumpy bonus for both Frannie and Under the Horse (1). 5 + 2.5 + 2.5 + 1 = 11 points.
[p.s. I know it says "Jerkatorium" on the SoundCloud link, but these were all covered by Hanky Code.]
Re: Covering random songs from the archive
Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2021 2:53 pm
by Jerkatorium
[crickets]
Is this not a thing anymore?
If it's still a thing then please assign me a random song.
Re: Covering random songs from the archive
Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2021 2:55 pm
by Lunkhead
Huh, somehow I totally missed your posts, sorry about that. I don't think this thread showed up in "New Posts" for me for some reason. I'll try to get caught up. In the meantime, here's a random song: