December 4th and 5th, 2008

[Billy's Little Trip]

No way are we forgetting a day after all this time. Sure, it's inevitaberr inev....inevira....inevitable Goddammit! But not today, not on my watch!

Question of yesterday: What's the most recent change(s) you've made to your recording, writing or playing process that you feel has improved your music from this time last year?

Question of the day: How has your experience been here at the mighty Song Fight? Your answer must be written in Haiku.

[roymond]

QotD:

my experience
like ice in early winter
regretfully thin

[Rabid Garfunkel]

QOYD: Tascam FireOne. No more sending audio through a 16-bit 1/8" stereo in jack on a late-90s era laptop.

QOTD (live):
Flop sweat is heavy
They won't know unless you stop
I can do this, yo

QOTD (studio):
Where are the levels?
It sounds better in Cubase
How do they do that?

QOTD (people):
Where's Spud and Maddog?
They will know where the bar is
JB is cool too

[Hoblit]

QoY: Trying to pay more attention to the Cymbal Vs Snare / Kick ratio and still getting the high-hat 'up close' sound without it overbearing. My early recordings with real drums suffered because of my constant EQ'ing of the drum track to make up for this lack of control during initial recording. I've gotten better at it but I prefer to say that I'm 'getting' better at it. (I don't have LIVE multi-tracking capabilities, each drum has its own channel on the mixing board but it all goes to one track on the computer.)

QotD:

Swam furiously on new oceans
Found rest on Island
Forgetting how to swim

[Niveous]

QOYD: A new microphone + A new laptop= much better recordings.

QOTD:
A new leash on life
A way to appease the muse
Niveous arise

[Albatross]

QoYD: Guess I haven't really made enough music this year to improve significantly. I did just get some nice new plugs, though. God bless IK and their specials.

QoTD: (kinda borrowing RG's haiku template)

TOURING HAIKU

RG, where are we?
Washington needs more rest stops
Motel bibles fun!

PLAYING LIVE HAIKU

Live drums are better
This song sounds like "Mongoloid"
Yes, need monitors

RECORDING HAIKU

E-drums are handy
Why is this thing so quiet?
God, my singing sucks

SONGFIGHT ARTIST HAIKU

Where do they find time?
Hey, Spud's house looks like Sleeper
Need more Cow Exchange!

[Spud]

QOTD1: Take a little more time.
QOTD2:

SONGFIGHT
Hey, this song fight's fun.
Where'd that guy narbotic go?
JB, let's step up.

OCTOTHORPE
Octothorpe makes songs.
Frankie Big Face has a show.
We can't stop ourselves.

[Reist]

qotd: I haven't recorded much music this year, but I've written A LOT. I'm planning on releasing it soon, but I'd rather write than record, to be honest.

So I guess I've improved in songwriting a fair bit, but not a lot in recording/mixing, and it's probably because I bought a small voice recorder - so I can write a lot more songs, but I lose the interest in high quality recordings.

And for the haikus ... I'm totally stealing Albatross' template.

TOURING HAIKU
Go to SongFight Live!
Oh wait ... it's down in the states
Dang selfish yankees.

PLAYING LIVE HAIKU
Nothing but silence
Hire a backup band, you say
But I still can't sing.

RECORDING HAIKU
I hate recording
But I love to write the songs
What's the solution?

Write more, record less
Find a band to take the stress
And make them record instead

(I had to take artistic liberty on that last line - I couldn't force it to make sense in just 5 syllables)

SONGFIGHT ARTIST HAIKU
That nineteen year old
Who garners sympathy votes
From nice old people.

Haha, that was fun. We should write poetry in DRC more often.

[Phil. Redmon.]

Funge, dudes, this week's "Five Years Ago" is my first two fights. That wows me.

QOYESTY: It's different every time. A couple years ago I got some pretty good monitors, and that's helped me get a little more serious about EQ. Also, uh, I tried out some different picks?

QOTD:

finey finey fine
then nothing for a long spell
looks like fine again

Woooooooo!

[Rabid Garfunkel]

TOURING HAIKU

RG, where are we?
Washington needs more rest stops
Motel bibles fun!

One scary motel
This pregnant junkie chick is
Not the best tour guide

PLAYING LIVE HAIKU

Live drums are better
This song sounds like "Mongoloid"
Yes, need monitors

Dude! That was the secret to our success!

[HeuristicsInc]

first sing, then collab
friends through internet is odd...
odd and excellent
-bill

[Teplin]

QoY: Joining Songfight. I'm actually getting songs done instead of endlessly dicking with them until I lose interest. Three COMPLETE songs in under a month, which is unheard of. Thanks Songfight! *cheesy double thumbs up*

QotD:

Hmm, still not perfect
maybe I should re-record...
OH FUCK THERE'S NO TIME!

[fluffy]

qoy: Keeping it simple, stupid

qotd:
A, B, C D Pups!
There are so many songs here
I should write one too

[fluffy]

Write more, record less
Find a band to take the stress
And make them record instead

(I had to take artistic liberty on that last line - I couldn't force it to make sense in just 5 syllables)

"They record for me"

[big crouton]

QOTD:
For the past 3 years
I throw together two songs
Then break for a year

I just realized that's been my pattern. House of Hodgman and Tw3rp. Baby Be Quiet and Night Terrors. Shoelace Soup and City in Fog.

See y'all next November.

[Märk]

Haikus:

On Songfight in general

I like you people
Well, most of you, anyway
john|m is a dick

On performing live

It's been like ten years
I don't think I'd have the nerve
Unless I got drunk

On recording

At last, the song's done
I guess I'd better hit 'save'
...WHY WON'T THE MOUSE MOVE?!

[jast]

QOY:

• Using Reaper.
• Using instruments.
• Writing an Album-A-Day and joining SF.
• Finding better plate reverb settings. I usually have larger room sizes now and cut the reverb level by a few more dB.
• Using doubling. Before I joined SF I have only done that in a single song, not counting the one where it really sucked.
• Not caring about master clipping as much as I did. I used to adjust track levels when I ran into clipping; now I typically sort of ignore that and just add a sort-of gain compression filter (that's something different from normal compression, by the way). It tends to work out very well and gives me a much higher average sound pressure level.

QOTD:
No time left to waste
This song must be finished now
Deadlines can be great

At last, the song's done
I guess I'd better hit 'save'
...WHY WON'T THE MOUSE MOVE?!

I'm very happy with my decision to turn on Reaper's autosave feature.

[Heather. Redmon.]

QoY: I've become a lot more confident in my singing and that makes my part of the process so much more fun and easy!

QoTD:

The Hell Yeahs kick ass
Recording with Phil is fun
I love to Song Fight

or

Sometimes reviews are
The best part of the fight and
Other times they suck

[jack]

i used to post lots
now i hardly ever post
who are you people?

[Ross]

Here:

QOTD 1 :New headphones - acquired dring nur ein. helped my mix. But i'm not sure I'm not worse than I was a year ago.