Sad Professor
Up | 1998
Listen Original Listen Final Mix

Home Studio

We got through the last month and ended up in a great new place. Along with that comes a room I can use for a studio.

It took around a month to get relatively settled. At least enough to where I can spend some time on music.

Best part is that I can keep my keyboard set up in the space. My Yamaha s80 is now always sitting right there. I’m recording it right fron the 1/4” output. This also lets me play along in the room to the track - using only the laptop speakers. No headphones makes it feel like I’m playing with a band as opposed to in my head.

Professor is an excellent first one for piano. The chords are so simple, making the in-room recording easy to feel through.

Studio Images

Keyboard

Desk

Lap-Steel

Timing

Lots of small surpises in this one. The chorus alternates between seven and six beat meters.

Late afternoon... house is hot
3 beats         + 4 beats

I started...      jumped up
3 beats         + 3 beats

Everyone...       bore
3 beats         + 4 beats

Everybody...      drunk
3 beats         + 4 beats

This was a case in which using Garageband foces me into creative decisions. Mainly that it cannot handle meter changes in a song. Only tempo.

I first tried to use 1/1 and ignore meter changes. That was way too hard to follow as I was building the initial bass and acoustic tracks. I ended up scrapping the click track altogether and doing everything by feel for this one.

I was very tempted to go back and nudge / fix all the rhythm tracks to be on the beat. But in the end, this is still an experiment to improve. And I’d like to hear this knowing where my timingwas off on which instrument.