So Fast, So Numb
New Adventures In Hi-Fi | 1996
Listen Original Listen Final Mix

Finishing Up

One of my early quesitons was “how long should I take to reacord each song”. I think “So Fast” will be a good average at one week. I could easily tweak any of these tracks forever. Without making myself move on, I won’t learn as much.

So I’ll shoot for a week per song. Nothing that Im holding myself to. There’s no knowing what will come up. But at least I have a ballpark.

It was so much fun to live inside a single REM song for an entire week. I kept “So Fast” on repeat each night to soak everything in. WHen it came up, I had no idea how well I could get a big rock guitar mix together. After this one, I’m eager to try another rocker from “Life’s Rich Pageant” or “Accelerate”.

I’d also like to see how I do on another fast drum track. After using that loop, it shouldn’t take much to build my own.

Final Tracks (19)

Vocals (7 tracks)

  • Main Composite Lead
  • Lead Vocal doubling with different composite
  • Main Vocal Delay on some lines
  • Callback “Woahs” for main vocals
  • Four tracks for Mills Macking Vocals

Instruments (12 tracks)

  • Piano (midi)
  • Drum Intro (midi)
  • Drums (Apple Loop “Headbop Drumset”)
  • Two Shaker Tracks
  • Organ (midi)
  • Lead Distortion Rhythm Guitar
  • Lighter Distortion Rhythm Guitar
  • Lead Guitar Solo
  • Bass
  • Acoustic Guitar Soft
  • Acoustic Guitar Loud

Faithful Cover?

This was a good song to do a fairly straight cover for. It let me focus less on arrangment than the engineering. Not to mention setting up the initial space.

For future songs, I may not follow the recorded version as close. I’d really like to get creative with some of these.

As a closing for each song, I’ll be making a single take version of the song with me singing and playing one instrument. Likely acoustic guitar or piano. This way, I’ll have a “live” version of the song without any studio shenannegains.

Learnings

Here are some things I learng from my first song:

  • Garageband can do a lot more than I expected. Especially with the built-in effects and the amount of customizability around them. Its still so much clunkier for some common tasks like gain clipping and aux sends. But there are ways around them.
  • Get the initial song tempo right
  • Record dry vocals. I need to do some sound tests in the closet to see how dry I can get the signal. The bathroom booth was OK for “So Fast”, but that initial effect on tape won’t always work.
  • This is so much fun and rewarding. Even if no one listens, I’m enjoing making these.

Next Up

I had Zoey hit the button for the next song. It’s “Near Wild Heaven”. Looks like I’ll be shifting vocal gears.