jezkemp
02-22-2010, 05:13 PM
Hi, this is kind of my first post on the Reaper forums, so hello to you all.
The short version – I have an album online at http://www.jezkemp.co.uk/withoutfear, it’s an innovative mix of genres (indie, acoustic, rock, dance, sarcastic hiphop), recorded using only my acoustic guitar and webcam and the magic of Reaper. (The most interesting sounds occur on tracks 4, 5 and 8.) Please do have a listen, hope you like.
The long version…
I rocked up in New Zealand with only my acoustic guitar and laptop, leaving all my electric guitar gear in the UK. For several months I felt I couldn’t do anything musically, and resorted to doing dubious covers on Youtube to keep myself ticking over. Then a friend (www.davestannard.co.uk) pointed me in the direction of Reaper.
After playing around with it and getting to understand it a little bit, I realised I could record an album of my own songs I’d been collecting since 2008 – my laptop’s webcam mic is surprisingly better (or rather, surprisingly less shit) than I thought it would be, and Reaper’s effects and audio editing opened up a lot of possibilities to add colour to what would otherwise be just an acoustic album.
So finally last December I was able to launch “Without Fear”, 10 of my first songs written in 2008 with a vague connection, all roughly indie-rock but incorporating elements of folk, blues, dance/electro and other stuff. This was only possible through Reaper, which I’m very grateful for, and I hope some people here find the resulting sounds and/or techniques of interest.
So, points of technical interest you may appreciate are:
-Bass sound
I added a pitch drop of one octave and some heavy EQ to create a bass sound, it’s not perfect but it really works for the album.
-Track 4 (The Tsunami, The Tank And The Barcode)
Finale – This is a slow-burning track with a long-build-up and I wanted the shit to go down in the final chorus. I got a lot of individual notes , cross-faded them together and added distortion to create a permanent minor-sounding background filler. I also added 3 sets of panned guitar slides (using a coin for metallic effect) with flanger and distortion. It’s not quite apocalyptic, but for acoustic guitar sounds, I think it’s pretty heavy.
- Track 5 (Shark In A Goldfish Bowl)
Intro/outro – This is ideally a punk-rock song with added synth-electro, and I think I captured the fast feel of it pretty well. The intro sequencer sound was created by playing a lot of individual notes in the right key (Bminor) low on the guitar, cutting them down to the initial pluck sound, adding distortion and a pitch shift one octave up, and basically arranging them by trial and error to see what sounded good. At first the distortion is down to minimum, then fades in with automation. At the outro, another one of these with different note arrangement fades in as well.
“Verse” – The song doesn’t really have a verse, just an instrumental bit between the chorus and the bridge, but I made the spacey-synth-theramin sound by recording a lot of single notes, cutting off the harsh pluck sound, cross-fading them together, and basically plotting the pitch on the automation track. Add a bit of distortion, a bit of chorus and some delay and it sounds pretty cool I reckon.
- Track 8 (The Future’s What You Want It To Be)
Outro – Getting the strings/organ sound on this took a while – I basically played individual notes up the entire F#minor scale of the guitar, putting each of them on their own track, then ended up choosing just 3 for each chord (doubled and panned both ways, so 6 channels in all). It was pretty much the same process of cutting off the harsh pluck of the string, cross-fading it loads of times, and gluing it into a single long note – add EQ, chorus and delay, and you get the glassy, organ/fake strings sound.
There’s lots of other points on the album which merit some interest, even just standard production techniques on the tracks themselves (e.g. parts 1 & 2 of the 98-second track 7, “J-Lo Is A Rich Materialist Bitch And Represents The Block In No Way Whatsoever”, recording that was a whole lot of fun). Also I like to think the songs are quite good in themselves, so I hope you enjoy them musically as well as from a technical point of view. You can hear all the tracks in full on the minisite (courtesy of Reverbnation’s fine widgets) at http://www.jezkemp.co.uk/withoutfear. It’s not the best-produced album in the world and I’ve got some much brighter, catchier songs in the pipeline, but it feels good to finally make an album and I’m quite proud of the way I managed to construct it.
Anyway it’s out on iTunes etc. etc. blah blah blah – I don’t really want to plug it, I just hope some people have a listen and find it interesting. If you do, please do leave a comment.
Okay just a small plug for myself – I’ve got lots of musical ideas for the future (especially now with the help of an external soundcard, and Addictive Drums and Edirol Orchestral which I’m learning), so if you feel like following me on facebook/blogger/youtube/myspazz/twatter/all the rest of it, that would be most kind.
Big thanks
Jez
http://www.jezkemp.co.uk
The short version – I have an album online at http://www.jezkemp.co.uk/withoutfear, it’s an innovative mix of genres (indie, acoustic, rock, dance, sarcastic hiphop), recorded using only my acoustic guitar and webcam and the magic of Reaper. (The most interesting sounds occur on tracks 4, 5 and 8.) Please do have a listen, hope you like.
The long version…
I rocked up in New Zealand with only my acoustic guitar and laptop, leaving all my electric guitar gear in the UK. For several months I felt I couldn’t do anything musically, and resorted to doing dubious covers on Youtube to keep myself ticking over. Then a friend (www.davestannard.co.uk) pointed me in the direction of Reaper.
After playing around with it and getting to understand it a little bit, I realised I could record an album of my own songs I’d been collecting since 2008 – my laptop’s webcam mic is surprisingly better (or rather, surprisingly less shit) than I thought it would be, and Reaper’s effects and audio editing opened up a lot of possibilities to add colour to what would otherwise be just an acoustic album.
So finally last December I was able to launch “Without Fear”, 10 of my first songs written in 2008 with a vague connection, all roughly indie-rock but incorporating elements of folk, blues, dance/electro and other stuff. This was only possible through Reaper, which I’m very grateful for, and I hope some people here find the resulting sounds and/or techniques of interest.
So, points of technical interest you may appreciate are:
-Bass sound
I added a pitch drop of one octave and some heavy EQ to create a bass sound, it’s not perfect but it really works for the album.
-Track 4 (The Tsunami, The Tank And The Barcode)
Finale – This is a slow-burning track with a long-build-up and I wanted the shit to go down in the final chorus. I got a lot of individual notes , cross-faded them together and added distortion to create a permanent minor-sounding background filler. I also added 3 sets of panned guitar slides (using a coin for metallic effect) with flanger and distortion. It’s not quite apocalyptic, but for acoustic guitar sounds, I think it’s pretty heavy.
- Track 5 (Shark In A Goldfish Bowl)
Intro/outro – This is ideally a punk-rock song with added synth-electro, and I think I captured the fast feel of it pretty well. The intro sequencer sound was created by playing a lot of individual notes in the right key (Bminor) low on the guitar, cutting them down to the initial pluck sound, adding distortion and a pitch shift one octave up, and basically arranging them by trial and error to see what sounded good. At first the distortion is down to minimum, then fades in with automation. At the outro, another one of these with different note arrangement fades in as well.
“Verse” – The song doesn’t really have a verse, just an instrumental bit between the chorus and the bridge, but I made the spacey-synth-theramin sound by recording a lot of single notes, cutting off the harsh pluck sound, cross-fading them together, and basically plotting the pitch on the automation track. Add a bit of distortion, a bit of chorus and some delay and it sounds pretty cool I reckon.
- Track 8 (The Future’s What You Want It To Be)
Outro – Getting the strings/organ sound on this took a while – I basically played individual notes up the entire F#minor scale of the guitar, putting each of them on their own track, then ended up choosing just 3 for each chord (doubled and panned both ways, so 6 channels in all). It was pretty much the same process of cutting off the harsh pluck of the string, cross-fading it loads of times, and gluing it into a single long note – add EQ, chorus and delay, and you get the glassy, organ/fake strings sound.
There’s lots of other points on the album which merit some interest, even just standard production techniques on the tracks themselves (e.g. parts 1 & 2 of the 98-second track 7, “J-Lo Is A Rich Materialist Bitch And Represents The Block In No Way Whatsoever”, recording that was a whole lot of fun). Also I like to think the songs are quite good in themselves, so I hope you enjoy them musically as well as from a technical point of view. You can hear all the tracks in full on the minisite (courtesy of Reverbnation’s fine widgets) at http://www.jezkemp.co.uk/withoutfear. It’s not the best-produced album in the world and I’ve got some much brighter, catchier songs in the pipeline, but it feels good to finally make an album and I’m quite proud of the way I managed to construct it.
Anyway it’s out on iTunes etc. etc. blah blah blah – I don’t really want to plug it, I just hope some people have a listen and find it interesting. If you do, please do leave a comment.
Okay just a small plug for myself – I’ve got lots of musical ideas for the future (especially now with the help of an external soundcard, and Addictive Drums and Edirol Orchestral which I’m learning), so if you feel like following me on facebook/blogger/youtube/myspazz/twatter/all the rest of it, that would be most kind.
Big thanks
Jez
http://www.jezkemp.co.uk