Gazrock!
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Basically I recorded a couple of clean guitar tracks on Audacity then transferred them individually to Garageband on the Mac. A bit of a pain in the arse doing this way, but I had no option because I currently only have a jack line-in to the sound card on my PC, and no such connection on the Mac. I really need to get some music composition software for the PC tomorrow. As good as Garageband is, my PC is much more powerful.
I had to use a metronome on Audacity to get the timing right, then when I transferred the tracks to the Mac I replaced the metronome track with some drum loops set to the correct tempo. It feels pretty weird trying to record riffs in cleantone when they are intended to be distorted in the final version. However are some nice guitar effects you can add in Garageband (distortion, echo etc), but listening again to Gazrock!, I think I may have overkilled on the reverb and echo. I was trying to get a really heavy sound, and although it sounded OK on my headphones I thought it sounded a bit distant and woolly through the speakers. That said, my current speakers are a bit crap anyway so maybe it's not so much of an issue. Please post a comment if you have decent speakers and tell me if it sounds any good! LET US ROCK!
Twiddly Tune
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This is another little test (recorded using the same method as "Gazrock!"). It's half finished and I may have another bash at this one because I quite like it. I may even actually tune my guitar if I redo it! Maybe it'll go on DrGaz's Party somewhere (that is my um "album" I might do one day).
INSTRUCTIONS TO DOWNLOAD MP3 FILES: Right-click on the "Download MP3" link and click on "save link as".
Above is a quick "photo of the day" shot I took earlier of my guitar.
4 comments:
top class mate!
Gazrock reminds me a lot of ZZtop tunes along with some southern rock influences. The production is brilliant, very 80's glam metal but a lot better. I've listened to it through my AKG headphones and my speakers and sounds killer both ways! Also the drums sound very real too! Is that from the Mac's midi generator or have u used any custom samples?
Very well done!
Cheers boss! Glad it sounded OK on your speakers/headphones. I must buy some decent speakers as mine are crapola.
Garageband has got loads of in-built drum loops that you can paste onto a track. The tempo automatically adjusts to the song tempo. I combined a couple to make the intro and the main one. I also added some effects (mainly echo) to make the into drums sound more "complicated".
Garageband is really a fantastic piece of software, but I would really like to switch to PC-based software. Call me a heretic, but I really don't like Macs! I wish I could just install it on the PC.
The problem with the guitar is that I have a weak signal going into the computer, so I think soon I'll buy a preamp (at the moment the only option I have is to plug it into the soundcard). I could do with upgrading the soundcard too.
yeah I will call you a heretic!!! And a big one too! You're the only person I've heard of preferring pcs to macs for sound recording/editing stuff!!!
I guess you could do with a soundcard upgrade or a guitar multi effects pedal, but my advice is to stick with the mac, no pc can beat it!!!
BURN THE NON-BELIEVER! From my own experience I quite agree with you that Macs are fantastic for music, and perhaps they are better than PCs in this department (I haven't tried a PC-based software, so I have nothing to compare with). Surely Cubase is better software than Garageband?
Ideally I would probably go for Logic Pro on the Mac (I've heard amazing things about it and it would be a natural progression for me from Garageband.
What I'm saying is that I prefer PCs generally to Macs, and this would mean I would have to own a high spec PC and Mac to be able to do everything I want to do. I wouldn't really want to do that and It's really difficult to decide what to do. Any suggestions?
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