OctoAlMo

[foosnark]

I was thinking about NaSoAlMo (National Solo Album Month) this morning. It comes around every November, and I've participated in it a few times. Usually it breaks a streak of not really doing much creatively, or not finishing any projects.

I've done a lot more gaming this year than making music -- in fact the last album I did was for last year's NaSoAlMo. (I challenged myself to double the minimum length and did just fine.)

And so I thought... why wait? It's still somewhat early in October. I can make an album this month. I won't give myself any particular length requirement, and I don't have any plan right now. But when I get home from work, I'm gonna dive in.

[Winstontaneous]

Awesome, go for it! Keep us posted!

For myself, way more than gear, knowledge or inspiration - it's deadlines that make art and music get done.

I started writing & recording my own music in 2006 due to February Album Writing Month.

[foosnark]

So far so good. I'm looking at my usual NaSoAlMo/ FAWM pace of one track per two days on weekdays, one per day on weekends, which gives me room to throw away a couple of weaker tracks if I don't like them at the end.

I gave myself a couple of rules: no kick drums or hi-hat, and every track must have both fretless bass and lap steel guitar in some form. I'm not great on either of those, but basic loops, eBow drones and scraping noises I can do. This second track is very loop-ish though and I may try to stay away from that from now on -- what works fine for a 4 minute track gets really monotonous if you have to listen to it for 3-hour sessions.

The reasoning behind the rules: 1. I find myself almost always starting with a beat, and the beat almost always starts with kick, or kick and snare. And the first thing I think of when I tell myself not to do that is a hi-hat pattern instead. 2. I enjoy noodling on the bass or lap steel every once in a while, but I almost never use them in recordings and I want to see what kind of variety I can pull out of them.

[foosnark]

I have 19 minutes done so far in 4 tracks. I kind of messed up my pace by not working on it Friday or Sunday, but I'm not worried about it. I got a track done Saturday, one last night and am on the way to getting another done or mostly-done tonight.

My rules have taught me why I don't tend to use the lap steel in recordings. I'm just not inclined to strum chords; I'm more likely to sample a single note and then layer that in my DAW, or use a pad sound anyway. And where it comes to more melodic lines I'd still rather do them on the fretless bass because I just prefer the tone and the feel of it. The only advantage the lap steel has for me is EBow potential; I have contemplated selling it on eBay after this but I'll probably hang on to it just because.

The fifth track did start with a beat, because I was updating G8 Gate and Sandman and loaded them up to do the registration thing, and loaded up an 808 kit and just started jamming... but once I got a groove going I substituted the kick and hat and have disrupted things enough to be fine. It's actually the first track on the album with any drum samples at all. (The fourth track might sound like it, but the rhythmic stuff came from my Meeblip Anode through a Red Witch Fuzz God.)

I'm getting some good use out of Plogue Chipspeech for pads. The closest I've come to having it sing lyrics is using the words "long way" because the vowel sounds were what I wanted.

[foosnark]

31:27 in 7 tracks so far, and a good start to an 8th track which I'm pretty pleased with. Which means I've beaten the usual NaSoAlMo goal of 29:09, but I have definitely not kept up the pace. It's okay though.

My plan for next year is to do a track a week, all year, with exceptions only for serious illness and travel.

Nor have I completely stuck with my arbitrary rules. I have managed to avoid using kicks and hats easily enough, but track 7 is all MeeBlip Anode, Red Witch Fuzz God, Devi Ever Rocket (both as an effect and a zero-input noisemaker), and a lot of manipulation with Sound Forge (and a couple of effects plugins).

I may have to follow this up with a track that's only kicks and hats

[foosnark]

42:53 in 10 tracks, and I figure I will do one more to bring it above 45 minutes and call it done.

I plan to (sort of) reverse my rule for the last track and make it from nothing but kick drums.

Every time I buy new stuff I wind up using it in a few tracks and this has been no exception -- MTransformer and Pianoverb 2 in this case.

I often extend tracks in Sound Forge by creating ambient intros/outros through a combination of timestretching, reverb, reversing, etc. small chunks of the track and blending it back in. I also often add drones or noise to the mix at that point. Sometimes I spend more time with my rendered audio in Sound Forge than I do on sequencing and sound design. Both these new tools have been helpful for that.

[foosnark]

Done in 23 days. 12 tracks, 45:40 total length.