The Wagtunes Corner

[wagtunes]

wagtunes,
Now listening to "The Medusa". The vocal synth mutates into something unexpected. Between this song and the previous one, I didn't know you had these sort of piano chops up your sleeve(s); probably my favorite part of the song overall. Now the song changed to something entirely different. This acoustic guitar sounds like it is some sort of VST at times. Other times it sounds pretty real. I like the lead synths a lot. At ~5:20, the strings sound very nice. This is very good, though I like 'Darkmoor' better overall.

Aaron, thanks for the reviews. Much appreciated. Sadly, my prog rock CD was like a tree falling with nobody around to hear it.

Some answers to your questions.

First off, getting realistic strumming with a VST is virtually impossible but since I don't own a guitar, it is what it is.

The piano is Pianoteq. I find it to be the most realistic out there. The bass was MODO Bass and actually the very first song I used it on. Yes, I was going for Yes on this one. Glad it came across. The mellotron is GeForce's M-Tron Pro which I think is the best out there. The strings, at the time, were EWQL Hollywood Strings Gold. I've since gotten better libraries.

The drums were not MODO drums when I did this. I don't think they were out yet. I probably used Kontakt's 70s drums.

Finally, the loudness. I don't really do anything special, at least I don't think. On the stereo buss I have an EQ and a limiter. That's it. Sometimes I'll put on a tape deck simulation or console or both but I don't do any cranking up of any kind. In fact, many times I have to turn things down because they're too loud. All I know is that when I finish everything and play the song back, the meter on my stereo buss shows 0.0 for the volume.

Now, as far as individual tracks go, I compress everything no matter what it is and bring up the gain and then I put a limiter on each individual track. I know a lot of people tell me it's not needed but that's what I do. It seems to work.

I'm thinking of doing another prog CD soon. It's been a while.

Thanks again for the reviews. It's much appreciated.

[wagtunes]

Okay, so I'm running into a problem that I've never run into before. I can't decide what I want to do for my next CD. I am now on day 2 and haven't started anything yet. I have 4 possible ideas just off the top of my head but none of them are screaming at me, "Oooo, do me, do me!"

1. Prog Rock CD. Maybe a follow up to Dungeon Masters. Call it Dungeon Masters II. Instead this time have myself doing the vocals instead of Vocaloid. Or maybe have us both do vocals.

2. Snack Time. A CD of all short songs like they did back in the eearly 60s. Like the Beatles early songs, which were usually between 2:30 and 3:00 long. And of course do it in 60s style.

3. Covers. A CD of all cover songs. This is something I have never done before. At most, during the course of an album, I might do 1 or 2 cover songs max. But I've never done a whole CD of nothing but cover songs. And if I did, do I do popular ones or do I do covers of obscure stuff that most people wouldn't recognize anyway?

4. Smorgasbord. A variety of things. Not really unique for me as many of my CDs are like this. But in this case I would probably make a list of genres and do one song from each genre. So probably a 12 song CD something like this.

Country
16 bar blues
R&B
Jazz
Christian Contemporary
Hard Rock
Show Tune
EDM
Folk
Synth Pop
Hip Hop
Classical

Anyway, that's where I am right now. Still no decision made and none in sight.

[vurt]

just do a "hey, today im in this mood" for a bit.
dont force a genre.


or protest songs! lets hear you get angry

[wagtunes]

Well, the wait is over. I came up with a really cool idea. I came up with 10 potential subjects and/or album titles and ran a simulated horse race via computer.

Here were the 10 entrants with "Horse" number:

Prog Rock (The Dungeon Masters II) (1)
Short Takes (2)
Smorgasbord (3)
Covers (4)
Stevie W & The Vocaloids (5)
Show Tunes (6)
Stick World: A Fantasy (7)
Gas II: A Rock Opera (8)
Time Travelers II (9)
Girls 2 (10)

Here are the results of the race, run 10 lengths

Covers (by 1 length)
Show Tunes / Gas II: A Rock Opera (Tied by 1 length)
Prog Rock (The Dungeon Masters II) / Time Travelers II (T by 1 length)
Stick World: A Fantasy (by 2 lengths)
Short Takes / Girls 2 (by 1 length)
Smorgasbord (by 1 length)
Stevie W & The Vocaloids

So my next project is going to be all cover songs. Now I have to decide if I'm going to do all well known songs or do more obscure stuff or maybe a little of each. Maybe all Beatles covers.

Next I have to decide if, when I move on to the next project if I choose from the 9 that are left or if I add one to it and choose from 10 again. This should keep me fresh for ideas for years to come.

Before I go, a little background on why some of these have numbers.

Dungeon Masters, Gas: A Rock Opera, Time Travelers and Girls were early albums I did back in my cassette days, well, except for Dungeon Masters which I did 2 years ago and posted here recently. Gas: A Rock Opera was about a kid who dreamed of making it big in the music business. Time Travelers was a concept album where each song was from a different period in history starting from ancient Romans and going all the way to the future until arriving back home. Girls was an album where every song had a girl's name in it, except for the title track. It's been a good 30 years since I did these albums and thought sequels would be cool.

Anyway, that's it. So cover songs are coming. I think I'll keep it short. 12 songs. Lots of favorites to choose from so this either won't be hard at all or will be impossible trying to decide which of my favorites to do.

If anybody has any requests, and it's a song I really like, I'll seriously consider doing it. So if you care, get your suggestions in.

More to come...

[Mikelo]

Hi Wags I would love to hear a cover of 'Out of phase' by Diamond Head from the album 'Cantenbury'.
I think song would suite your style.

[wagtunes]

Hi Wags I would love to hear a cover of 'Out of phase' by Diamond Head from the album 'Cantenbury'.
I think song would suite your style.

Well, I'll give it a listen but I can't make any promises, especially with songs I've never even heard of. Learning a new song from scratch is not easy. So we'll see.

[vurt]

may i suggest an instrumental?
the tornadoes - telstar.

[vurt]

or the theme from either fireball xl5 or the littlest hobo.
two of the best tv themes ever, besides wonder woman of course. (that bassline )

[wagtunes]

or the theme from either fireball xl5 or the littlest hobo.
two of the best tv themes ever, besides wonder woman of course. (that bassline )

Here's the process I'm using for doing this otherwise I'll never do anything because there is too much music to choose from.

1. I made a graph with years from 1964 to 1989. After the 80s, I pretty much lost touch with the music scene.

2. I created a simulated horse race program for 10 lengths.

3. I ran the program until one of the years reached the finish line.

4. I then went to the Billboard Top 100 chart for that year as well as my own personal favorites list (some songs didn't make the top 100) and looked through it. If I found something I really liked, I chose it.

The first song has been chosen and is being worked on now. All that's left to do is sing it and mix it. It was difficult to learn but I somehow managed. I tried to stay as true to the original as I could though some parts were difficult to do because of certain sounds and FX that were used. Not knowing how they were achieved left it up to guesswork. In some instances I just went with the closest thing I could come up with.

I'll post it when it's completed. My gut tells me that most people don't really want to listen to cover songs, not that my originals get a lot of attention as it is. So I'm not expecting much here. But I can say this. This is the most fun I've had in a very long time. This is something I've always wanted to do but never felt I had the skills to pull it off. In 43 years of recording, these are the only covers I had done until now, not counting the disco track I did just recently.

Ferry Across The Mersey - Gerry & The Pacemakers
Something - The Beatles
Martha My Dear - The Beatles
Pictures Of Matchstick Men - Status Quo
The Wall - Kansas
I Could Have Danced All Night - My Fair Lady
New Song - Howard Jones

That comes out to about a song every 6 years. Quite honestly, they were all pretty bad, which is why I don't traditionally do cover songs. But I think I've come far enough along that I can do these justice, even if they're not great.

We shall see in due time.

[wagtunes]

1st track from my upcoming CD "Killer Kovers"

Well, outside of the vocals, not bad. Starting off with Billy Joel's "Allentown", one of my favorite Billy Joel songs. Getting the sound FX was tough. Learning to play it was tougher. And singing those runs was almost impossible.

I think it's passable but my opinion doesn't matter much.

Enjoy, or not.

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim/allentown

[Bansaw]

Nice cover. Did you work out the chords yourself, or did you have access to sheet music?
Joel wrote some good songs.

[wagtunes]

Nice cover. Did you work out the chords yourself, or did you have access to sheet music?
Joel wrote some good songs.

I tried finding decent chord charts but when I started playing them, a lot of the chords were wrong, which is pretty common. So ultimately, I figured most of this out by ear, something I did all the time when I was a kid and there was no Internet.

Outside of figuring out the chords, learning to play this thing was the hardest part. It's deceptively difficult, especially the transition between verses. The timing in some sections actually goes from 4/4 to 2/4 and then back to 4/4.

Anyway, the next song is from 1987. "I Don't Mind At All" by Bourgeois Tagg which was my favorite song of 1987 but, unfortunately, didn't chart well. It peaked at 38 on the weekly Billboard 100 and did not make the end of year chart.

I hope I can do it justice.

[wagtunes]

2nd track from my upcoming CD "Killer Kovers"

We go from 1983 to 1987. This one a fairly obscure song (made 38 on the weekly Billboard chart) by Bourgeois Tagg called "I Don't Mind At All"

I kind of figured that cover songs wouldn't go over so big so my humble thanks to Bansaw for commenting on my first track.

Anyway, it's back to the horse race to see what I'll be doing next.

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim ... ind-at-all

[vurt]

dont know the original so cant compare.
but a nice mix, also you seem more comfortable vocally, nice work

[wagtunes]

dont know the original so cant compare.
but a nice mix, also you seem more comfortable vocally, nice work

It's a Beatles like song and not terribly difficult to sing to begin with so that helped a lot. I basically tried to mix it like the original so having the reference, it wasn't terribly hard either. In short, this was much easier than Billy Joel.

Thanks for the listen and the feedback. I gotta go check out your latest now that I'm done setting up my new printer since the old one just died today. It hasn't been a great day.