Re-winging it

Last night, I rerecorded the rhythm guitars in my “E swing thing” wing-it. If you recall the painfully out-of-sync recording of Nov. 7, I had been unable to hear the click-track much of the time. After I had finished winging the third guitar track, compounding the timing errors of the first two tracks, the rhythm was gyrating around like a … like a … lopsided … thingamajig. Like a break-dancing wildebeast. Or something. Other than that, I really liked the tune.

Well, I thought I would take the opportunity to (a) practice not being a perfectionist and (b) practice some digital editing. I tried hard, I really did. I spent several long mornings editing those dang quirky, misaligned tracks, and I continually resisted the growing urge to just plug in the guitar and do it all over. Though editing made the lead track somewhat better, the rhythm tracks needed a ridiculous amount of slicing and dicing, hours of tedious clicking and dragging and “splitting” and “joining” and “snap to grid”-ing—and what does that have to do with music anyway? Finally, as the whole process grew less attractive than paying household bills and changing furnace filters, the project did that ultimately dreadful thing that projects do:

IT STALLED!

So last night, I finally just plugged in the guitar and did it all over. All except the lead track, that is, ’cause believe it or not, when I played back that edited lead track—just for a laugh—I actually liked it.

E swing thing, rewinged

As you can see, I had a little too much fun with the drums, and I am still experimenting with rhythm track arrangements. I do like the rhythm guitars starting and stopping rather than droning on the whole time, but the version I’m posting here sounds too sparse to me.

Thus, things will change a bit, but this is the general idea.

And then what? Mix it for tiny speakers, I am thinking, and turn it into a ring tone.