Lessons Learned and New Albums

I started my week off by going to a hip-hop showcase in Antioch. The name of the spot is F-5. All I got to say is that I'm tired of rappers always talking about Choppas n Dope. Friday I had a session with the band I am working with for my class project and we helped them tighten up two of the four songs that we are producing for them. Saturday I helped record for another group in my class. We recorded four songs by a band called Prince Coyote and the Dogmen. It was definitely unique. Saturday night was just a party night with some promotion, but someone hit my car while it was parked in a public lot. Sunday we watched the Super Bowl then went to another showcase at F-5. Once again Choppas n Dope was the subject. Monday I toured two studios. One was a large scale studio, and one was a smaller more real world practical studio. The large scale studio was Blackbird, and the smaller one was Sputnik Sound. I was supposed to have a rehearsal session with the band I was producing for class, but they cancelled at last minute. The band had already changed on me from the original plan, because the drummer I spoke to is in two bands and didn’t inform me that it was a different band than what I knew that he played for. Tuesday I knocked out the first hook of my upcoming album. I had been rearranging it in the car for a few days, and I just decided that I was going to record it that day. I will probably be going back to rerecord it when the beat gets finished, and I record the verses. I also went to a singer songwriter night to try and recruit someone to replace the band I was producing for class. It didn’t produce anything that night, and I ended up only getting like two hours of sleep. That made Wednesday extremely rough. I had to run some errands early then had to get some promotion done throughout the day. There was also a failed attempt at doing my homework that I was going to post on here. I was going to do a screen capture tutorial on Native Instruments Maschine, but I had some issues between the software and my console. I also had to do preproduction for a session that I had with the band later that night. The session didn’t go as planned we didn’t get much laid down because the band was still ill-prepared. This led into Thursday and we now have a new band that we will be tracking on Saturday so I will keep everybody updated on that next week. It was a rough week, but I had some key learning experiences. The good news is that I started on my album and it will be dropping soon. I also discussed some of the details and timelines with Beezy BOS! on his two upcoming albums, and with K-DA on his upcoming album. This means Beezy will be dropping Tunes In My Boombox and Flight 1989 shortly. Also K-DA will be dropping Recognition Respect real soon.

The Underground track I listened to this week was Juggernaut by Overdosa. He is out of Balch Springs, Texas. I liked the song. I thought it was a good beat with sounds that captured the feeling of the track. I thought the mix was severely lacking. The vocals could have come up over the beat a good amount. I also thought the beat could have been mixed much better. I liked it but certain sounds where definitely up in the mix way too much. The piano and the high pitch bell sound in the hook were really noticeable. The choir that came in was a little bit loud as well. The overall blend of the beat was lacking and that may have made it harder to mix the vocals in with it. On a good note I thought he ripped the track. Definitely some killer bars in there. I liked the hook as well. Plenty of variety yet it was catchy enough to keep you in to it and different from the verse. Overall keep grinding and putting music out because there is always room for improvement if you are passionate about it.

The industry track I listened to was Outstanding by Talib Kweli ft. Ryan Leslie. This is a great combination. Talib is one of my favorite artists doing a track with one of my favorite producers, Ryan Leslie. I know Ryan Leslie featured on the track, but I like him most as a producer. I'm not sure, but I'm assuming he produced the song. I like him as an artist as well I just think he is a killer producer. I thought it was an amazing track that should catch on as the weather warms up and people start heavily mingling again. I really like the old school sounding drums with the soft key sytnh, and the strings that come in accent it perfect. I can just picture riding around with the top down in the spring with something beautiful in the passenger seat. It paints a great picture and that is what music is all about. The mix was great as it usually is with industry produced tracks. They just have more money to fund the mixing and mastering stages. They just have more money to fund their music in general. I love the song though.

All in all it was a good week. It didn’t turn out as well as I had planned but I learned from my shortcomings. I always take that as a win.