I took my time and worked on it pretty hard. Fixed it up a lot. I think it sounds good enough.
Enjoy and feel free to let me know what you think.
Listen to it, here.
I think it’s one of my favorite tunes I’ve ever written, I’m real proud of it!
Kev
All posts by Kev Brock
This is how you give feedback on music, people!
The feedback for “It’s a Miracle” song, is starting to come in by actual musicians. This is HOW you give feedback in a more positive and respectful way:
“Kev,
I heard your song on Soundcloud. It was pretty damn good! Just one thing: I could tell you were playing the guitar with a metronome because the rhythm was really good and in time, but how do the drums on Garage Band work? Does it have a built-in drum machine, or is there one of those virtual kits where you have to “play” the drums yourself? The reason I ask is because the drums (which is the instrument that usually keeps the time) sounded a bit out of time with the guitar part. The bass was good…it was just the drums that didn’t sound quite in sync. Also, I would suggest a shorter fade out. Other than that, this recording served its purpose: to give any bassist and drummer that wants to form a band with you an idea as to how your songs should sound.”
That’s what I want to see people! Intelligent feedback! Other musicians giving you advice on how to improve and make the song better!
I was also told by another musician that in order to make the timing of the drums sound better with my guitar playing, this other musicians told me to record the drums first, and then play guitar along with it, is much easier.
It’s NOT hard being nice and respectful, guys! You should try it.
I don’t want to hear stuff like, “You fucking suck. You should quit playing and get lessons”.
I want detailed and intelligent feedback.
I’m planning to re-record the song today. I’ll see what I can do to improve it.
Kev
About that “Miracle” song…
I know that “It’s a Miracle” song needs a little work, it’s not perfect, but I’ll make the song a little better tomorrow and will re-upload it. I did play the song in time as you can hear, but the drums were played by the virtual drums, in other words, I played the drums myself on it. There is a drum machine on there where you can put drums in automatically, so I’ll do that instead ’cause that’ll make the timing of the drums better. Plus, I’ll make the fade out a little shorter. I’ll do all that tomorrow.
I got feedback from a musician about all of this. He said it was pretty good, just needs a little more work. Just the drums and shorten the fade out, the song will be fine!
This is why I suggested, I would have human drummers to record drums for me ’cause I know nothing about drums. The virtual drummer on garageband, was just me messing around with it just for fun. The track was just a song idea, it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously, I told people this in facebook too.
Kev
There will be more full band songs coming…
Yeah, I’m going to work with Garageband on Ipad a lot more often. Garageband is a fun little toy. It makes you feel like you’re playing RockBand or GuitarHero, but with GarageBand, you’re being an actual musician.
However, I shouldn’t use my SM58 microphone with a USB interface hooked into the Ipad ’cause it uses too much power. The microphone works well, and records well, but I shouldn’t use a regular microphone.
I think I would need a USB microphone. I’ve been looking into getting an IRig Microphone, the one that you hook directly into the Ipad and it won’t use too much power.
I’m a newbie to the Ipad and the Apple gadgets, and I’m just getting the hang of learning it all. Like I said before, you can’t just hook a regular studio microphone into the Ipad with it being too much power, you need a special USB mic.
Garageband is nice though. They finally added a string ensemble to the instruments section (cello, violin, viola, etc.). Which is cool, ’cause when I do acoustic songs, I could add a cello or a violin along with it. I would like to see Apple add a horn ensemble though, they probably will sometime ’cause I would like to have a horn section in some of my stuff (like the sax, trumpet, oboe, trombone, etc.)
Garageband has been around a long time, but they keep updating the software and keep adding more cool stuff to it.
If I ever get a real band going someday, this would help give the band members an idea of what I would like my songs to sound like and this is one reason I’m doing this for.
Kev
James Cameron and the Mariana Trench, the man proves he is still king of the world!
You can love him or hate him, but the man has got balls ever since the days he released, “Titanic”. He was pretty ballsy releasing the movie, “Titanic”. Then he came out with the two Terminator movies, which helped out his career even more. Then he brought back, 3D to the mainstream with the release of, “Avatar”.
Cameron takes a break from fiction, and is now focusing on something real. He is filming a 3D documentary which he gets to go down deep in the, Mariana Trench, in the Pacific Ocean. How deep is the Trench? It’s pretty much almost to the center of the Earth. If you think it’s safe going down there, think again. It’s extremely dangerous, if something happens, you’re dead.
I was never really a fan of James Cameron, but I am now after this. He just got some more respect from me. Who knows? Maybe he’ll want to make an actual fictional movie down in the Mariana Trench sometime in the future. “The Abyss 2”??? LOL!!!!
More on the story, here.
Kev
Report: Aerosmith to tour this summer, what are the bets something will happen again?
We’ll see how long this tour lasts this time. It wouldn’t surprise me if something happens to Steven again, and then they end up cancelling the tour.
See the tour listings, here.
Kev
Loren Weisman, “Listen to your heroes…”
If you want to become a better musician and improve, listen to your heroes and learn from them. I agree, read, Loren’s blog about it, here.
Learning from your heroes & inspirations, WILL help you play better. Doesn’t matter what instrument you play. Since I play guitar, my heroes are: Jimmy Page, Hendrix, and Satriani.
Learn what equipment and instruments they use. Learn what kind of chords they are using and what kind of scales they mostly use for improvisation. All that stuff. Learn about your hero everything in detail.
I borrow a lot of stuff from Jimmy Page. He mostly listened to old blues music, which helped him become the great guitar player that he is today. Satriani got all his inspiration from listening to Hendrix. Hendrix is Satch’s hero like most of us.
Study their style of playing and you’ll become a pro in no time.
Kev
First full band song is here…
The song is called, “It’s a Miracle”…a political rock song. Recorded in GarageBand for the Ipad. Finally figured out how to convert it to MP3 to the PC from the Ipad. Took my hours to figure it out, but got it.
I know I’m not the best at full band stuff, but this is just an idea. Give you an example of what I could sound like in a band.
Enjoy it, here, if you will. I’m pretty proud of the song, it’s got a 70’s classic rock style to it.
Kev
Full band music in garageband…
Actually, I was able to make drum & bass sound decent behind my songs. I just needed to figure out the correct bass lines, so it can sound good enough. Garageband is pretty cool for making full band music, you just gotta experiment with it and then you’ll get better at the program as you go along.
I’ll figure out how to convert the song into Mp3,so I can get it on the computer from the Ipad. I know there’s a way, I just need to google research.
I want to get feedback from actual musicians on this.
Kev
Just got back from Ernie Williams funeral…
Just getting back home from the funeral of legendary blues musician, Ernie Williams. We didn’t stay very long. We only stayed for a few minutes and left. We wanted to say our quick goodbyes to a local blues legend. The place looked interesting though. There was a stage there with instruments on it ’cause Ernie’s band, The Wildcats, were going to play a concert there tonight. I would have liked to stay for the whole thing, but the guy I went with wanted to leave, he didn’t want to stay. That’s okay though, I didn’t really know those people anyway. Most of the people were there are just family and friends of Ernie.
I was expecting the place to be really packed, but it was actually pretty quiet. Of course, there were news media vans in the parking lot though.
I’m sure there were some local musicians there, but I would think they would be friends of Ernie’s. I didn’t see anybody I know there. Glad, I actually went there to pay my respects to Ernie Williams. The funeral is probably gonna go on all evening, we didn’t really stay that long.
RIP, Ernie, he maybe gone, but his music will live on. Now I wonder if the Wildcats band will continue on without him or hang it up? Maybe we’ll hear something from the band very soon. I need to start buying music from Ernie Williams now. I could probably get his music directly from Itunes.
Kev
K'Brocking 
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