Frustration: The story of my musical life

Hello interwebs!

Today I set out on the exiting adventure of recording once more only to hit a brick wall. My wife and I had recorded some tracks about 6 months ago for a song, and little my little I’ve editing and mixing it. Today I had planned to add a cajon track (because I finally got the snare to sound good and not hum!) so I got myself all set up in the closet, opened up ProTools, and all the tracks sounded like white noise.
So, like any amateur frustrated musician, I did all the checks on my stuff and nothing seemed wrong, thus step two: Google. It turns out that since I updated my Mac to OS Mavericks the folks down at ProTools have not yet come out with an update to make my computer communicate properly with ProTools. The one time I have the time and setting to record, I cannot and it’s out of my hands. (If however anyone knows of a solution, please let me know)

For the time being I’m going old school and opening up Garage Band which is currently updating. My creativity will not be dismayed in absolution today. If I cannot record, I will play music and potentially write.

Stay cheerful.

Until next time,
Naaman Renard
A Frustrated Musician

What a musical Hypocrite I Am

Hello readers, listeners, and fellow musicians of the interwebs,

How sad is it that almost all of my posts begin with something along the lines of, “it’s been too long?” The saddest part is that it’s true. I’ve not abandoned music, but it seems that recording and I have taken a sabbatical. In college, class got intense, life caught up with me, I graduated then married the love of my life, and now I’m working on my masters degree (M. Div. for those of you interested) and “free time” is extremely limited. Does this break my heart? Yes and no. No because I know this is exactly where I need to be in life. Yes because there are times I wish I weren’t at this place in life.

Well I’m not really writing to rant on life changes or give excuses for the near death of this blog, but rather I’m reporting on something really interesting that has happened in the last 20 minutes or so. A fond friend of mine, Andrew David, is working on a new EP which, after reading his blog, I’m convinced is going to make the hears of sound lovers enthralled. Reading his post made me really miss recording and writing, though I have squeezed in some time for writing here and there, the much longer and daunting task of recording has been hid in the closet (literally). If time permits I will be recording in the near future because frankly I don’t want to sell my gear and I hate to think of it as a waste of money. Additionally, reading about the continued efforts of Andrew David has encouraged me to pick recording and writing back up in some form or fashion.

Thanks for the read, and do yourself a favor and check out Cardboard Kingdoms.

Media: Tell Me Why (cover)

Good day people of the world,
I was browsing through my computer files today and I found this video I recorded over Christmas break. A long time ago right? I had edited it a bit and everything and never posted it on youtube. I guess I was insecure about the sound of it or something, but anyhow; it’s a jazz-ish cover of “Tell Me Why” by the BackStreet Boys. It’s pretty fun and funny so give it a listen and a laugh. Maybe one day I’ll put good effort into recording it for real. Here’s the link.
-Naaman

Recording and Download: Pretty Lady

Hello peoples of the interwebs!
It has been a long, strenuous, and tedious school year, but it has finally come to a close (about 3 weeks ago). During that time I wrote a song for a very special person in my life: Wynn Brewer. I recorded the song for the ProTools class I took, and this project, along with good attendance and a few other assignments, earned me an A.
The recording came out at a bit lower quality than I wanted, but thanks to a bit of editing and mixing, it doesn’t sound horrid. The vocals are pitchier than I would like, but as I lack the time to re-record and the money auto-tune, it will stay as is.

I know I’ve not posted anything in a long time, and unfortunately I will not have the opportunity to post any new recordings for the duration of the summer (I will not have access to my “mobile studio”). With that said, enjoy the simple lyrics and tunes of this newest creation, and share it with your friends. Here is the link.

– Naaman Renard

Delayed Update

Hello from Rio de Janeiro!
It’s been a long time, and I mean a long time, since I’ve posted anything here. Which is really sad considering my last post said the same thing.
Regardless, I’ll cut straight to the point:
New Music. On Youtube (Click here) . Filmed in a basement in Missouri.

This song is one that I wrote many years ago. I’ve tweaked it a bit since then, hopefully for the better. Enjoy! Let me know what you think!

Keeping You Posted

I’ve not been up to much since my last post in the recording department, however I had time to do something a little different. While in Rio I had some time to myself and access to 2 camcorders in addition to the camera on my computer. So, I decided I would video record myself in my room playing something that wasn’t new. The song I chose is called Psalm of the Honest and has been in my inventory for a while. I’ve not shown it to many people because… well, it’s very honest and consequently very self-exposing.
The video was shot from 3 different camera angles and the sound was taken from 2 the two camcorders. I didn’t bring my recording equipment with me, so I had to resort to that. Using GarageBand I set the audio of one camcorder left and the other right to give the sound a fuller sound. Once that was done I threw it into iMovie and matched the sound to the video clips, which took about 2 hours, very tedious, and ended up with this.

In short, I hope you enjoy listening and viewing this song in all its honesty.
Feel free to leave comments here or on the video on youtube.

-Naaman

Download: Through the Eyes of a Son

After much sitting and listening to the track on iPod headphones and my mac speakers, going back into protools and making minor changes, and starting the process again; I’ve decided it’s time to make the track public. Through the Eyes of a Son is now available to listen to and download from my bandcamp page for FREE.

Thank you very much to all of you who took the time to take pictures of your eyes and of your friends eyes so that I could make the music art. Without your help the art would have been something much more boring and less exiting. Again, thank you very much!

Media: Eye Pics!

Hey everyone on the interwebs!

I need everyone’s help with a photo project. For the single cover to the song Through the Eyes of a Son I would like to have as many single eye pics as I can get. So here’s what you got to do:
1. Grab a digital camera and a friend
2. Have them take a super close picture of one of your eyes
3. Do the same for them
4. Put the picture on your computer and post it on facebook, tag me in it or send it to me in a facebook message
5. Tell all your friends to do the same!

The more eyes I have the better, so spread the word!

Song update: Editing is basically done. I have a few more headphone and computer speaker tests and then I’m all through, so as soon as I get this master-art-piece done it will be available.

Thank you all!

– Naaman

Recording: Through the Eyes of a Son

Today I was going through some old music of mine and I came across Through the Eyes of a Son; a song I wrote from the perspective of my friend David when his mom passed away suddenly. I then went to youtube and looked up the video I posted of me playing it in my junior year of high school. Dude! It was awful! (keep up with the narrative, it’s almost over) Unsatisfied with my only recording of the song, I decided to re-record it the right way. I went through it a few times, changed the key, whipped out ProTools, and got to work.
First I laid down a playback track of me playing and singing the song at the same time. Next, I recorded the guitar part while listening to the playback. After going through it and making it as clean as possible, I muted the playback and listened to the guitar track as I sang the vocals, followed by the double tracked vocals for the chorus, and the harmony tracks. All of this was done in an average size room with a mic dangling from it’s XLR cable which was wrapped around the ceiling fan (and that’s why it’s called a portable studio my friends).
The next step was to place compressors and EQ’s on the audio tracks and open Aux tracks for the effects which would be used on the audio tracks and place reverb and small delay in them. Now with the basics all out of the way and the song sounding half decent, I hit save and walked away so I can address it tomorrow with fresh ears. All in all, this was a very productive day which started around 1 and just recently ended (so around 4 1/2 hours).

In a few days, after some minute mixing, editing, regular headphone tests, etc… the song will be available for your listening ears and downloading fingers for FREE, as always.

– Naaman

Update: Guitar with Carissa Read

As most might have figured out by the lack of blogging (not that I’ve ever really been consistent), I’ve been quite busy lately. For those of you who don’t know, the first few weeks of my summer will be spent as the guitarist for my friend Carissa Reed as she sings her original worshipful music in local venues. Last week we got together with our friends from Doxa Productions LLC. and recorded one of her songs titled Star Gazer. My left index finger is now sore and building callouses from the consistent bar chords in the song. Thankfully Isaac Hitt, the recording mastermind, was very patient with my failures. I would reference you Carissa’s website, but, to the extent of my knowledge, it is not finished yet. (If you know otherwise feel free to post it!)
This week is going to be our week off, so hopefully I’ll be able to get my own recording/writing done. I plan on going over some of my old music, getting familiar with it again, possibly making it better, and then recording it. In the process of this I might get lost writing new stuff though, no promises.
Hopefully I’ll be able to report soon with and exiting accomplishment.
– Naaman