The Linear Canvas
This journal is about the wrongs and rights of the world, as I see them.

The Linear Canvas

My Recorded Cover Songs: A Thousand Years

June 5th, 2016 . by Alexander Fisher

 

shoes

I first heard ‘A Thousand Years’ by Christina Perri while sitting at Rooster’s eating wings. I looked it up on the phone app Shazam that time and also the next couple of times I heard it. I just couldn’t  get it out of my head. I searched for it on the Internet and got the basic chords and started playing it on piano. I knew I didn’t quite have it right so I bought the sheet music. I started recording it about that time. Here is the finished product. (?) I hope I can get it out of my head now. Recording it usually works.

I have never seen Twilight.

I used: Korg Krome for Piano; 1988 Fender Stratocaster AS guitar; 1972 Rickenbacker 4001 bass; Ludwig Drums w/Zildjian and Paiste Cymbals; Bar Chimes

CREEM Magazine

March 31st, 2016 . by Alexander Fisher

I was just sitting here thinking about the music I listened to when I was a teenager. I read Rolling Stone magazine a lot. But CREEM magazine was a big influence as well. They talked about a lot of name acts like David Bowie, Alice Cooper and Kiss, but they were also writing about The Dictators, New York Dolls, and The Ramones. I remember they had a full photo spread once called “Wayne County At Home” which were photos of a cross dressing punk singer lounging around his house in a dress, heels and a bouffant hairdo. The good old days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creem

My Recorded Cover Songs – Ready for Love (remix)

May 24th, 2013 . by Alexander Fisher

As long as I remember, Ready for Love has been one of my favorite songs. Guitarist Mick Ralphs wrote the song back in the early 1970’s when he was with the band Mott the Hoople. It appeared on their All the Young Dudes LP. It was titled Ready for Love / After Lights on the album sleeve mainly because of the ending, I think. After Mick left Mott, he formed the band Bad Company and the song appeared on their first album as well. I consider my version to be a little closer to the Mott the Hoople version as I perform my own version of the After Lights ending. I think it rocks harder than either of the other versions though.

I played my Fender Stratocaster guitar, Rickenbacker 4001 Bass, and my Ludwig drums on this track. I sang all the vocals. I used my Fostex VF-16 multi-track recorder to record the original tracks. I used Cakewalk Sonar X1 Producer Expanded and Sony Sound Forge to remix and edit the song.

My Recorded Cover Songs – She Talks To Angels

May 20th, 2013 . by Alexander Fisher

I have been playing She Talks To Angels almost since it was released by the original artist, the Black Crows. I recorded it once before with my niece singing the lead vocal. She was dissatisfied with the resulting recording and I never posted it. It was in a key that just didn’t suit her voice very well. I had a pretty hot guitar solo in it so I was a little disappointed.

I recently recorded it all over again and did the lead vocals and most of the background vocals. I had my wife Jill fill in some of the background vocals for me as well. I played all the instruments.

I used my Takamine acoustic guitar, and Rickenbacker bass, in addition to a Roland Octapad and Roland slave keyboard. I recorded it using Cakewalk Sonar X1 and edited the file properties with Sony Sound Forge v9.

Video – “Swan Creek” Live (in my kitchen)

April 15th, 2013 . by Alexander Fisher

I recorded myself recently, performing the song  “Swan Creek” off my upcoming CD,  in my kitchen. I used my Sony Digital camcorder and recorded it with a Shure SM-27 condenser microphone.

Live in my kitchen

My Newest Recording–A Lonesome Breeze

February 12th, 2013 . by Alexander Fisher

I was listening to an old audio tape and a voice out of the past (a much younger me) told “me” to record this music. I even gave “myself” the chords and I even played them a few times for “me”.

When I started recording A Lonesome Breeze, I only needed one more good song to have enough to be able to release my best CD yet. The other songs are all good, but I just felt I needed another really good one to finish up the project. I had already put together seventeen other songs and I was only going to pick about ten songs for the album. I just wanted plenty to choose from.

I wasn’t real sure what the song was about at first, but I watched a recent PBS Frontline episode about the thieves on Wall Street and right there and then I knew I had my subject.

On the recording I used my Fender Stratocaster guitar though my Line 6 POD, Rickenbacker 4001 bass, Roland Octapad and Session Drummer 3. I also sang both lead and background vocal parts. I was having trouble with my Sonar X1 DAW installation and the Tascam FW1804 on my main recording computer. So, much of this was recorded using Sonar v8.5 and my PreSonus Firebox on my old computer. I was able to do the final mix and mastering in X1 though. I also used Sony Sound Forge v9 in the edit process.

My Newest Recording–Gone for Good

February 7th, 2013 . by Alexander Fisher

I wrote Gone for Good about a friend whose marriage had just ended. Many of the things he said to me about what happened are included in the song. I won’t tell you who it was. If you guess I’ll lie.

I had never done much to this song in the “digital age” because its analog recording had been done on some poor behaving tape decks. Once I figured out how to fix it in Cakewalk Sonar, I was able to get the tempo to stay in one place. I played electric guitar on a Fender Stratocaster and an Ibanez LP. The bass was a Rickenbacker 4001. The drum sounds are from Session Drummer 3 software using Roland Octapad MIDI pads.

 

My Newest Recording – Who Gets Hurt

February 7th, 2013 . by Alexander Fisher

I wrote Who Gets Hurt in the early 1990’s after I had an incident at work.

I played acoustic guitar on a Yamaha (?). I played electric guitar on a Fender Stratocaster and an Ibanez LP. The bass was a Rickenbacker 4001. The drum sounds are from Session Drummer 3 software using Roland Octapad MIDI pads.

My Newest Recording – The Papers

January 8th, 2013 . by Alexander Fisher

P1010928I just started writing a song and this just came out. It’s a story about a woman that fell on hard times and breaks the monotony by imbibing in the spirits a little too much. It’s more from point of view of those that can’t appreciate the plight of others. Especially when the tales don’t seem to fit the teller. When I think about the story, it has occurred to be that nearly anything could be in the papers. I just let my imagination run wild with it. I’ve known people like her.

I wrote the song and recorded it with my Takamine G Series acoustic guitar, Rickenbacker 4001 bass, tambourine, and Roland slave keyboard. I used Cakewalk Sonar X1 Producer Edition and Sony Sound Forge v9 software.

My Newest Recording – And On And On

November 23rd, 2012 . by Alexander Fisher

267x267-7EBB4902-E5F1-487A-B3698690B9FE6678I wrote And On And On several years ago. I think I took the title from a poem my wife Jill wrote. It was just collecting digital dust among the other files on my computer. I recorded most of the tracks when I lived in Swanton, Ohio, I think. I am not sure I knew what it really was about. After some soul searching and a bit of a re-write, the song has some meaning to me now. It is about people that kid themselves and others about their objective in life. I also think I wrote it about me too.

I originally recorded And On And On on my Yamaha MT-100 II 4 track tape recorder. I really can’t remember when. I think this was recorded using a dbx encoded 2 track cassette as a mix down device. I had one that had severe speed accuracy issues. But that conflicts with my other thought that I recorded it late in my analog recording days.

In any case, the tempo fluctuated all over the place. I had recorded it using my Boss drum machine, so it had to be a mechanical failure in the recording. Most likely a rubber belt slipping. I had tried to rescue this song before, but its problems were too great a task to accomplish at that time. I probably just didn’t know where to start. That and I had other, easier, music files to process.

I knew I had some options when I finally decided to take this project on. One was that I just play a new drum track live and forget about any real tempo fix. It would have sounded OK, but I would still have a tempo that was all over the place. The real fix was to go throughout the song and identify the beginnings of each measure to my Sonar software. One method allows you to pick a point and then set that as the now position to a specific measure and beat. That then creates a tempo map. Usually a live performance or one created with equipment that is not defective will change in tempo somewhat smoothly over the song, or hardly at all. Analog equipment has a natural amount of speed inaccuracy as a rule. But if everything is operational, most times that is imperceptible.

After viewing the extremely erratic tempo map, I decided the best way to accomplish the re-timing was to use the Audiosnap function in Sonar. I went though the tracks only enabling Audiosnap transient markers wherever I determined the beginning of a measure was.  Then I set the whole project to exactly 129 bpm, the original beat timing. Using a combination of quantizing the transients to the measure and dragging the uncooperative ones into place, I succeeded in creating a constant beat in the song. I considered the timing in between the measures, but I believe that the speed changes were over several measures and any tempo issues are corrected every measure. I don’t hear any problems the way it is. The work involved in accurately tracking quarter note or greater changes in tempo would have been unnecessary and time consuming. So I didn’t

I played my Fender Stratocaster electric guitar, Rickenbacker 4001 bass and Session Drummer 3 software using a Roland Octapad MIDI drum pad. The vocals were recorded using a Shure SM-27 studio condenser microphone.

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