WalMan

I am in the process of re-recording my bands title song from 40 years ago. I have recorded a guide and then the drummer has sent me midi from his electronic kit, vocalist has sent vocals and I'm waiting on final guitar tracks. The song has a silly fairy story in the middle, and I my son recorded my granddaughter reading it which I have then cut to fit. Just got the vocal tracks and a rough mix, and he's done it again. 🙄 ...and I know the drummer is going to be pee'd of with the changes. A few years back one of our fans from back in the day asked if he could play a track of ours at his wedding. We decided to e-record it for him as a surprise. Backing tracks were done here and sent to vocalist in New Zealand, but when we got it back he'd completely changed the way he sang it, so it was a nice gift, but not quite what said fan really wanted ☹️ Now to be fair vocalist was the songwriter / lyricist and used to bring ideas to rehearsal, but he didn't play an instrument so songs were written from jams at rehearsal and developed from his 'it goes something like this' dum di dums. Not that it has ever been an issue, but I know if there had been any money made from a song we'd probably have ended up with difficult discussion re ownership. Whilst we might like a fairly faithful rendition of the original version, he has revamped the vocal lines - not as much as with the other song - but I suspect there will be mutterings from the ranks 🙄 Not sure myself. Played a rough mix to wifey this morning and she loves it, so what do I know 🤣

Hug a bassist day then again we probably all forgot our partners in rhythm two days before!? Hug a drummer day

Sweet FA 🙂

Next Friday!! WOOHOO!!! The Alibi @ The Factory Live - Friday 4 Sep 2020 Our Lockdown covers page 😁🤘

Sounds good to me. Really punches through the mix to drive it along

Latest lockdown video. Always love a bit of GUN 🙂 The Alibi - Lockdown Vid #5 - GUN - Steal Your Fire

I always wing it...though as it's been in the set for years I have no idea what 'version' we do...probably our own take by now 😁 Looks like the only Whitesnake songs on our YouTube are Ready & Willing and All Your Love Tonight...and listening back again to the original my winging is nowt like it

Well if it's Sunday afternoon it must be time for the next Alibi Lockdown Video, and if you have twin lead guitarists, then it's only right & proper that you cover a bit of Thin Lizzy 😁 Waiting For An Alibi (cover) - The Alibi Used the Wal for this into Helix & the SVT4 model You wouldn't believe the iterations of backing vocals I went through before we were happy with the lines!! Two parts, three parts, different inversions. Don't know why it was such a trial considering it's a longstanding live favourite

Posted to The Electric Boys FB page & got a Like and "Awesome😎" comment...which was nice 😁

Something different for me from another of my ongoing projects. A bit more laid back, & definitely not my usual rock stylings, but there's no point in having three bands doing pretty much the same set just with different bodies is there? A couple of these were still quite new when recorded, so took a while to track live, but others had longer to bed in with some gigs. Pop quiz: Which is the fluff I wanted to sort, but now really like - even if it might be a bugger to get right live? 🙄 Mostly recorded with the Wal, except for Trouble Lies, which was redone with the G&L L2500 fretless. wATSON hALL & wEBB - sOUNDS LIKE Us

Time for Alibi Lockdown Video #3 😁 First The Money Then The Honey - cover taken from the last Electric Boys CD. One of a number of theirs that we do. Always good fun. I appear to have caught the sun in this one trying to put together green screen with other vids from the seafront. Shot on my Nikon DSLR, so it’s a bit annoying that the other phone video comes out better 🤬 Next up a bit of Lizzy then some GUN. Got to decide whether to take a bass to the local park one evening for the next shoot and get wifey on the case as camera man 🤔

...turns out that if we had finished and posted Blame It On The Boom Boom we would have probably got our first YouTube strike. One of our guitarists has been doing some research and at least three we had at early stages are on the no-no list without additional licensing, even though they’re not being done with any view to monetising them. Hey ho there’s plenty of others we can have a stab at 🙂

Reaper is good, and I have it, but it has quite a big learning curve. I often find myself knowing it's possible to do what I want ('cos I've done it before) but unable to remember how, or find it again in the menus I started off years ago with a copy of Tracktion that came with some bit of gear I'd acquired. Then they got bought up by Mackie and left to die on the vine until bought out again a few years back. I find it easy to use and pretty intuitive, but with a lot under the hood (and you can also get a free copy). Currently on Tracktion Waveform 11.

One of the guitarists has been handling mixes. We were going to share, but he did a great job on the first, so I’ve left him to it though we bounce ideas off the main band WhatsApp group. Also helps that his son’s an upcoming producer who does the final mastering for us. Always seems to play well in all playback formats, even mobiles.

The Alibi - Ride Like The Wind (cover) Our next lockdown video. Full social distancing observed by the guitarists 😂

Unfortunately the BSC one may not see the light of day - vocalist not happy with his performance at certain points, so it’s mastered but for band delectation only. Ride Like The Wind is up today. Separate post follows

Got two more to film tomorrow and at final mix agreement / going for mastering on Tuesday. To come: Ride Like The Wind - Chris Cross; hopefully quickly followed by Blame It On The Boom Boom - Black Stone Cherry Then there’s some Electric Boys, Journey, and maybe GUN (got to build the guide for GUN tomorrow if the weather’s pish) 🙂

Cheers. Really pleased with the way this turned out, and more in progress so something comes out of this all even if we can't be out gigging. It's also got one guitarist who didn't do the home recording buying a few bits to continue the process the other sorting out problems with Zoom calls; and the suggestion that we look to record all new songs we do, because the recording of this brought out a couple of differences between what the two guitarists were playing that got sorted not tighten things up and it looks like a good way of ironing out little bits like that for new songs that otherwise be missed in rehearsals.

The Alibi - Bound For Glory (BSR cover) it’s only taken a global pandemic for us to get our derrière into gear and do some recording, but ain’t t’interweb a marvellous thing sometimes 😁