When the corona-crisis started, who’d expect it to continue up until today?
So when I recorded a quick, acoustic, song about the pandemic and put it on Youtube I never expected it to be relevant today.. but it still is! Last weekend I went into the studio and recorded a full version in the studio. Decided to make it available as a free download. Because it’s bad enough we all got hit by Corona and I do not want to make money from that.
If you’re interested in buying some of my tracks, please check out my BandCamp site. There’s a great offer available: buy all tracks with a huge discount.
So what’s next when you have a new guitar (Harley Benton TE-52), a new vocal condenser mic (MXL770) and installed a new DAW (Mixbus5)? Record a brand new song! So here’s “Morning Ritual” – a song about how we try to survive in this world of ours these days.
The song is available as a free download at SoundCloud and there’s a video!
I must say we’re very happy with the new gear as well as the new DAW! Even though there are some hardware issues to overcome it is clearly the best DAW I’ve ever layed hands on.
Recorded at the ZolderStudio
Drums & Bass – Digitech Trio
Guitars, Vocals, recording & mixing – Rudy
Well here’s your coffee dear,
it’s in a paper cup,
I know you do adhere
to the morning ritual..
without you can’t get up,
so here’s your coffee dear
here’s your coffee dear
Well here’s your paper dear,
it says the end is near,
you might not want to read,
or hear the news today
don’t worry anyhow
here’s your coffee dear,
here’s your coffee dear
Chorus:
You can Leave Your Make-up on the shelf,
‘cus time, time suits you well,
and here’s your coffee dear
Here’s Your Coffee Dear,
though the End is Near,
You know we can’t give up
on our morning ritual,
yeah though our life is short,
at least there’s coffee dear,
so here’s your coffee dear.
As of today, the full back catalog of the former “Barking Aunts Project” and the “Solid Rock Blues Band” are now available for FREE at the BandCamp website.
Except for our most recent Single, No Limit (On Love) all albums, EP’s and other materials are now available as a “whatever you can afford” FREE download.
The only thing we ask in return is your email address, so we can send you updates about the projects and albums. Don’t want to receive email updates? Donate a small fee and we won’t bother you!
WHY DID WE DO THIS?!
You might wonder why we are now offering all music as free downloads. The reason for this is simple: over the years we’ve spend a lot of time and effort in recording music. Publishing it. On Spotify, for example, this resulted in well over 33,000 plays/streams. We got paid US$ 1.35 for those 33,000 streams. That’s what we consider a total and complete insult. So, since they’re giving it away – why don’t we? And get something in return: a way to get in touch with the people listening to our songs.
We will continue to make singles, albums and EP’s and make them available on commercial platforms (since they will put them on Spotify, iTunes and so on). But on our BandCamp page you can get them for free. Except for the most recent publication. So, the back catalog, as of now, will be free. Forever. As soon as we publish something new, it will be for sale and the previous single, album or EP will be set to “free download” and so on.
Only 2 days after it’s release, “No Limit (On Love)” reached #12 on the Drooble Blues Charts! Highest position for the track was at #7 and it stayed in the Top10 Blues charts for over a week.
If not on Drooble, you can find the new track at SoundCloud. And no, we didn’t pay anything for this. At Drooble, you get free radioplay. Yes, you read correct: Free.
No Limit (On Love) is the new single by the Solid Rock Blues Band project. A lovesong, but not the standard lovesong. Fast and up-tempo power chords blues-rock.
There ain’t No Limit On Love. You can’t get no speeding ticket for loving someone so much it’s almost illegal, right? All right! So here’s our new track “No Limit (On Love)”. You can listen for free on SoundCloud, AudioMack and BandCamp.
iTUNES and SPOTIFY
The single is also available on iTunes and Spotify.
Are you a musician or band? Sign up with Drooble and earn KARMA (and get radioplays). Click here to join Drooble.
Do you want free promotion for your music? Do you want to join a free and awesome community of musicians worldwide and for free? Post your songs there, your videos,.. chat, collaborate? Join Drooble!
At Drooble they believe that music has the power to change the world for good. So their mission is to provide musicians with better opportunities for growth and networking. Unlike the other platforms where promotion is paid with money, musicians on Drooble can contribute to the community and earn points, then spend those points on the valuable promo tools they’ve developed and constantly improve.
Only about two weeks ago I’ve joined Drooble. And ever since I felt very welcome. People respond to your posts. They respond to your music. Give good (but nice) feedback.
It looks a little like Facebook. On Facebook however, most people aren’t interested in your latest songs or video’s. Apart from that, the Facebook algorithm has been changed in such a way it’s almost impossible to get some serious attention for your bandpage. They want you to pay for posts. And, when you do, it shows up as an add on Facebook and people don’t like adds.
DROOBLE MAKES ME REMIND THE OLD SOUNDCLICK!
Years ago I’ve joined IUMA (Internet Underground Music Archive). It went down, so I joined mp3.com. That one went down too.. and after that, there was (and still is) SoundClick.com. It was fine for many years. Great forums. But the owners don’t seem to care much about it anymore. They promised updates for many years, but won’t do so. The forums have been gone for a long time. Many accounts are “dead”. And the site seems to have been taken over by “beats makers”.
Soundclick was a great site (many years ago) and I’ve made some friends over there. Drooble has that same “feel” SoundClick had back in the old days with a modern look and feel. It’s a great community to be part of. Oh, and did I tell you it’s free? It is!
Join Drooble when you’re serious about music and want to get in touch with other musicians worldwide. Or if you want to find great music. Go to: https://drooble.com/
Bandcamp is a wonderful platform to get your music heard and distributed for a very decent, small, fee. They take 10% of your sales – no upfront payment, no membership. It’s the best deal you can get if you ask me. But how to get noticed on BandCamp?
I’ve had some serious issue with that, to be honest. I put albums on BandCamp, ”advertised” them on my websites, twitter, facebook, google+. And the albums got some plays and even some sales. On ReverbNation it’s easy to get some attention. Simply hand them a few dollars and you can buy advertising. On BandCamp you cannot get paid advertising. I think they could improve their site slightly – adding a charts section, allowing people to buy advertising. On the other side, .. if you do so, only those with some serious budget will get serious attention.
HOW TO GET FREE PLAYS ON BANDCAMP
So, how do you get noticed at BandCamp? How do you “advertise” your album or single? It turns out it’s pretty easy. It all revolves around the “discover” settings!
Go to the BandCamp website, log in to your account, and click on the “profile” settings;
Select the genre your music fits in;
Select the sub-genres it fits in.
See below screen captures.
Selecting the genre
The sub-genres should be the ones connected to the main genre! You can find them by looking at the ‘discover’ section at BandCamp. Below I’ve selected “folk” and on the second row you see the sub-genres you can choose from.
Now wait for a day and you’ll see your new album listed under the new arrivals. And you’ll get (free) plays!
Down for the Count showing up at New Arrivals
HOW MANY PLAYS?
How many plays will this get you? It all depends on how popular the genre is. The more new releases the faster you’ll go down in listing. But, a popular genre will also give you more plays. But in the end it’s free promotion. It got the new album we’ve released about 100+ (extra) plays of songs in only a few days.
An easy to use and (more-or-less) free DAW is Magix Samplitude Pro for Windows. It comes with several hardware units like Miditiech’s Audiolink III. It’s an “OEM” product, but you can also download it from the website of manufacturer.
DIY Recording at home doesn’t have to cost much. Of course there’s the Linux solution, as we use. But since most people have a laptop or computer running Windows, it’s easier for them using a Windows DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) on their computer. Especially since they’re not willing to invest time and money learning the “complicated” (NOT!) Linux OS and buying new hardware (you could, however buy a used computer or laptop).
Problem is, most of the Windows-solutions are expensive or not that easy to use. An easy to use and (more-or-less) free DAW is Magix Samplitude Pro for Windows. Other low-budget alternatives are program’s like Mixcraft or Reaper. Another alternative I haven’t looked into yet is Tracktion. That’s avaliable for all platforms, just like Ardour btw, also.
Anyway, I found Magix’s program at this website. Back in 2004(!) I already bought Magix Music Studio and used it on Windows2000. When I changed to WindowsXP it had some problems and when I switched to Windows7 my Music Studio stopped working. Samplitude looks a lot like the software Magix has been producing over the decades and had a familiar look and feel for me. It’s easy to use, stable and .. free. You can find the download at this website.
In the video I show you how to register the software and how to do a basic mix of a song.
Pro’s and Con’s
The pro’s are: it’s a fully functional DAW and offers high quality sound and effects. It allows you to export to WAV, FLAC, ACC and MP3. The Con’s? Only 8 tracks (but that’s more than enough for most people!) and a limited number of effects per track.
It does. however, support VST’s, VSTi’s, BPM changes for the full project, and everything else you’d need to do a proefessional home- or demo-recording. So, get it while it’s still availble!
Did you ever want to record authentic sounding surfguitar and never found a good plugin to achieve that ‘surf sound’ with your guitar? Cranked up the reverb..? Searched for plugins creating the sound? Well,.. there’s no need to do this. In fact, lot’s of reverb won’t get you there in the first place. And there’s probably not a single plugin on the market that can recreate that sound. You’ll need to have a “chain” of three VST’s to create this sound. Here’s how to do this.
But, before I tell how you can create the “surf” sound (more or less) in your Home Studio (DAW) using a few free VST plugins, some about the music and why we, in the Netherlands, can relate to this type of music so well despite the fact it’s Californian.. It’s a sound so familiar to us Dutch people! Not because of the Shadows (although they were very popular in the Netherlands also) but because of the “Indo-rockers”!
Lot’s of reverb here but on the surfguitar you hear a “drip”.. or “slapback”. That’s what makes the surfguitar sound so unique. Oh, and for those that watched the full video: the man sounds like a genuine hardrock guitarist at some parts! Amazing considering the fact it was in the early sixties!
Indo-rock
Now what, you might ask, is Indo-rock? From Wikipedia:
Indorock is a musical genre that originated in the 1950s in the Netherlands. It is a fusion of Indonesian and Western music, with roots in Kroncong (traditional Portuguese-Indonesian fusion music). The genre was invented by Indo repatriates in the Netherlands after Indonesian independence on August 17, 1945, and became popular especially in Germany. Indorock is one of the earliest forms of “Eurorock”. Its influence on Dutch popular music was immense.
So Indo-rock was around even before the surfguitar sound! Some even think that the “surfrock” sound was influenced by indo-rock because many of the Dutch Indonesians also had (have) relatives in Hawaii and the USA. But I’m afraid we’ll never be able to prove that.
And here’s another one. The Tielman Brothers, the most famous Indo-rockers of the Netherlands. A rather wild bunch! Ever seen a drummer play guitar with his drumsticks? Or a guitar player using his feet on the guitar? Check the below video!
I could go on and on about Indo-rock, the roots of it and so on. I won’t. As Wikipedia noted, it’s influence was huge on Dutch popmusic and the people from Indonesia had a big influence on our culture also (and still have today).
As you can imagine, these guys createdDutch Rock & Roll ..!
CREATING THE “SLAPBACK” SOUND!
Okay so here’s how to do it. As you might have guessed by now, I’m not trying to get a very pure ‘surf’ sound, I more likely got close to the Indo-rock sound (I hope). But if you play with the settings of the free VST’s below, you’ll get the surfguitar sound for sure.
To create the ‘slapback’ or ‘drip’ sound you will need to understand that back in the days they didn’t have much to work with. Guitar amps were pretty simple. They didn’t have nice spring reverb or digital reverb. If you wanted effects, you’d need to put them in front of the chain. So using a reverb on your guitar amp or adding it on a track does notwork well!
You will need the following VST-/effects chain beforethe amp or amp VST.
Delay – Kjearhus, free VST
Reverb – Kjearhus, free VST
Tremelo – SimulAnalog RednefTwin
Of course you can use other VST’s, as long as it’s a delay, reverb and Tremelo. Don’t “copy” the settings and expect miracles. Every guitar is different, every setup is. But it’s the chain I’ve got here and that’s what you’ll want to ‘copy’.
The delay
The delay has to be set to “analog”, very short, not sync’d and add some low cut and high cut (to your liking).You don’t need much. It will create the needed short slapback. Play around with it to get it as you like it.
Reverb
Next up: the reverb.
I like a huge reverb, set to about 25% to the mix. This is, of course, a matter of taste. For a genuine surfguitar sound you might need to turn it up even more.
Tremelo
I use the “Rednef Twin” VST plugin. It’s a Fender Twin 1969 (Guitar amplifier). So close to the era we’re looking for. Apart from that, it has a Tremelo (speed, intens) available.
It’s a free VST and if memory served me well I’ve downloaded it from SimulAnalog’s website. It’s part of the “guitar suite” and one of the VST’s I probably used the most.
It doesn’t look like the most (commercial) VST’s but it works very well. There’s a good reason for it’s “looks”. From the website:
“This suite is not a commercial product. It is born inside an academic research project about the modelling of electric devices, and then applied to the musical instrument field as an evolution of the techniques currently available in some commercial units. Its most important feature is the extremely high precision of the simulation, which is about indistinguishable from the original sound“.
