Hello everyone!
As you may have seen already, I am starting to get into filming and recording covers. I've watched many people do this before and I think that now is the time to jump onto the bandwagon, though what I don't want to do is simply copy everyone else before me. I do want to challenge myself and keep myself musically active, (that is the main point of this) but, I do fear that this can't happen without small complications.
The software I use for editing videos and recording are very basic and at the moment I don't really want to buy into new software that could make my work better, (my budgets won't let me) it's not that I don't have the money or that I'm a 'poor kid' but, I don't have a job currently and I don't want to splash out cash when I have no income. That wouldn't be clever. I know that is good software out there for around £40 but, I question it's potential.
My ideal for covers are not pop songs and I have already agreed this with myself though, I don't want to do metal covers either (even though metal is still a sub-genre of pop). I want to make fun covers that are enjoyable. My sudden inspiration to dive into this kind of work comes directly from The Piano Guys as I find their videos not only very fun and enjoyable but, very uplifting. If I had or were a cello player, I would go down those roots and maybe even if I were a better piano player but, this is not me. Plus, there are five of them yet just one of me! I highly recommend giving The Piano Guys a listen by the way, they really are an amazing group of people.
As I've said before, my set up is very simple at the moment. I do not own my own recording studio, just a mixer, a laptop and a couple of leads that do all of the magic. People have questioned me if I use MIDI with this setup, possibly assuming some kind of USB connection. Well, no I do not. I have the option to use MIDI on my keyboards and also my Zoom G.7ut Guitar Effects Processor (which is fantastic) but, I do not use it because I do not have the the correct leads or an interface, I'm not even sure I would if I could either.
Tripping back to the original subject of covers, I'm going to count my cover; Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, Miror B Theme as my very first. Before this, I did an acoustic cover of Rush's 'In The Mood' But, I'm not too happy with the video for that or even the overall audio to be honest. I think it needed a little more than I originally gave. I'm not going to bother going back to that one, however it is finished and still a decent quality piece of work that I'm happy with for at least that reason. I can't wait to get started on my next cover now, it can be a painfully long process for a couple of minutes of entertainment but, it really is totally worth it!!!
If anyone has any suggestions of song for me to consider making a cover for, please comment. :')
Thursday 8 August 2013
Tuesday 6 August 2013
Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, Miror B (Cover)
A couple of days back I asked my facebook friends to suggest me something to cover just for fun. I asked the question on the 2nd August and had no idea what to expect as suggestions but, one of my friends suggested that I cover Miror B's Theme from the game Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness. I was a little unsure at first because I had never heard it before despite being a fan of Pokemon but, I decided to take it on as a challenge as I don't challenge myself enough!
I spent the next couple of days learning the song and listening to it repeatedly so that I knew it well, I wanted to make this cover the best that I could with equipment I have.
On August 4th, the first thing I had to do was make a drum track. I used Cubase 5 for this and used three tracks. One track for the snare one for the bass drum, hi-hat and any other percussion (crash) and on for the audio of actual track for me to work with so the structure of the song matched the original. This didn't take too long to do. I remember that I didn't finish it on the night I started it even though it just needed a few finishing touches, (eg. reverb). I finished it the next day on August 5th and then continued to export the track and then import the track into audacity. I decided the first track I wanted to layer on top was the bass because this would be the most useful after the drum track to guide me through the structure. I recorded the bass using a line in from my AD-82 Mixer before that going into my Zoom G7.1ut Guitar Effects Console on a clean setting. This is the best method I have to record any guitar/bass parts, I used this method for my guitar several times later on but, with a distorted setting.
I also had two keyboard tracks that I wanted to add to the track were I used the headphone output at the back of the keyboards and put it into the mixer on a line in. I used two different keyboards purely to get the exact sounds I was after. I used my Yamaha NP-30 for a bright natural sounding piano and my Casio CTK-651 for synthetic Midi sounds which I wanted to use the trumpet. My Yamaha only has about 10 different sounds loaded where as my Casio has nearly 200 to choose from.. I'm not sure that I'm ever use them all though...
I was recording footage of me playing whist I was recording the cover using a Sony NEX-3 camera, moving it around the room for different shots. I only use Windows Movie Maker to put my video together so, it was quite challenging to get everything smooth and perfectly in-time but, I'm happy with the final result.
Here is the final result:
My cover of Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, Miror B's Theme is also available for free download and to listen to on Soundcloud.
Please follow the link:
Thanks, for reading :')
Enjoy!
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