Been Too Busy To Do The CoH Stuff I Want To Do...

Here's a bit of what I've been up to (and why I haven't been busy enough with my several CoH videos that I plan to make):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ41MLWTjL8
(I hope you like it, but I promise you that it does not suck)

I say a bit tongue-in-cheek that this shutdown couldn't have come at much worse of a time for me (really, couldn't they have checked with my schedule?).
Anyway, I never used these forums or this community to promote my own work, but I just thought I'd share this.
There are SO many things I want to do with CoH before November 30th, but I've been completely swamped with writing, recording, editing, mixing and various other aspects of work involved in getting this new album and project going where I'm going to be producing a large live multimedia show for the album.

Anyway, this is just the first song I'm releasing for now. Kinda weird how the recent power outages and storms in my New York area spoke to some of the concept of this song.

"Keeping Warm", a song from my upcoming album, Technology Dogs.
I've been trying to grab video of the recording of this album and thought people might enjoy seeing a bit of it.
Let me know what you think! And if you like my work, please pass it on!


Lyrics:

The cold rain falls hard on the wind
And a warm home welcomes you in
Taken in by a stray thought
You pull your own leash taut
Leave behind the cruel dark night
And bathe in delight

You keep me safe and warm
You keep me safe and warm
From the storm raging outside
While we hide

I could not survive without my electricity
Without my GPS, how would I know where I'm supposed to be
My life is sustained by crafted works of art
From the sweet sounds of my music player, to the beat of my mechanical heart

You keep me safe and warm
You keep me safe and warm
From the storm raging outside
While we fly

Turn off the power
And I'll sit afraid in the dark
Jumping at every strange sound
Alarmed at my own dog's bark

Technology's prisoner
Now useless in the wild
Like an estranged visitor
No longer Mother Nature's child

It's getting warm
It's getting warm
It's getting too warm
As the storm rages inside
Where we used to hide

wow, Knight.....just wow. You are a wordpainter and total music man. Thank you for sharing.

that was awesome. good luck on the album. hope u have plenty more in the future.

Awesome potential there. Constructive: vocals are a little overpowered by everything else.

I love that real musicians still exist. Music has always been a hobby to me since I was very little; violin and piano mainly. I enjoyed your musicality but agree that sometimes the music/instruments overshadow (drown out) your vocals. Overall though I enjoyed the song and your performance

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paladiamors I love you, I Burnt the Toast!

I hopped out of town for the weekend, just checking back in!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Healix wow, Knight.....just wow. You are a wordpainter and total music man. Thank you for sharing.

Thank you so much! What a wonderful compliment.
I'm very glad that you enjoyed the music and the words.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeadlyTwilight that was awesome. good luck on the album. hope u have plenty more in the future.

And the same to you!
Please do keep an eye/ear out, because there is plenty more. I hope you enjoy it as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayboH Awesome potential there. Constructive: vocals are a little overpowered by everything else.

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Burnt The Toast I love that real musicians still exist. Music has always been a hobby to me since I was very little; violin and piano mainly. I enjoyed your musicality but agree that sometimes the music/instruments overshadow (drown out) your vocals. Overall though I enjoyed the song and your performance

Thank you both and I'm really glad any time people enjoy my work, truly. I do it because I have to, if you know what I mean, but it means the world to me when it means something to others.

And it's somewhat funny you mention the production on the vocals, because I was just talking about them during my ride home.
While the youtube upload may have caused some compression and degraded the sound a bit (I think I might replace the audio there with a better file) - Production/engineering is an intense art all of its own and one that I am definitely still rough at (and learning more and more as I continue), although I do think I'm getting there... but vocal production especially is really something I am not happy with my abilities as a producer/engineer so far. I mean, not that I'm all bad at it, but it's just something I have pegged as my biggest need of focus/improvement. Especially since I write music that's a bit different and making the words stand out while music is a bit busier than most rock songs shoot for makes it an even more difficult engineering task.

Still, I'm pretty happy with it (some final tweaks to come aside).
I think I just need to pull some of the different frequencies within the vocals, and some of the instruments, up and down to separate it all a bit more.

Just for info... Once I am done with all of the songs for the album, if I am still not happy with my vocal production capabilities/results, I may go in and have another engineer handle the vocals to finish it all up. I've worked with a few engineers that are truly just magician artists with ears that sometimes scare me, they hear things with such precision.

One last side note: This particular song/video is a bit of a strange introduction to me as 1) I don't always have a beard! (haha) and 2) it is somewhat of a strange song (one out of 24+ for this big concept album, story-telling big show I am working on). Then again, all of my songs are strange, in some way or another.

Anyway... babbling aside...
Thank you all very much and I'm glad to entertain ya!
If you truly like it, please follow along, pass it on and never hesitate to contact me to let me know and/or to get some more music of mine.



Now... maybe I'll find some time to make some CoH videos (I might have a small window coming up).

No problem - I am glad you took it the right way, because it was meant to be helpful. I'm always working on audio stuff on my channel as well. I've been trying to slowly improve since April or so.

Regarding CoH videos - gotta hurry, you only have a couple weeks left.