I will say that last month did not go as planned. The first few days I had great hopes of recording an album during the month of February but they just dwindled as the week(s)/month went on.

In 1997 I tried doing the RPM Challenge with a few friends (online). I few songs had been written before hand, but we started working on one in particular (which had been written during the month).. that was about as far as we got, recording just that song. Mind you we finished recording the song about a year later. The song deserved the time we put in to it. And I think that’s where I went askew with this year. The first song written / chosen to record is a really good one and you want it to sound GREAT.

Initially I had planned on recording all instruments myself (drums included). However on the first or second night I started to have problems with my Ashton Drum Pads. The plan was to connect them to my computer and using them to ‘trigger’ better sounds in the computer. I don’t know if it was the sensitivity (ie having to bash the ‘crap’ out of the kit to get the right sound), or something else that mean’t the drums just weren’t working for me was a major set back. The irony, what I had tried to record actually sounded pretty good whilst playing live.

After that night I thought I would enlist the help of a drummer who’s helped me out before, and if I could get him a bassist who had also helped me before, but my drummer didn’t appear to be online for the early part of the month, so I just gave up on that idea.

The final thought was an acoustic album. Then came one day of enthuiasm and recording then my motivation died.

So I’ve decided to turn RPM (Recording Project Month) Challenge in to RPY (Recording Project Year) Challenge. Less pressure leading to a higher quality album.

As I record songs I’ll put them up here. So keep and eye / ear out.

When I got home I wanted to record something, so I picked up a lyric which I wrote earlier and gave it a rewrite, it’s no longer called ‘If Only’, it’s now ‘Back Then’.

The track is very much a WIP, the drums aren’t right and the organs / lead guitar / bass needs work.  I’m almost 1/2 tempted to ask a few friends on a forum I’m on give me a hand cause I think this song could really shine.

Apologies for the mix… Back Then

Back Then Demo mp3

Lyrics and Music Copyright Daniel Porter 2010

Let me know what you think.

I’m not too sure if I’ll bring a few songs out of the closet from my old lyric books to get my started.  I think I might just do a couple of writing exercises tomorrow -morning, lunch and ride home to see if I can come up with something to record tomorrow night.

Althought I do want the first track on the album to be an instrumental… so that might make it a bit easier

Tonight I set up my ‘studio’ area, got my microphones out, guitars arranged, connected up my sound card and my drum pads and tested everything to make sure it works.

There is a slight hum in my monitors (speakers) but aside from that everything else is ready to Rock’n'Roll!

What I was referring to is the  The RPM Challenge.  The challenge is really simple:

Record an album in 28 days, just because you can.

This page goes in to more depth, such all no previously released material can be used and all recording must be done in February.  They do encourage you to write all your songs during February.  That part I won’t be following 100% (as it’s only encouragement), cause I know with that time won’t permit.  I have a few lyrics which I already have which are either WIP or very close to Finished.

So I’ve signed up – this is me.

So from February 1 expect frequent updates here (and probably on my twitter).  I’ll post my WIP recordings and Final versions of songs on here and just the final versions of my songs on RPM’s Site.

There we go! It’s in writing