I've created solo albums where I did everything myself several times now (although on those albums I get my wife to sing lead on most songs, I can sing but she's a ton better for some styles - I can't change my vocal instrument no matter how skilled a musician I might be LoL).
quick bio that shows how I ended up so messed up
:
I'm originally, first and foremost a classical violinist specializing in being a concert soloist and I went through college first as both a classical violinist and jazz electric bassist and jazz guitarist while working as a gigging/recording progrock guitarist/bassist/composer and classical violinist.
Then at university I majored in violin and kept working as a jazz fusion guitarist and rock/funk/jazz bassist while I got into engineering. through university I learned how to play a scale decently on pretty well every classical instrument made (although trombone and I still don't get along, and you don't want to hear me on any other horn instruments either).
Also got better at playing the drums (self taught with a lot of tips from great drummers along the way). oh yea and my mum's a classical pianist and was teaching me piano before I could walk (although I'm not great now at it, the keyboard/theory skill paid off a ton obviously).
so with that behind me I figured I'd be sort of a crossover multi-instrumentalist type guy which has worked out well for me. hence my work as a session musician and producer/arranger.
Sort of seemed natural to make my own albums.
The weak links I discovered when doing this (back as a teenager when I started making my own albums, although I never finished those old ones) were my songwriting (good ideas badly put together and/or vice versa LoL and terrible lyrics) and my lack of mixdown engineering skills (was only doing tracking engineering back then for money, never mixed for money when I was young - why does that sound dirty to me?)
so creating full albums taught me a LOT about mixing, producing, composing and songwriting. and of course about how people concentrate, what keeps their interest through an album, what lyrically they look for, etc.
it's been a great process that I've kept doing my entire career so far (turning all of 40 next month, just seems like forever since like most of us I've beeen involved in music my entire life).
I have several entire album plans over the next couple of years. I won't discuss the details here but for example:
- a mostly instrumental classical record with electric/rock/synth instruments on them and I play all the parts and sometimes rockify the compositions somewhat (actually rewriting them sometimes but paying homage to the originals almost 100%).
- Also I'll do another full album of originals and covers, pop/rock/r&b/blues stuff, very commercial, looking for my personal rockstar success as always LoL.
- another entirely pure classical violin record, this time probably unaccompanied violin stuff mostly as opposed to my live violin/piano recital recordings of the past
- a full album, entirely original, rock, telling a story, politically and emotionally moving (that's my intention anyway LoL), that I've been working toward most of my life, again with my wife helping on vocals and some instruments maybe where she'd be better suited (she plays sax way better than me for example).
so those 4 albums should take me a couple of years, or maybe 20, since I'd like to do each one really well and be competitive with the commercial stuff I've worked on for clients (and better yet, actually be better than them hahaha).
so let's see - huge ideas, grandiose proportions, 3 little kids at home, a little project studio that I'm rebuilding (assuming I'll work out of my little home studio when possible), a full time day job, and 4 giant ego projects to get done fast and furious and at a professional competitive marketable level.
yeaaaaaaaaaa.... it's gonna happen.
cheers
Don