9th and title track from my upcoming CD "Bananas Crackers And Nuts"

I was going to go hog wild on this one but decided to pull the reigns in just a little bit. It's still out there.

Bananas Crackers And Nuts

It isn't real I know it
If it's alive I'll grow it
Hallucinations haunt me
The crazy people taunt me

My mind is going crazy
It's not because I'm lazy
It's just that there's a reason
It goes beyond the season

Bananas crackers and nuts
Bananas crackers and nuts

Soon they will send me packing
Though common sense I'm lacking
It doesn't matter really
I'm not all touchy feely

Bananas crackers and nuts
Bananas crackers and nuts

All proceeds from any sales of my new track Caged will go to the charity SANE. Please buy for only 50p or share this link via your social media platforms. A great way to give and get at the same time!

https://kanewilliams.bandcamp.com/track/caged

Cool song, BeerHunter. The lyrics are cryptic. It's like there's so much more to the story that's not being said. I like it.

I don't post a whole lot, but a few months ago you helped me over in the Newbie Engineering forum regarding an old 16 track tape that I wanted to get transferred to digital. Got that done! Thanks.

So, here's my latest. "I'm Nuts About You." Not so cryptic. Just fun. Critiques welcomed!

https://soundcloud.com/user-84793065...ts-about-you-1

This one really got my foot tapping. Reminds me of the 60s. Almost like early Beatles or even 70s Ruttles.

Like it. Great job!

10th track from my upcoming CD "Bananas Crackers And Nuts"

This is one of those rare songs that I do once in a while where I actually write the song completely in my head before I ever sit in front of the keyboard. Of course, when I do that, getting Vocaloid to sing it just right is a total PITA.

Turned this into an epic production for the finale. It's about as over the top country/rock/pop as you can get.

The Cornfield

Mama used to sing me the sweetest songs
But mama didn't hang around too long
Daddy took her away
To the cornfield the other day

She never came back and daddy disappeared
I always thought that seemed just a little weird
But I never said a word
Twas the last thing I ever heard

Until late one night
When the moon was shining bright
And mama walked into the room
Drinking whiskey and riding her broom and she said

Hide this gun before the law does come
Cause they're never gonna find your daddy son
I planted him in the cornfield with the scarecrows
He tried to do me in but I took that grin
And wiped it off his face with a fifth of gin
Yeah that's the way the story goes
Planted him in the cornfield with the scarecrows

Repeat Pre-Chorus and Chorus To Fade

11th track from my upcoming CD "Bananas Crackers And Nuts"

This one is my own concoction.

Electronic Drums
Synth Bass
Bansuri
Sitar
30 Piece Persian Strings
70 Piece American String Section

I call it Ethnic Electronic Folk. But I honestly have no idea what it is.

One of the strangest pieces on this CD.

New Moon Old Sky

New moon old sky
Cold truth men lie
Dark souls they cry
Black holes will die

New moon old sky
Real soon fly by
My crime ask why
Your time to die

12th track from my upcoming CD "Bananas Crackers And Nuts"

I went minimalist country rock on this one.

Drums
Bass
Double Track Rhythm Guitar
Lead Guitar
Vocal

And that's it. Really bare bones on this one.

Another Notch On My Gun

Big Jim came into town
Bad blood was bout to go down
Six guns at dawn with the crows
We know how that story goes

And now the duel it is done
I'd like to say it was fun
To watch the skunk try to run
Another notch on my gun

More came to test my nerve
I guess that they hadn't heard
Some guys they'll just never learn
And so another one burns

Repeat Chorus 2x

13 track from my upcoming CD "Bananas Crackers And Nuts"

I never cease to amaze myself. Went a little "World" on this one, straight from West Africa.

Tracks

Solo (Percussion)
Bolon
Kola
Fula
Vocal

Only 3 tracks left and we're done with this bizarre collection.

Olamide

There was a little boy
And his name was Olamide
He listened to his mom
And he always did what she'd say

One day he met a girl
And her name was Olamide
She soon became his wife
And he'd always do what she'd say

Olamide and Olamide
Happy today
Olamide

Repeat

14th track from my upcoming CD "Bananas Crackers And Nuts"

9 On A Cloud

Locked in my mind
Secrets you'll never find
Lost and confused
Sometimes I feel so used

Have to escape
Before it's way too late
Haven to go
One place I'm sure you know

9 on a cloud
Thinking out loud
Floating on air
Without a care
9 on a cloud
9 on a cloud
9 on a cloud
9 on a cloud

Repeat Chorus



Did they close this forum and forget to tell me? LOL.

New song https://soundcloud.com/stateofmodernage/midnight-in-la

Whatever you were smoking when you made this, send me some.

As they used to say in the 60s, far out.

15th track from my upcoming CD "Bananas Crackers And Nuts"

Today, I took on the ultimate challenge...getting Vocaloid to rap. Not bad if I have to say so myself.

Only one more to go.

Would You Hip Hop With Me

What would you say if I took you to a party
Pumped you full of wine and a little bit of me
Would you run and hide like a little girl in grade school
Would you stick around just to climb my cherry tree

Would you hip hop with me
Would you hip hop with me
Would you hip hop with me
Would you hip hop with me

What would you say if I asked you for a big kiss
Held you close to me and began to squeeze you tight
Would you run like hell like a track star taking steroids
Would you kiss my lips cause you know it feels so right

Repeat Chorus 2x

I've always wondered what Vocaloid doing Rap/Hip-Hop would sound like,
so thanks for that (I think .... ) Sounded a bit to me, like Kraftwerk does Hip-Hop. ha! (Also I don't think you get to call something Hip-Hop these days unless
it includes the N-word at least three times per sentence.)
very entertaining
Dakoda.

16th and final track from my upcoming CD "Bananas Crackers And Nuts"

For the last track I went with a simple piano and vocal.

Empty Promises

Where'd I hear those words before
Don't intend to hear no more
You've been filling me with lies
Lies and empty promises

Seems that I can't trust a word
Of the many that I've heard
You've been filling me with lies
Lies and empty promises

I don't know why I hung on so long
Even though everything was so wrong
I guess I hoped for the best
From the rest

Days and nights it would go on
Knowing that the love was gone
You'd been filling me with lies
Lies and empty promises

But today I've seen the light
Learned to tell the wrong from right
No more filling me with lies
Lies and empty promises

Repeat Bridge

No more empty promises
No more empty promises



Next CD: "Amp It Up" which is going to be a basic rock CD. Will be putting my new Amplitude guitar FX to work on this one. So lots of lead guitars and rock stuff. The styles, within the rock genre, I'll try to mix up so it all doesn't sound the same relatively speaking. I don't want to do another Boston album where every song is just a variation on "More Than A Feeling" not that I'm knocking Boston.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed "Bananas Crackers And Nuts". Listening back to it, lots of different stuff, which was my goal. Probably one of the more unusual albums that I've done which included my first ever hip hop song and first ever boogie-woogie. This one really stretched me, which was nice.

See you all for the next one which I'll be starting tomorrow.

The History Of Rubber Water

It began in 1977 after a romantic train wreck. I wrote my first song titled "Nobody Comes To My House Anymore." It was 3 chords, monotonous as hell and just plain awful.

But that's how Rubber Water was born. Several friends would come over from time to time and join in on the fun including my friend Rich who played guitar and my friend Lenny who wrote many of the lyrics. His were featured on my recent CD "Back Together Again III"

From 1977 to 1983 we made what I call the basement tapes. They were God awful in every way. In fact, I don't even have any of the recordings anymore. They started on 8 track and eventually went to cassette.

Finally, in 1984 I had my breakthrough recording. The album name was "Transition." It was the first thing I had done that I wasn't totally embarrassed to play for others, thus the name.

Between 1984 and 2003, I recorded the following albums.

Transition
Nothing But Love Songs
Through The Galaxy (first prog rock album)
You...Me And Yesterday
Out Of Sync (Styled after The Police)
Caught Up In Love (Styled after The Cars)
There's No Place Like Home
Rock 'N' Roll
Mixed Bag (first random album)
A Stone's Throw Away
Back Together Again (return to writing with Lenny)
Broken Dreams
Who Says You Can't Take It With You
Time Travelers (History like album)
Trials And Tribulations
Fairy Tales
Nothing But Love Songs Vol II
Deep Thoughts
Story Book
Girls (All girls name songs)
And The Angels Sing (contained my first published song)
Good Old Days
Pot Luck (another random album)
Law And Disorder
On A Different Track Time
The Lost Tapes (remakes of some of the 1977-1983 stuff)
Black And Blue
The Wind And The Willow
Luck Of The Draw (another random album)
Reunion
Opinions And Observations
Return To The Galaxy (follow up to Through The Galaxy)
A Little Bit Country
Mostly Metal
Record Breaker (7th album of 1994 which was a record for me)
Out Of This World
Gashouse Gang War
A Little Church Music (all church songs)
Killer Hooks
Nothing But Love Songs Vol III
Anything Goes (another random album)
Christmas Songs
Stompin Good Time
Techno Babble
Potpourri (another random album)
Random Generator (another random album)
A Little Church Music II

And then, in 2003, I started work on Show Tunes but after 2 songs, I stopped. I was burnt out.

I then took a 5 year break.

Finally, in 2008, I had gotten rid of my analog studio and went digital recording.

From 2008 through 2012, the following songs were recorded in my digitally recorded studio which still had some analog gear.

5 Years After
Stuck In A Fantasy
50 (my 50th album since counting in 1984)
Rubber Water's Revenge
Welcome To Hell
All The Kings Men
Back Together Again II (It has been a good 15 years since)
Where Dreams Go To Die
The Lost Tapes II (more old stuff redone)
Transformation

Then I went totally ITB after selling my hardware. It's all gone.

In 2013 I worked in Finale doing just classical recordings. Rubber Water was pretty much done.

Modern Classics
Modern Classics II
Modern Classics III
Modern Classics IV

I ended 2013 with "The Singles" and then took another 2 year break.

In 2015 I started writing full time again.

From 2015 until now, I've done the following

The Singles Vol 2
Dance Beats
The Singles Vol 3
The Singles Vol 4
The Vocaloids A Little At A Time (my first Vocaloid CD)
Once Upon A Time (My first show tunes collection)
M
The Lost Tapes III (more old stuff)
The Reflecting Pool
Back Together Again III (One last go round with my lyricist)
Glitch
Guitars From Hell
The Dungeon Masters
No Signal
A Whole Lotta Country
80s Squared
Resisting The Temptation
Bananas Crackers And Nuts

I have no idea what the future holds. But it's going to be fun to see what the above list turns into.

This is a country song for a female vocalist. Recorded on my iPhone and touched up in Reaper.

It's missing a call-and-response section during the chorus.

Not sure where to go with production, going to wait till I find the right singer.

I did listen. I'm not really good with taking a raw guitar/vocal recording and coming up with a production for it so I can't really be much help. Maybe somebody else here has a better ear for that sort of thing.

Good luck with finding a singer and let us hear the finished recording when it's done.

my favourites (in order) from the latest album were
1/ he loved me
2/ nine on a cloud
3/ funk off

when I first heard you say your next album would be entitled "Bananas Crackers And Nuts" , I really did't know what to expect. but the variation in genres was a great idea.

You know I'm not a fan of the Vocaloid sound (like a lot of others) and I've heard your reasons for using it and I understand but I can imagine in 10 years time that computer singing technology will be transformed from where it is today and all your Vocaloid tracks will get a new lease of life!
Imagine upgrading from Vocaloid V4.0 to Vocaloid V16.0 ! they might all be sung by really famous , really good singers, at the touch of a button.
that might be cool...
anyway,
roll on the next one.
Dakoda.

Personally, this was far from my favorite project in general. But I purposely do these things to stretch myself so I don't get stale. A lot of these songs were way out of my comfort zone. But there's no question it was one of the more unique projects that I've done over the years.

This next one is all going to come down to songwriting. Writing a rock "song" has always been a weak spot for me. Most of my rock stuff is just jamming on a riff. I'm going to try not to do that for this one. My goal is to write real songs like...

More Than A Feeling
Wild Horses
Lonely Soldier
Temptation Eyes

And so on. These songs should all be playable on the piano. If they're not, they're no good. At least not for the purposes of this CD. Doing that and still keeping a rock feel is going to be my biggest challenge. And I'm going to attempt to do this without emulating any songs in particular. That would be easy and, IMO, cheating. As the temptation to do just that is so great, this will make it an even greater challenge because as soon as I hear I'm drifting into (fill in the blank) I'm scrapping the song. With 50 years of music behind me, that's going to be damn hard. The chances of any riff I come up with no reminding me of something are going to be slim to none. So the first thing I'm going to have to do for this one is clear my mind as much as I can. As a result, if I should pull this one off, some of this stuff might sound a little odd. Not sure. Honestly, don't really know what to expect at this point.

This project may be more interesting than you can imagine.

As for Vocaloid...only the future will tell.

It's straight up 4/4 throughout, with the snare hitting a straight backbeat. The timing may not be 100% locked in, but there are no extra beats anywhere - one bar of 4/4 intro and in.

Well, two people hear it so I guess we're both idiots.

Whatever. Not important enough to argue about.

1st and title track from my upcoming CD "Amp It Up"

Amp It Up

Party time
Everybody jump in the pool
Everybody act like a fool
Everybody acting real cool

This is it
This is what we've all waited for
Waited with our feet on the floor
We ain't gonna wait it no more

Amp it up
Crank this sucker way up to ten
Party hearty time and again
Come on down and come bring a friend
Amp it up
Crank it til the cops come no fail
Crank it til they haul us to jail
Crank it til are folks post are bail

Midnight comes
And we're getting into full swing
This here's not a casual fling
Time to feel the bee and it's sting

We won't quit
Not until we're passed out for good
Knock on doors and then knock on wood
Party for a week if I could

Repeat Chorus 2x

Well the new CD is off to a flying start !
nice and catchy
Dakoda.

I like it, it's atmospheric. I'd prefer it set to a different beat maybe, but that's just me. Really like the blend of singing and rap, I'm not really a rap fan.
But this works well in my opinion.
looking forward to your next one (as long as it's also mostly singing, not rapping , ha!)
good job.
Dakoda.

(i) No one's calling anyone an "idiot". (But two people have indeed been known to be wrong before.)

(ii) "Whatever. Not important enough to argue about" after saying "I guess we're both idiots" IS arguing about it - it's just trying to have the last word is all!

(ii) Remember when I listened to your version of 'New Song', and pointed out that part of the main riff was out by 1/16th note? Your immediate reactions was to say you didn't "hear it" and you liked it the way it was; 10 minutes later, you realised I was right - and had the grace to admit it and fix your MIDI programming. At some point, I can but hope your first reaction if I comment on something like timing will be to say "hmm, Owen's usually right about these things" rather than "I guess we're both idiots".

(iii) Attached is the first verse and chorus of the song, with a straight 1-bar, 4/4 MIDI loop underneath it - long hat on beat 1, closed hats on 2, 3, 4. The song is, as I said, a straight 4/4 throughout, with no extra beats or odd time signatures, but with a couple fairly pronounced human drummer timing instances - a rush here, a drag there. You'll notice that while the timing of the click is not millisecond perfect, that it's clear that the song is in 4/4 throughout.

Okay, I must have listened to this song about 20 times already.

Forgetting the time signature, because something is throwing me off, maybe you can point out in musician terms what it is.

Is it syncopated?

Is it kind of swing beat?

Is is rushed or delayed in places?

The first 15 or so seconds of this song I can't keep a straight 4/4 beat with my foot doing kick and hand doing snare, so something is messing me up. Listening to this another 20 or so times isn't going to help so maybe you can point out exactly what it is that has me so befuddled.

Never mind, I finally figured it out after listening to it one last time.

It's not the drums at all. it's the way he's playing the guitar. It's making me want to rush the drum beat. But if I just force myself to keep a steady 4/4 throughout, somehow it stays in sync.

But that guitar lick is screwing with my brain because the guitar lick itself COULD be played to a different time signature. In other words, if you took out the drums and inserted a drum pattern to match the guitar accents, it wouldn't be 4/4.

So yeah, the drums are actually keeping a steady beat but the guitar is doing something funky within that beat that's messing with my head.

Is that pretty much it?

That is pretty much it!

It's a combination of things. The guitar riff (which it actually pretty cool) plays a two bar pattern where it hits the first beat of bar one, then an offbeat, then beat 4 of that bar, and 2 and 4 of the second bar. Rinse repeat. But it does exert a push/pull feel, where one could lose track of which is the downbeat and which is the back beat.

Second, there are a couple of places where the drums either rush significantly, or lag significantly. (As in, more than 30ms ahead/behind where they'd be on a strict grid.)

Okay, then while this is technically a 4/4 time signature tune, would you say it's not a "straight" 4/4 tune, meaning it doesn't play like one and thus could come off sounding like something other than 4/4?

I don't usually get fooled like this having done tons of prog rock myself (listen to my recent The Dungeon Masters CD) but this one really caught me off guard.

Again, I wasn't criticizing the song. I actually thought it sounded really cool (probably for the reasons you pointed out) and was just curious what the time signature was for the intro. When he said 4/4 I was starting to think I was losing my mind because it just doesn't have a "straight" 4/4 feel to it.

Now that I've had help dissecting this thing (thank you very much) I get it. In fact, I'm going to try to do something similar for my current rock CD that I'm working on. I don't know how good it's going to turn out as I usually just do the weird time signature thing instead of trying to make 4/4 sound like something else, but I'm going to give it a shot. if it sounds like crap, oh well.

Anyway, thanks for helping me get to the bottom of this.

You're pretty good at this rhythm stuff. LOL.

The time signature only indicates how many beats there are in each measure, and what the sub-division of those beats are - so, 4/4 means there are 4 beats in a bar and that each beat is a 1/4 note. So, in this case (as well as in general), whether the guitarist (or anyone else) is pushing and pulling against the feel doesn't change the time signature at all - he or she is just playing around with accents. (Or, put another way, if you can count in 4s, and the downbeat always comes on 1, then you're in 4/4!)

As a contrast, and my favourite example of mixed time signatures, Aretha Franklin's "Say A Little Prayer" throws in a bar of 3/4 in the chorus - which is so artfully done, it almost passes un-noticed. The first line ('Forever and ever') is 4/4, 'you'll stay in my heart' is 3/4, 'I will love you' is 4/4 again. Can't count it any other way.


No worries. It's all fun stuff!