Clouds, a New Song I’m Working On

by Samuel Febres

It’s been a while since I’ve shared one of my songs. A few weeks ago I spent some time in downtown Tallahassee with the acoustic guitar and started working on what has become the following song.

 

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I’m still working on the song from a lyrical point of view. I have a friend in San Antonio who’s taking a stab at adding different lyrical content so I’m interested in seeing what she comes up with. Very exciting to collaborate with someone else on something, even from long distance. I was able to use Soundcloud for that, which I wrote about recently and it certainly made things easier.

Now, regarding the above mix. I’m certainly not proud of how all of it sounds. Certainly the mix isn’t balanced, the vocals need work and I forgot a few parts here and there, but it’s an idea of where the song is now and helps me hear it better and get an idea of where I would like to take it. It definitely needs a bass guitar and better drums as well, but overall it’s been fun to do.

I’m frustrated with my ability to record and work on things on my computer. I’ve been using a program called Ableton Live, the lite version, which is great for quick and easy recording as well as songwriting since you can record a section quickly and easily, then loop it to keep playing over and over again.

Part of the problem I’m having though is that my computer is struggling to record and use the program. I wanted to do and add more to the above demo, but my computer was hiccuping when it attempted to play the recorded live and midi parts and also and just started making all sorts of static and digital noise and distortion. I got frustrated and moved everything I had (without mixing) to garageband, locked the track so that it would use less processing power (garageband drags as well on my computer) and added the two vocal parts quickly to export them.

Now that I’ve paid off my car, I’m hoping to be able to get a laptop in order to not have to struggle anymore with the now weak sauce computer I own. Lord, haste the day. :)

For the more technically inclined, this is where I’m at on my computer.

My computer's stats. I got this computer in Jan/Feb of 2002.

So, after hearing the above song, I would love your thoughts and opinions about where it’s at. What do you think about the music? The lyrics thus far? The instrumentation I’ve messed around with?

I’m also thinking of entering this song into the LivetoImpact.tv Songwriting Competition. Do you think that’s a good choice? Would love to hear your thoughts.