Prophet For Profit -A Songwriters Journey - 08/09/11 01:57 AM
Not sure if this is technically User Showcase or Off Topic since this song was written back in the days of Reel to Reel and Cassette Tape.
A professional artist and part time songwriter (without great technical, musical ability), I composed and recorded my songs back in the 80's and 90's by ping ponging vocals, guitar and a Yamaha Portasound keyboard between a Teac sync-a-set and Technics cassette deck.
While I had no aspirations as a performer I enjoyed writing songs and longed to hear them as complete works.
As anyone who has tried ping ponging knows, if the two decks are not running at exactly the same speed some rather strange anomalies can result as doubled or tripled vocals can begin to rise to the level of Alvin and the Chipmonks.
This was just before dual dubbing decks came out and the Teac had a unique "Sync-a-set" feature which allowed you to add or dub another "track" to your cassette tape as you sang or played along while listening through headphones.
If I still had it it might be a collectors item.
Unfortunately this meant that "what you did was what you got" as there was no way to re-mix after it was recorded.
But money was tight and at least it let me get my ideas down with some semblance having a backup band without the cost...and it was great fun!
Listening to some of those musical rough sketches was and is at times painful but they hinted at the potential of bringing my musical ideas to reality.
One day I felt I had a song I could finally afford spending the $100 (big money back then!) for a professional, local musician (sorry Greg, can't recall your last name) to record it.
I gave Greg my "rough sketch" and a hand printed copy of the chords and lyrics (I can't read or write music) and said, "I trust your judgement, call me when it's done."
He then did the vocals and keyboard backup along with another musician paying electric guitar, mixing to an 8 track reel to reel.
He then supplied me with a cassette copy.
I couldn't afford the reel to reel master tape.
While there are a few vocal style intonations I would change and probably add a little bridge between consecutive verses or drop some altogether to shorten the length, overall I was very pleased with the result.
Fast forward to the wonders of Band-In-A-Box and Realband and now I can dig out those old basement tapes and try my hand at finally turning all those musical sketches into finished pieces of...well, something hopefully approaching the quality of the following: Prophet For Profit.
Hope you enjoy it.
http://www.carlkocich.com/Music.html
As the years passed my art and making a living took precedence over my song writing hobby, and my guitars usually sat in the closet, rarely played.
Then last year I discovered Band-In-A-Box and Realband.
What a joy, what a reawakening!
Thank you PG Music for allowing the journey to continue!
A professional artist and part time songwriter (without great technical, musical ability), I composed and recorded my songs back in the 80's and 90's by ping ponging vocals, guitar and a Yamaha Portasound keyboard between a Teac sync-a-set and Technics cassette deck.
While I had no aspirations as a performer I enjoyed writing songs and longed to hear them as complete works.
As anyone who has tried ping ponging knows, if the two decks are not running at exactly the same speed some rather strange anomalies can result as doubled or tripled vocals can begin to rise to the level of Alvin and the Chipmonks.
This was just before dual dubbing decks came out and the Teac had a unique "Sync-a-set" feature which allowed you to add or dub another "track" to your cassette tape as you sang or played along while listening through headphones.
If I still had it it might be a collectors item.
Unfortunately this meant that "what you did was what you got" as there was no way to re-mix after it was recorded.
But money was tight and at least it let me get my ideas down with some semblance having a backup band without the cost...and it was great fun!
Listening to some of those musical rough sketches was and is at times painful but they hinted at the potential of bringing my musical ideas to reality.
One day I felt I had a song I could finally afford spending the $100 (big money back then!) for a professional, local musician (sorry Greg, can't recall your last name) to record it.
I gave Greg my "rough sketch" and a hand printed copy of the chords and lyrics (I can't read or write music) and said, "I trust your judgement, call me when it's done."
He then did the vocals and keyboard backup along with another musician paying electric guitar, mixing to an 8 track reel to reel.
He then supplied me with a cassette copy.
I couldn't afford the reel to reel master tape.
While there are a few vocal style intonations I would change and probably add a little bridge between consecutive verses or drop some altogether to shorten the length, overall I was very pleased with the result.
Fast forward to the wonders of Band-In-A-Box and Realband and now I can dig out those old basement tapes and try my hand at finally turning all those musical sketches into finished pieces of...well, something hopefully approaching the quality of the following: Prophet For Profit.
Hope you enjoy it.
http://www.carlkocich.com/Music.html
As the years passed my art and making a living took precedence over my song writing hobby, and my guitars usually sat in the closet, rarely played.
Then last year I discovered Band-In-A-Box and Realband.
What a joy, what a reawakening!
Thank you PG Music for allowing the journey to continue!