"For the Birds":
This song is a testament to what you can do with production. If you listen to the pure, unprocessed tracks, it's probably the worst thing I've ever put to record. But when I apply my super secret* homebrewed effects package (last heard here), it turns into something that's actually kind of cool.
The idea came when I went outside, as I do about three times a year, and heard some birds singing their bird songs. I remembered a trick I had been working on with a recorder, to try and make it sound like a birdcall. It's complicated but it involves muting and covering part with your hands and harmonics. So I wanted to use that.
My self-imposed challenge with this song was no guitars, no bass, no piano. Also I have a sore throat so I couldn't sing. So the lead part became the recorder part, which is pretty dumb because I can't play the recorder, and for the rhythm part, I layered a lot of drums. By drums, I mean a tambourine, an upside-down trash can, and a water cooler (empty). Real drums are expensive. Also for good measure I threw in some rainstick and a children's toy. I don't know what it's called, you spin it in a circle and it makes a whistly noise? Somebody help me out here. I used it in "I ♥ Noise", too.
Anyway, the drums sounded really bad, so I was going to just put this up as a failed experiment (since that's essentially what it was), but first I decided to play with effects. And I kind of liked how that, sounded, and it turned into this.
*It's not that secret. Using Garageband, turn on Track Echo to "Vintage", Tremolo to "Mono Tremolo", Echo somewhere between 38%, and Reverb to 86% (I think. It's kind of hard to tell, so you can probably fudge the exact numb3rs). I call it "Wall of Sound", but you can call it whatever you want.
DOWNLOADABLE VERSION:
Rerelease Notes: This one's the same.
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