4TSOTS- 14 songs in 16 Days [ 26:20 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (11788)

I have enjoyed sharing my journey as I joined February Album Writing Month and attempted to write 14 songs in 28 days.  On February 16, I posted my 14th song.  I am going to continue throughout February, but I am a little astounded that I could write that consistently and quickly.   Let me share what I posted in the fawm.org forums after I finished my 14th song.

 Now What?:  This afternoon I posted song #14. I guess that makes me a winner. (Although I think anyone who participates in fawm is a winner).Now what?Of course, as long as the songs are flowing, I’ll keep writing, and busting zongs, and trying some collabs, and stretching myself.But what do I do with this collection of new songs?I could book studio time and do the full production treatment on them and the best of the 10 year’s catalogue I have since my last album, but I have no desire to go to that time and expense right now. I could finally get around to learning how to use my gear to produce good multi track recordings myself.I spent the autumn renovating our basement and building my family a nice rec room. I will likely invite friends and family to a little End of FAWM concert in my wreck room. I may even get a couple of no-rehearsal calibre side musicians to help me sound good.
How about you all. Now what?

I got some good feedback from others on the forums and one of the outcomes is that I am trying out new recording software to see if it makes it easier for me to self-produce multitrack recordings.  I love Audacity. I have used it daily for 6 years, so I am really good with it, but I find it a little cumbersome for doing multitracking.

I checked out a number of different free and inexpensive DAW software packages and decided to try out Reaper.  I’ve known about Reaper for years. It was developed by Justin Frankel, the same guy who wrote Winamp, Kazaa, and made a killing selling winamp to AOL before he was 20.  After one song recording and this podcast, I am very impressed.  Recording a 30 min podcast took less than 1/2 the time it would take me in audacity, as editing mistakes or adding new tracks can be done on the fly.  It is not free software, but they have an uncrippled version you can download and try for 60 days.  After that it is a very reasonable $60 for noncommercial or small business and $240 for a pro license.  If I keep using it, I see a $60 purchase in my future.

Songs in this episode (All of these are unreleased demos posted on the fawm.org site.  All songs and recordings are copyright their respective authors).

1)  Theme Music: For the Sake of the Song (c) Sean McGaughey

2) Too Many Words (c) 2013, Sean McGaughey

3)  Zongbusters  by @wetterlicht

4)  Birds by Kim Beggs  www.kimbeggs.com

5)  Ophelia’s Blues by Joe Fahey  www.facebook.com/joefaheymusic

6)  Sha Sha Sha Sha Sha by  @chriddof  www.chriddof.com

7)  What I Started  (c) Sean McGaughey

You can leave comments on the blog, send me an email to ductapeguy at hotmail dot com or join the For The Sake of the Song Podcast group on Facebook.

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As usual, all songs and musical performances are copyright by the performer-songwriter.