Cover Songs
A lot of times when people record on 4 tracks it sounds so raw and messy. I have never been able to get my 4 track recordings to get that dirty. I’m not sure what I am doing wrong. Haha. I overload the pre amps and max the tape levels and it still sounds too good. These songs are me experimenting in trying to get a more ‘traditional’ 4 track sound.
These songs were recorded on my 424 Portastudio, the grey one. I think its sometimes referred to as an mk1, but its was labeled just as a 424. I got this at a used music store for $75 probably like 20ish years ago. Ebay shows one currently for sale at $700 which seems just crazy. This version of the Portastudio is okay, I don’t like it as much as the blue mkiii though. It has the soft key transport which is nice if you ever want to punch in. The pre amp and eq quality is less than the later mkiii that I had previously. Its only a 2 band that are fixed. The mkiii has the sweepable midrange that gives a log of extra tones to use when mixing down. For some other recordings with this 4 track, I used an external mixer and the sound is much cleaner. I’ll put those up somewhere else on the website at some point.
A lot of times when people record on 4 tracks it sounds so raw and messy. I have never been able to get my 4 track recordings to get that dirty. I’m not sure what I am doing wrong. Haha. I overload the pre amps and max the tape levels and it still sounds too good. These songs are me experimenting in trying to get a more ‘traditional’ 4 track sound.
These songs were recorded on my 424 Portastudio, the grey one. I think its sometimes referred to as an mk1, but its was labeled just as a 424. I got this at a used music store for $75 probably like 20ish years ago. Ebay shows one currently for sale at $700 which seems just crazy. This version of the Portastudio is okay, I don’t like it as much as the blue mkiii though. It has the soft key transport which is nice if you ever want to punch in. The pre amp and eq quality is less than the later mkiii that I had previously. Its only a 2 band that are fixed. The mkiii has the sweepable midrange that gives a log of extra tones to use when mixing down. For some other recordings with this 4 track, I used an external mixer and the sound is much cleaner. I’ll put those up somewhere else on the website at some point.
For these songs I was going for more of a lofi sound. I used the 4 tracks pre’s and eq. This collection kinda ended up being covers of Nirvana covers. I used some type of dynamic mic to record the guitar, keyboards, and vocals. Overloading the pres did not get things dirty enough so I used some distortion pedals for many of the vocals. I have an old mxr distortion plus and a Big Muff Fuzz. Getting things ugly makes it easier for me to tolerate my voice.
They keyboard was a Casio sk1. I gotta do a write up about my love of the sk1. Before circuit bending craze jacked up the prices, you could find them at garage sales for like $5. The disco beat was my loop of choice. I think I gave Ian a bunch of my mini keyboards at some point. I’ll have to see if he still has them and if they still work.
Son of a Gun, Molly’s Lips, and Jesus Don’t Want Me for a Sunbeam are all by the Vasalines. I think that Nirvana changed it to ‘Don’t’ for that last one. I think my guitar was a little out of tune or the tape was a little slow or something. The keyboard sounds a little flat, but I kind of like it.
The Man Who Sold the World is obviously a Bowie Cover. I looked up the lyrics online, but I don’t think they are correct. There is something about a gazely stare that I think is someone mishearing the lyrics. That’s all good though. I did these recordings really fast. As you can probably tell I just left mistakes in and didn’t even attempt to correct most of them.
Burning Down the Billboards is a song by Cave-In. It was released on a 7 inch. This was kind of their transition from metalcore to space rock. Stephen Brodsky is a true gem of a musician. He definitely hasn’t gotten the amount of recognition that he deserves for his talents. For this one, I tried to make the guitars sound as shitty as possible. I’m not really a vocalist, but I did my best.
Come As You Are and About a Girl is Nirvana…duh Fun fact, About a Girl was the first song I learned to play on guitar when I was 15.
Bite It You Scum is a GG Allin song. I don’t really like GG Allin, but his whole thing is like a bad car accident that you can’t look away from. I don’t think this really captures his vibe, but whatever…
Something in the Way is another Nirvana song. I did another recording of this years ago that I liked better. The chorus of the song had this loud distorted transition and there was drum machine bleed from my headphones. I’ll have to get the old hard drive out to see if I can find it.