Top 10 Songs

Top 10 Blues, "What's Gonna Happen" is #1 in #Blues today out of 55,777 songs.
Top 10 Rock, "Just The Thing" is #6 in Rock out of 258,621 songs.
http://pwcarrmusic.com/songs/

Today, Friday March 3, is just the second day since "Just The Thing" was released to Soundclick.  It started out at number 8 on the Rock chart...and climbing.  😄

"Some Kind Of Blues" on Spotify

"Some Kind Of Blues" by Pat Carr is now available on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/artist/4vg5W9MSgIKHKJpkt32ape

Top 10 Blues, "Bad Habit" is #1 in Soundclick Blues today out of 55,282 songs. Have a listen on the New PWCarr Music:  http://pwcarrmusic.com/songs/

The New PWCarr Music site.

There is a brand new PWCarr Music site.  It's sleeker, slimmer, trimmed-down and optimized for viewing on any device.  Check it out and let me know what you think.

3 New Old Songs on CD Baby

I just released 3 new songs on CD Baby.

"Don't Be Afraid" and "I Can't Stop" are from early recordings I made on 4 track tape.
"Night After Night" is a live band recording mixed on the fly to Digital Audio tape.

They are a departure from my usual blues songs. They are more like old soul songs inspired by Otis Redding -- slow and soulful love songs.

They did not make the cut for a CD release in regards to genre and recording quality, but I decided to release them so my friends, family, and fans could hear them.

You can check them out at the Music Store on PWCarr Music.

Enjoy!

New Music Store

Check out the brand new music store for Some Kind Of Blues at the bottom of this page.

Also, there is a new Music Store on my web site with the best versions of all the songs from my two CDs (no duplicates), plus two single releases, "What's Gonna Happen?" and "Just The Thing."

Enjoy!

Recording Some Kind Of Blues, track 6 Dancing With Diane

Dancing With Diane is a funny little story about a guy who meets up
with an old girl friend, then has to explain to his wife.

I had made a previous recording of Dancing With Diane on 4 track tape, so I already  had a drum pattern for it on my Alesis SR16 drum machine.
I recorded the kick and snare from that pattern onto my computer
as an audio track, and used it as a basis for building the rest of the tracks.

I added a MIDI drum track for the tom fills and high hat. 
Another MIDI track was created for crash and ride cymbals. 

I played the bass track on my '68 Fender Telecaster bass, but then I
decided to create a MIDI bass track for a cleaner sound - no noise - and
better control of the note placement.   There are some parts where the
bass note slides down the neck.  On those notes, and at the end of the song, I turned the MIDI bass down and the bass guitar up. 
As the song plays, it is switching back and forth between MIDI bass
and audio bass guitar.

Dancing With Diane has three rhythm guitar tracks.
There is a clean guitar that is playing mostly chords and notes an octave
higher than the main rhythm guitar, and a distorted guitar that is playing pretty much the same thing as the main rhythm.

The other guitar track is the lead solo.

I sang two complete vocal tracks because I didn't like parts of the first one.
It turned out that I didn't like parts of the second one either, so I just picked the best of each one and turned one off while the other is playing.
So, like the bass, it is switching back and forth between the two.

The last track is a blues organ played with Ableton's software synth using my Alesis QS8.1 as the MIDI controller.

Dancing With Diane has 12 tracks:
     acoustic drums, MIDI drums, cymbals, acoustic bass, MIDI bass,
     3 rhythm guitars, lead guitar, 2 vocals, and organ.


Listen at PWCarr Music
http://pwcarrmusic.com/

Dancing With Diane by Patrick W. Carr
Personnel:
Pat Carr - all instruments, vocals

Recording Some Kind Of Blues, track 5 Mean Streak

Mean Streak is my take on the sentiment expressed in Stevie Ray's
Pride And Joy.  I guess you could say that song was its inspiration.

I made this recording of Mean Streak backwards, or rather in
reverse order from the way it would normally be done.
I had a previous recording on 4 track tape, so I recorded the bass
and rhythm guitar tracks from it onto my computer.  As I recall,
it was not all that easy to get them synced with each other.

Then I recorded a MIDI drum track by playing along with the bass
and guitar.   The drum track has the kick, snare, toms, and high hat.
Another MIDI track was created for crash and ride cymbals. 

The lead guitar track was played on my Fender Strat Plus.
One thing I really like about Ableton Live is the ability to use
envelopes to control the parameters of a track, including volume,
panning, and effects.  For instance, I recorded the lead guitar at a
constant volume, then used a volume envelope to bring down the
volume during the vocals.

There you have it.  Mean Streak is a fairly simple recording.
Just 6 tracks:  bass, rhythm guitar, lead guitar, vocal, drums, and cymbals.

Still, it's a lot of work getting all the tracks mixed properly, using EQ to
to remove rattles and string squeaks on the bass guitar, for example,
and then mastering the resulting stereo mix.

Listen at PWCarr Music
http://pwcarrmusic.com/

Mean Streak by Patrick W. Carr
Personnel:
Pat Carr - all instruments, vocals

Recording Some Kind Of Blues, track 4 Stuck With Chuck

See my previous post
http://pwcarrmusic.blogspot.com/2013/11/recording-stuck-with-chuck.html

and video
http://pwcarrmusic.blogspot.com/2013/12/stuck-with-chuck-recording-video.html

about recording Stuck With Chuck.

Listen at PWCarr Music
http://pwcarrmusic.com/

Stuck With Chuck by Patrick W. Carr
Personnel:
Pat Carr - all instruments, vocal, backing vocals
Audree Rundell - backing vocals

Recording Some Kind Of Blues, track 3 Nola Blues

I previously wrote a post about how Nola Blues was recorded.
Check it out:
http://pwcarrmusic.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-secret-mysterious-origins-of-nola.html

and video
http://pwcarrmusic.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-mysterious-origins-of-nola-blues.html

about the mysterious origin of Nola Blues.

Listen at PWCarr Music
http://pwcarrmusic.com/

Nola Blues by Patrick W. Carr
Personnel:
Pat Carr - all instruments

Recording Some Kind Of Blues, track 2 Bad Habit

Bad Habit is a basement tape.
Terry Gilbert recorded it on 4-track tape in his basement
where we used to rehearse as Blue Metro.
We built it track by track using a scratch drum track to lay down
the vocals and rhythm guitars.  Terry played the bass track,
Leo played the drum track, then we added the lead guitars.
Terry's lead guitar solo is the one after the third verse.

I recorded a stereo mix from DAT to my computer. 
I removed the noise from the audio file and restored the gain
to a section of it.  Then I used Ableton Live and Ozone to master it.

I also made an edited for radio version of Bad Habit and a new
version with the compression removed from the original 48KHz mix,
similar to the operation I performed on Evil Evil.  The result is a song
file that is not quite as loud, but has more dynamic range.

Listen at PWCarr Music
http://pwcarrmusic.com/

Bad Habit by Patrick W. Carr
Personnel:
Pat Carr - lead and rhythm guitars, vocals;
Terry Gilbert - rhythm and lead guitars, bass;
Leo Marshall - drums

Recording Some Kind Of Blues, track 1 Evil Evil

Evil Evil was recorded at Colorado Sound recording studio.
It is a live recording of the band Blue Metro.  Only the vocals,
lead guitar, and sax solo are overdubbed.

A stereo mix was transferred from tape to Digital Audio Tape,
and from DAT to my computer.  I used some audio manipulation
software to sample and remove the noise and tape hiss from the
stereo mix. Then I brought it into my recording program for mastering.

Later on, I made a shorter version of Evil Evil to make it a little more
radio friendly.  The original is over 5 minutes, and the edited version
is about 3 and a half minutes.

In 2013 I released a newly mastered version of Evil Evil - radio edit
based on some feedback from an audio engineer.  I removed the
compression from the mix and reduced the loudness maximizer on
the master.  The result is a song file that is not quite as loud,
but has more dynamic range.

Listen at PWCarr Music
http://pwcarrmusic.com/

Evil Evil by Patrick W. Carr
Personnel:
Pat Carr - guitar, vocals; Terry Gilbert - guitar, backing vocals; 
Al Gilbert - bass;  Leo Marshall - drums;  Gary McNear - keyboards;
Mary McCrimmon - backing vocals;  Billy Warren - sax

Recording Some Kind Of Blues, Intro

The songs on Some Kind Of Blues were recorded in a
variety of methods and places.

A few were done in recording studios.  They are either
live band recordings or mostly live with few overdubs.

Most of the songs were recorded in my home studio
on my computer.  I interface to the computer through
an ART Tube preamp and an MAudio Delta 1010LT
soundcard.

My main instruments are Fender Strats, a Guild
mahogany D-25, a Taylor acoustic, a '68 Fender
Telecaster bass, an Alesis QS8.1 synthesizer,
and a Fender Hotrod Deluxe guitar amp.

My recording software is Ableton Live with Ozone 3
as the mastering plugin.
On all the songs, I used Ableton to create a 48KHz mix
which was then mastered to 44.1KHz for CD with Ozone.

Some Kind Of Blues is a labor of love, the result of many
years of work, and an attempt to get as good a recording
as possible of each of the songs with limited resources. 
It has garnered favorable reviews and fans all over the world.

You can listen to the songs, watch videos, and
get a free download at my web site,
http://pwcarrmusic.com/

Some Kind of Blues
Pat Carr
All songs by Patrick W. Carr
Personnel:
Tracks 1, 13 recorded at Colorado Sound:  Pat Carr - guitar, vocals; 
       Terry Gilbert - guitar, backing vocals;  Al Gilbert - bass;  Leo Marshall - drums;  Gary McNear - keyboards;  Mary McCrimmon - backing vocals;  Billy Warren - sax
Track 2 recorded at Blue Metro Productions:  Pat Carr - guitar, vocals;
       Terry Gilbert - guitar, bass;  Leo Marshall - drums
Tracks 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11 recorded at Carr Tunes:  Pat Carr - all instruments and vocals
Tracks 4, 8  recorded at Carr Tunes:  Pat Carr - all instruments and vocals;  Audree Rundell - backing vocals
Track 12 recorded at Sundown Sound:  Pat Carr - guitar, vocal;  Terry Gilbert - lead guitar;  Al Gilbert - bass;  Leo Marshall - drums

Going Mobile

My main web site, PWCarr Music, is now optimized for mobile devices.

There is also a free mobile app you can download here:
http://rvrb.fm/VtYJCj

You can get the latest updates, listen to music, check out photos and videos.

There is also a brand new Mobile PWCarr Music site that has links to my songs, videos, social networks, and more.

It is a work in progress.  When I tried some of the links to play a song or video, they did not seem to work on my phone.  Maybe I don't have the right app to make it happen, or maybe I didn't give it time to load.
Anybody want to check it out and pass along some feedback?  It would be much appreciated.

The Mysterious Origins of Nola Blues video

Here is a video I made to demonstrate my post on the Secret, Mysterious Origins of Nola Blues.
You can hear these songs on PWCarr Music.
Enjoy!




View this video on Screencast

The Secret, Mysterious Origins of Nola Blues

If you have ever heard "Nola Blues", you know that it is an acoustic guitar based Delta blues song.  Did you know it actually started out as a song played only on keyboards?

I wrote a whimsical keyboard instrumental called "Traffic Light" that was so-named because it reminded me of the sights and sounds you might experience while stopped at city traffic light.  It was recorded in Ableton Live, and has only five tracks - drums, bass, and three piano tracks - all played on midi instruments using my Alesis QS 8.1 keyboard as the midi controller.

However, I am a die-hard blues lover, so I took the bass and drum tracks from "Traffic Light", added a few bars to the verses, and started playing some guitar blues over them.  I added a lead guitar part and a harmonica solo in the bridge, and "Nola Blues" was born.

Several people have commented that they really like the slide playing in "Nola Blues".  I take that as a compliment, because there is no slide guitar.  There is just one rhythm guitar and one lead guitar that is duplicated and delayed slightly to add a little fullness.

But here is another little secret.  The rhythm guitar, played on my mahogany Guild D-25, is done in a tuning that probably few people in the universe have ever dreamed of.  It is so rare, I don't even know what it is called.  I call it a D5 tuning, and I have used it on several of my songs, including "Put Yourself In My Place" and "What's Gonna Happen".

As for the name "Nola Blues" ...
it could be a girl's name,
it could stand for No. La., as in North Louisiana blues,
or it could be N.O.L.A. for New Orleans, Louisiana, where I first started playing professionally.
You decide.

I'd be willing to bet that if you heard "Traffic Light" and "Nola Blues", you would never know that they are the same song.
Check out the clips of them on the PWCarr Music web site, and see if you can pick out the similarities and differences.

Note that you will have to stop the music player to hear the clip of "Traffic Light", then you can use the player to hear an extended clip of "Nola Blues" and the other two songs I mentioned.

http://www.12path.com/blog/songs/

Get your copy of any or all of Pat Carr's songs at the Music Store.

Stuck With Chuck recording video

Here's a little video I made to go along with my post about recording Stuck With Chuck that gives a visual representation of how I did it.
Enjoy!

Recording Stuck With Chuck on Screencast

Recording Stuck With Chuck

When I was still working as a computer test engineer, I decided to start a music business to market my songs.  It was a logical step, since I had been playing music and writing songs for over 20 years.  After I was unceremoniously booted out the door of the computer industry due to "downsizing," I went full time into learning recording technology, music business legalities, internet promotion, and all the tools I would need to sell music online.

The first song I wanted to record was "Stuck With Chuck."  I had never been able to get a good recording of it when I was playing in a band.  I was preparing for it even when I was still working as a test engineer.  Whenever I found a song stuck in my head, I would start singing "Stuck With Chuck" so it would be stuck in my head instead.

I started by laying down a scratch drum track with a simple beat that I could use to record a basic guitar rhythm track.  Then I put a scratch vocal track on it so I would know where I was in the song while I was recording guitars, bass, drums, and keyboards.  Since it was the first song I had ever recorded at home, I was learning the technology as I went.  It was a long process, and I ended up re-recording and remixing it 41 times before it got to the point where I was pretty much satisfied with the result.  It has 16 tracks of rhythm and lead guitars, bass, drums, percussion, piano, organ, and lead and background vocals.

Along the way I learned how to make samples by recording one hit of a drum or cymbal from my Alesis drum machine, then use the samples to build a drum kit in my recording program.  It's not as easy as you might think, because you have to have just the right number of miliseconds of silence at the beginning of the sample.  But you end up with a natural sounding drum kit that you can play with a midi controller.  If you mess up, you can correct and adjust the beats visually in the midi track on the computer.  Pretty cool.

Some of my fans and listeners have told me that "Stuck With Chuck" is one of their favorite songs.  It's about a girl I was enamored with in my school days, and the lyrics are imbued with my characteristic dry wit...tongue planted firmly in cheek.

You can hear a clip of "Stuck With Chuck" on my web site and maybe grab a copy while you are there.
Check it out at http://pwcarrmusic.com/store.html
Enjoy!

Top 10 Blues Songs

Pat Carr Top 10 Blues, What's Gonna Happen is #1 in Soundclick Blues today out of 52,737 songs.

http://www.12path.com/blog/songs/

Top 10 Blues

Top 10 Blues, What's Gonna Happen is #1 in Soundclick Blues General today out of 23,039 songs.
http://pwcarrmusic.com/songs.html

New Song - What's Gonna Happen

I have a new acoustic blues song available now on CD Baby.

The title is "What's Gonna Happen".
It is a story I believe a lot of people can relate to in these times of economic uncertainty.
I wrote it after I lost my job and my daughter asked me, "Are we going to have to live in a box?"

Check it out on the Songs page of PWCarr Music.  It's on the Soundclick player.

While you are there, you can get a copy from my Music Store.

Enjoy!
Pat Carr