Video Killed the Radio Star – Cover – Electric and Unplugged

[peter]

Video Killed the Radio Star

Video Killed the Radio Star Unplugged Version (okay, it’s not truly unplugged, just much more subdued with more acoustic parts)

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2

[Ross]

Really nice work on this Peter! You definitely captured the sound and vibe of the original. Excellent performance and production. Curious, what processing are you using on your vocs?

~Ross

"Let there be songs to fill the air..."

https://on.soundcloud.com/arF75KPpHuh6iqtt8
https://www.bandlab.com/rosssmithe

1

[peter]

On Ross said

Really nice work on this Peter! You definitely captured the sound and vibe of the original. Excellent performance and production. Curious, what processing are you using on your vocs?

Thanks. I don’t know what I’m doing production-wise. I made reel-to-reel and cassette multi-track recordings since I was probably 11 yrs old. By the time I was 18 and working as a drummer semi-professionally and started getting studio experience, I never learned very much about what engineers were doing. It was pretty much being asked how I liked the sound of the drums and cymbals and how I’d like things tweaked. I spent a lot more time — 12 years — working with live sound engineers, who would tell me what mics and effects to purchase (I played drums and sang background vocals semi-professionally before a repetitive stress injury resulted in lifelong tendinitis that limits what I can play and how long I can play — which on the drums, is often far less than a song; one the keys, if the tempo isn’t to fast and the parts are simple, I can play through one or two songs; so live performance is out). At 18, I was playing clubs, and by my mid-20s, I began playing with a more popular band playing up to 2,000 seat venues and a lot of colleges. We had two live sound engineers, but I’d be on my drums for a live sound check and they’d be on the board. At most, I learned about micing the drums, mic choice, and bought the effects they recommended when I would tell them what I was looking for. Subsequently, more than two decades since I stopped performing, and I largely haven’t attempted to finish any music since I began attempting to play again around 4 years ago, I haven’t exactly become fluent on mixing or mastering (for the later, I really just rely on Izotope Ozone to do the mastering).

For vocals, I use ezMix and Izotope Nectar. I originally started using MIDI instruments because it was so much easier than dealing with recording live instruments. Out of everything, I find singing and dealing with vocal tracks the most complex part of recording songs. I’ve tried to persuade my teenage daughter to sing them, but I’ve had no success with that.

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[Ross]

I like your vocal work, very Lennon-esque. Also like the cool processed vocal effect on this tune, I guess it’s coming from Ozone. I get it though, recording and mixing vocs can be challenging! I can also relate to your struggles physically. I’m in my early 60’s, have some chronic arthritic and tendon type pain/mobility issues as well. I do very little live playing anymore, in a church group for the last couple years, before that virtually nothing for over 2 decades. I have concentrated on honing my studio skills and techniques, but I’m mainly a musician and not an engineer, so the technical side has been a struggle to excel at. I basically fiddle until it sounds good to me, even if it’s some unconventional workflow! I use MIDI extensively as well. I have enjoyed collaborating with some other musicians online over the last couple years.

~Ross

"Let there be songs to fill the air..."

https://on.soundcloud.com/arF75KPpHuh6iqtt8
https://www.bandlab.com/rosssmithe

1

[peter]

On Ross said

I like your vocal work, very Lennon-esque. Also like the cool processed vocal effect on this tune, I guess it’s coming from Ozone. I get it though, recording and mixing vocs can be challenging! I can also relate to your struggles physically. I’m in my early 60’s, have some chronic arthritic and tendon type pain/mobility issues as well. I do very little live playing anymore, in a church group for the last couple years, before that virtually nothing for over 2 decades. I have concentrated on honing my studio skills and techniques, but I’m mainly a musician and not an engineer, so the technical side has been a struggle to excel at. I basically fiddle until it sounds good to me, even if it’s some unconventional workflow! I use MIDI extensively as well. I have enjoyed collaborating with some other musicians online over the last couple years.

~Ross

Another comparison of my voice to Lennon! On SoundCloud someone even PMed me and gave me a compliment and told me to stop imitating John Lennon and try to sound like myself. I showed his message to my kids and they told me that the vocal sounded like my regular voice. In my 12 years playing semi-professionally, I only sang lead vocals one time. I was 18 and my musician and music teacher mother gave me the number of an agent. I spoke with him and he gave out my number to bands he maanged who needed a drummer or fill in drummer. He called me up one day and said, “My brother has a little band and the have a gig scheduled for next week. His drummer quit the band. They do Beatles songs. Could you do me a favor and do the gig?” Of course, I said yes. So I called his brother, Dave, a bass player obsessed with Paul McCartney (I was too, so we immediately hit it off), and the guitarist. We played around 10 songs, Dave sang. Dave and the keyboardist loved my drumming and we agreed that I would play the gig the next week.

So, I get to the gig — a dive bar in Chicago — for a sound check. We play a song and Dave looks at me during the song and says, “Sing!” I tell him that I only do background vocals. We stop the song and I tell him that I expected him to sing, he tells me — for the first time — that the drummer was their lead singer. I tell him that he has a better voice than me and needs to sing. He says he’s cancelling the show if I don’t sing. So, for one night of my life at a dive bar I was a singer. I got what seemed to be everyone at the bar to sing. And when I did, “All You Need is Love,” I realized that my voice fit John Lennon songs really well. Before that, I had never played drums or sang any Beatles songs, and I don’t think I ever preformed Beatles music again until around 4 years ago when I attempted to start recording music. I got my entire family — my wife and kids to join me on the harmonies for “All You Need is Love” and our cat also joins the production. Although, purists will hate that I did it in 4/4, purely due to the fact that it I didn’t want to deal with the odd time in my DAW. Pretty much, every cover I’ve done has some meaning to my life. But I’ve done a lot of songs Lennon sang, purely because they’re easy to sing. But it seems to invite the comparisons.

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Check out my music. 

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