nerdflavor

Because Love can heal the broken, here’s Like a Child, originally by Jars of Clay. You can grab the original on iTunes. While this has always been one of my favorites off Jars’ debut album, I’ve recently gained a new appreciation for it. Why, you may ask? Harmonies. Particularly harmonies I can pick out. So I did.

Be warned: I’m slightly above my level of vocal control, and there’s only so much auto-tune can do. Especially when you think the key is D when it’s really C and it starts correcting notes that shouldn’t be corrected and… yeah. I’ll stop there. Enjoy the music, everyone!

Remember, if you want to hear originals and request more, head on over to the nerdflavor covers playlist on Spotify.

Because all I want to hear is the message beep, here’s “Feel Good Inc.” originally by Gorillaz. This one is interesting mostly because I got to be lo-fi and go crazy with filters all at the same time.

Geek notes: several GarageBand synths plus one of the supplied textures to give the piece some atmosphere. Chorus vocals were hand-tweaked and have 50% auto-tune. Verses… First verse is the Telephone Lines filter from GarageBand. Second verse is plain vocals with the rap vocal setting on the compressor. And the little “Feel good…” tag is also Telephone lines, this time with 100% auto-tune. Whew!

As a reminder, you can listen to the original versions of all the covers and make a request using the nerdflavor covers playlist on Spotify. Thanks for listening!

Because I’m learning to accept the unexpected, here is “Hindsight” originally by John Reuben, available on iTunes. Honestly, I signed on to this whole cover project thing in order to broaden my musical comfort zone, but today marks a solid return to that comfort zone. Dead center, in fact; John Reuben is one of the biggest influences on my personal style, this album especially. In other words, I’m his musical clone. So if you like this, you should definitely check out my album, which is available on NoiseTrade.

Contains one GarageBand drum loop, one base synth, and one piano synth. Vocals are two tracks: the rap track has a vocal compressor and reverb, the vocal track has maximum auto-tune and a few other tricks that I didn’t bother to look at. Thank you for listening!

Because I’m far too tired to fall asleep, here’s “Fireflies” originally by Owl City. Chances are, you didn’t need the second clause much less the second half of the second clause. Thing is, while I will admit to listening to this song far more than is healthy, there’s always been a disconnect for me between the grand production values of the original and the theme of the song, “it’s ridiculously late at night and I can’t sleep.” So for this cover I wanted to dial it back. Way back.

Brittany was gracious enough to provide the acoustic guitar. I recorded the vocals in two takes (with a pop filter this time!), and it would have been one had I remembered to record the first take in mono instead of stereo. No effects were applied. Not even auto-tune. Listen at your own risk, but thank you for listening!

Because Forward Motion is harder than it sounds.

Seriously, how long ago did I say I was going to do some covers? Well, appropriately enough, here’s the first one. “Forward Motion,” originally by Relient K, available on iTunes.

Geek notes: Made in about 1.5 hours in GarageBand. I used a custom piano patch and applied ~70% pitch correction (a.k.a. “Auto-Tune”) to my vocal track.

So there’s one down. What’s next, internet-land?