In the first episode of the David Andrew Wiebe Interviews and Music Business Podcast, David talks about his experience of writing 365 songs in a year, and creating MIDI interpretations of those songs. This episode also features the latest on David's upcoming album, and a studio tip of the day.
Show Notes:
Introduction
Hi everyone. This is the first ever David Andrew Wiebe Podcast for July 13, 2009 and this is none other than David Andrew Wiebe. This being my first ever podcast, it might end up being kind of short, but I hope to explore a variety of topics in future episodes. The most important topic being music. I consider myself a musician first and foremost, so it should come as no surprise that my podcast would be about music.
There are a variety of places you can find me on the web, but I'm not going to overwhelm you with a ton of URLs today. If you're interested in checking out some of my music projects, you can look me up at daw-music.com. That's d-a-w hyphen m-u-s-i-c dot com.
Project 365
Now I want to tell you a little bit about Project 365. In 2006 I wrote 365 songs. One of the reasons I decided to undertake such a big project was the fact that I didn't have enough material for live shows. I had found myself in situations where I needed more material to fill more time, and obviously I could have incorporated more covers into my set, but I wanted more of my own material to work with.
It should come as no surprise that many of the songs I wrote during this period weren't exactly hit bound, but I wrote a few songs that I still perform to this day. Creativity can't really be forced, and though I wouldn't necessarily recommend trying this, writing one song a day helped me to put down a lot of things that were already floating around in my head.
The reason I'm telling you this is because in late 2008, I started creating MIDI interpretations of all these songs and making them available on my website entirely for free. If this sounds like something you might be interested in, go to my website and click on Project 365. You will find the complete list of songs I wrote that year but there are only about 20 or so MIDIs you can listen to at this time. I'm not sure if it's enough of a priority for me to create a MIDI composition for every one of those songs right now, but we'll see what happens.
Back on Solid Ground
Now I want to tell you a little bit about my new album. I've been working on a new album for a couple of months now, and it is to be titled Back on Solid Ground. My last album was released in 2006, and it was called Shipwrecked... My Sentiments.
Seems like a good time as any to put out some new material, and I'm hoping to have it finished this summer, but basically it's done when it's done. The plan is to create an acoustic album with more of a laid-back vibe. If you've heard of any of my previous work, then you already know that singing has been one of my biggest challenges and I've never spent so much time working on my vocals in my life. I believe that the end result will be worth the effort.
So being an acoustic album the vocals are that much more important, and we're not compromising on that at all. In any case, I will keep you updated on that front.
Upcoming Shows
Upcoming shows. My next show is with The Pity Dates at Steeps - The Urban Tea House on July 26, and for more information, please check out my website. Please note that show dates may be subject to change, so it's a good idea to check back at my website frequently.
Studio Tip of the Day
And now it's time for studio tip of the day. Today's tip is for guitarists. This might seem like common sense, but I know I've made this mistake in the past, so I thought I would share it with you.
If you have any effects pedal plugged in to your amplifier, make sure that you don't have reverb turned on on both units. Some amps have reverb built right in to them, and it's easy to forget that, but if you have reverb coming from your effects pedal and your amp, you're going to get a really muddy sound. If you're going to run reverb at all, make sure it's only coming from one or the other. So one source.
It might even be a good idea to let your engineer handle all the effects, besides, you know, distortion.
Conclusion
Well, that's all for today. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Please feel free to email me any comments or suggestions you may have to david@davidandrewwiebe.com. That's david at david andrew wiebe, w-i-e-b-e dot com [Editor's note: please direct all feedback to comments@daw-music.com]. Thanks for listening.
You've been listening to the David Andrew Wiebe Podcast. Broadcasting from Calgary, Alberta.
Listeners:You are encouraged to leave a comment in the show notes, or email us at comments@daw-music.com.
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