{"id":421,"date":"2007-12-08T21:35:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-08T21:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.johnokeefe.net\/blog\/?p=421"},"modified":"2023-02-12T01:09:49","modified_gmt":"2023-02-12T01:09:49","slug":"personal-songwriting-and-recording-project-late-1990s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johnokeefe.net\/blog\/2007\/12\/08\/personal-songwriting-and-recording-project-late-1990s\/","title":{"rendered":"Personal Songwriting and Recording Project (Late 1990s)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Personal songwriting has always been on my mind. After my earlier experiences with tape recorders, 4-tracks, VHS audio, and all those projects for friends and friends of friends, I wanted to record my recording project. So I shifted my focus, and in the late 1990s, the journey began.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Personal
John O’Keefe Jr in his Home Recording Studio around 1999<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Personal Songwriting and Recording Project – My Time to Play in the Studio<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I work full-time, have a wife, and have two children, one of whom lives with a disability. Therefore, if I was to work on my recording project, I had to stop accepting outside recording gigs. After clearing my studio workload, I could think about the CD without any other distractions hanging over my head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Songwriting and Jamming with the Band<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Me and my longtime good friend and drummer, Keith Ribera, set out to make our CD of original songs. Even though we had many songs already written from earlier years together, we decided to start from scratch. We had several songwriting sessions with another longtime good friend, bassist Jeff Curtis. However, we had a good time jamming, improvising, laughing, and coming up with catchy-sounding material, and we did all of this in our spare time.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Songwriting
Late 90’s Session Photo
Keith Ribera and Jeff Curtis Tuning Their Instruments<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

I spent considerable time on my own, setting up the equipment with good mic placement, adjusting mixer settings and computer settings, etc., so that when the guys showed up, it was just a matter of tuning our instruments and playing. Below is a random multi-track recording of Keith and me, and I added the bass track later. Our motto was, \u201cthe stranger it sounded, the better it sounded.\u201d Most of the time, it was a total creative free-for-all. We would make recordings like the one below and later pick out the good parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n