Let There Be Music… Again – DanLynch.org

Hello friends, I hope you are all doing well out there. 2024 is in full swing and so am I, so I thought I’d give you a little update. I want to make this year a musical year, but what does that mean? I hear you ask. Some of you may know that over the years I have played in many bands, recorded and produced various musical projects. Unfortunately for health reasons, that growth slowed significantly over the years. My health is still fluctuating if I’m honest, but I’m happy to say that it’s been better lately and I decided that this year I’m going to try to record and release a full album of new solo songs.

I will use Band camp to let go of things like I had in the past solo stuff and also my old band 20 pound sound. You can find those via those links if you haven’t heard of them.

This may not sound too difficult, but it involved rebuilding my studio and writing a lot of new material whenever possible. Right now I have 5 or 6 songs ready to go, but ideally I’d like to get 10 songs. I was discussing it with a friend and he said don’t worry about the number of songs but focus on the quality. I wouldn’t put something on an album just to fill space or reach an arbitrary number of songs, but 10 feels like a good number. Can I still write after all this time? Do I have anything to write? I honestly don’t know, but it would be interesting to find out. I’m quite happy with some of the songs, I’ll share them soon.

The first challenge in this process was sorting out my studio and moving things around (see above). I haven’t set up a keyboard in over a year, let alone played one. I also need to rebuild the studio PC (hardware and software) and get a lot of things done. For those interested in music technology, I recently purchased the 3rd generation Focusrit Scarlett 2i2 USB audio interface, and I’m quite happy with it. It has very good Linux support which is important to me but I have a confession to make… I use it Reaper in Windows today for music production. I know, I know, I hang my head in shame. As a supporter of Linux I know some people will be disappointed but I will also try to start using it Spirit and other things on Linux. I know Reaper also works on Linux, so maybe I’ll look into it. If anyone reading has any suggestions or suggestions for this, please let me know in the comments. I am glad to hear it. Also thoughts or experiences with Focusrite are welcome.

I have a large collection of VST plugins that I’ve created over the years and although I heard you can use them on Linux with WINE (or VSThost), I’ve never had time to actually try them. I do all my podcast production on Linux and always have, so there’s no fear.

Getting back to the album project, I wondered how best to promote and document it as time went on. Maybe a YouTube video with a short live performance, a blog update, a live performance, even a podcast, who knows. Again I’m open to ideas. Are you interested in all that?

I haven’t thought of a title for the album yet, there’s still a lot to work on. One thing I’ve noticed when listening back to some of my old songs is that the lyrics can sound a little depressed or angry. I’ll try to make this one a little more upbeat but no promises. I’ve been working on blues songs. I’ve always liked blues music hehe.

So you can see from the studio shots that things are starting to take shape. I already have rough versions of some of the songs recorded but still need improvement. I realized that the lack of singing in recent years had affected my voice quite badly, sounding weak. So I’m a little sensitive about that. I’m considering some vocal lessons to work on my breathing, warm-up techniques, and so on. That’s something I’ve never done before. I usually just open my mouth and hitting notes isn’t a problem. We’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, that’s enough rambling for now, but hopefully some of you find it interesting, and I’ll be back soon to share a song or two.

Be careful 🙂

And