davemcnamara.com

i've decided to drop my non-blog site in favor of this one.

this page can now be reached at http://www.davemcnamara.com!

"burn"

this is a cover of the (now defunct?) band loose tooth's tune "burn"- it's a sweet song, check out that minor third over the major chord in the chorus!

tried to do mostly outboard stuff in this recording, there's EQ and a bit of pitch spreading on the vocals, but the rest is mostly clean.  i'm into micing un-amplified electric basses right now, and mixing that sound with the DI gets a real punchy upright-ish tone.

let me know what you think?

"gigantic"

straight little sparse pop tune.  some cool pan automation, the harmony vocals always either converge or diverge depending on the part.  there's a guitar lead with very silly panning, alternating hard-panned phrases.  this song is not that much fun to talk about, instead you should listen to it:


tune!

"picture tripping"

this is a tune i did with lindsay rubin, it's pretty simple two-part song.  i really love the melody she wrote for it, and there's some cool stuff going on arrangement-wise i think.  inspired by local-grown-bigger indie folk/pop band Twin Sister.

want to hear?

"rachel (unemployment)"

took me a month or so to find a job this summer.  got pretty silly sitting alone in a house week after week, had this tune written and made a video.  the guitar is a guild D-40 bluegrass jubilee, my workhorse- more on my other gear to come! 

"georgia"

my heart's in country.  this tune's a jangly little anthem that's giving me a bunch of trouble with the mix.  i'm pretty happy with everything at this point save for the levels of the harmony vocals in the chorus.  they're either inaudible or they're eating up the main track, no matter what i've tried so far.  as far as comparisons go, i'd say it's inspired by the band and some 80s kristofferson.

download it!

"foxhole and flute"

here's a prettier one than the last few.  this song's got a melodic move that i'm beginning to overuse- bIII to bVII resolving to VI.  here, it's on the lyrics "going out".  the rhythm guitars have a funny thing going on that i'd like to share- I used the plugin vocal rider to record very sensitive volume automation data on each of the doubled tracks, and then moved the automation into the pan lane.  the left pan lane on one track, the right on the other.  the effect of this is that when the guitar attacks, one is pushed left and one is pushed right.  this gives the tracks a breathing sort of vibe, as well as acts as a sort of compressor, since the louder bits are being pushed apart and aren't summing in the middle.  it's cool, i promise.

have a listen!

"drag city"

i'm working on transcribing this one right now. probably the backwards way to do it, but what's a lowly rhythm player to do? it's a pretty dissonant tune from the summer- i'm proud of the bass line and melody's counterpoint. Tritone, Major 7, Flat 7 in the hook. my mix inspiration was elliott smith's "from a basement on the hill" album- i'm still trying to capture that sound more accurately.

check it out.

"got you"

recently finished the mix of this tune "got you".  it's got a sort of sweet vibe, i think- sort of bob dylan-y surf rock-y feel.  maybe.

grab it here!