Everybody's a Critic ...

Last session of my jam group, we sang and played one of the King's classic numbers, "Can't Help Falling in Love." 

Here's what it said in the wiki:

"Can't Help Falling in Love" is a pop song originally recorded by American singer Elvis Presley and published by Gladys Music, Elvis Presley's publishing company. It was written by Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore, and George David Weiss. The melody is based on "Plaisir d'Amour"^[2], a popular romance by Johann Martini (1741-1816). 

Um. Anyway, we do a pretty good three-part harmony on it, one of our group plays harmonica, and the banjo guy was there, so we thought it sounded pretty good. 

Next gig, it'll be on our play list, no question. 

After we were done, one of the women said, "I'd love to hear what that sounds like recorded." So I whipped out my iPod and clicked on the recorder. "Let's do it again and see what we get."

What you get with an iPod sitting on a bongo drum more or less in the middle of the room is not what you'd call recording-studio quality. And what it sounds like played from the microscopic speaker in the iPod is fairly chipmunky and ... underwhelming.

Still and all, I downloaded the file into my computer, ran it through GarageBand, quad-tracked it, panned one track left, one right, to get pseudo-stereo, used the Gospel Singer  and Basic Guitar, Female Vocal, and Male Vocal settings on the various tracks, and exported it. 

Given the basic recording, it didn't sound completely awful. I sent copies of the MP3 to the other players. 

Got back a note from one of them that I loved. It impressed her, and:

"I forwarded it already to my relatives....if my sister still says we are *lame*, she is hopeless."

Funny.

I would put it up for all to hear, but I don't want the ghost of Colonel Parker hunting me down for ASCAP/BMI license fees, so you'll just have to trust me that it ain't all that bad.