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Jake Skylyr & Dessajo
Ave Maria
This was recorded for my best friends Vin and Connie. When they renewed their wedding vows in 2003, I was the best man, and Dawn sang Ave Maria. However, they also made a wedding CD, which contained lots of tracks that held significant importance to them. Ave Maria was to be included, so I had to record a demo of it for them.
I made an arrangement that was done on guitar. I detuned my Rickenbacker a 1/2 step, and recorded it clean with a rhythmic echo (thus no drum or click track needed) in 2 part harmony. Then I just added Dawn's vocal over top, added a little reverb, and ta da. Ave Maria.
Evanescence Covers
My Immortal
Dessajo loves Evanescence. So do I really. They display a great combination of strong female vocals and heavy music in just the right doses. A formula very similar to what Dessajo and I tried to achieve over the past 6+ years, but never really geting there. With the popularity of Evanescence, and a marked kinship to the music, Dessajo wanted (and still wants) to do some Evanescnce covers. A bit of a tribute, a bit of accomplishment, and most importantly a bit of fun. With my years of playing in cover bands, and perfectionist nature, covers are a bit of fun for me too (Time After Time, Always With Me, Always With You). So the task had begun.
However, one thing that makes that tough is the sheer amount of keyboards and ProTools "atmosphere" is in their production. Having no keyboard currently, and only just recently acquiring a smoking soundcard, those bits were practically a pipe dream. We were lucky enough to get ahold of a marginally decent karaoke version of "My Immortal". This was a good start, as it gave her the chance to begin to get into the whole Amy Lee vibe, as well as not have me program the most keyboard intensive song on Fallen. It also was a major solution to my biggest hinderance......TIME!
04/03/04
A few days ago, recorded Dessajo singing My Immortal. I remixed it this morning. Sounds peachy! For the remix, I merely backed off the reverb track on both sets of vocals. I received a slight negative response on the reverb, so I just remixed it. It sounds good now.
04/04/04:
The final mix of Dessajo's cover of "My Immortal" has been posted for your listening pleasure. Evanescence covers are something that she has been wanting to turn into a reality for quite a bit now. Time constraints have made this very difficult. However, in some instances, resources were also an issue, as I do not have a keyboard, and have only just recently gotten a soundcard that has some "musical horsepower". We were lucky enough to stumble across a decent karaoke version of the song, which made my job much simpler, and the final products of such effort are here for you to partake of. Rock on!!!
So what we have here is the karaoke track bundled with 4 tracks of Dessajo's gorgeous voice. She did a terrific job, and I think it is a great tribute to the band that so inspired Dawn to sing over the past few months.
The Beatles
Dessajo & I are also huge fans of The Beatles. Another thing we've always wanted to do was to redo some Beatles songs in our own fashion. For fun mostly. I also enjoy picking their songs apart (well, all songs really, but especially Beatles), because it gives a whole new appreciation for the intricacy of their music, and how much gets overlooked. As of today (07/05/04), the main music tracks for "If I Fell" and "I Will" are essentially complete (albeit unmixed). As I don't have an acoustic guitar in my current possession, the acoustic guitar parts were done in trademark Jake fashion with my standard "clean" tone, the sparkly sound that is sprinkled over most of my music in some form or another. The standard for this is my Universe into my Korg A4 direct, however I have added my Ampeg SVT-IIP bass preamp into the mix as well for some "tube-y-ness". I put the tracks together in what seems to be my new standard; recorded directly into my computer in Sound Forge, mixed in Vegas.
07/05/04:
I just finished up what I was working on this evening of our celebration of independence. I put together the basic backing tracks (or karaoke tracks depending on how you look at it) for 2 Beatles songs. This is something that Dessajo wanted to do before we go our separate ways. It's also something I always wanted to do as well. Just because. There are plenty more that I'd like to do, but I put together the tracks for "I Will" and "If I Fell".
I Will
I started with this one. First the rhythm guitar was laid down. Then the lead-y guitar bits. Upon further investigation, I learned that there is no bass in the song, but there is a bass part. It is played on the low strings of an acoustic guitar with a deeper tone. So I emulated this as well with electric. I did a little mixing with EQ. Then I determined that I did not have any of the percussion accents. I left it until I worked on "If I Fell" for a bit. But I came back and added bongos/congas, a ride cymbal, and a shaker for accents, mimicking the original. These were done by me playing my Yamaha RY-10 drum machine. It was done with one track for Ride/Shaker, another for bongos. Then I had to pan these according to the original.
If I Fell
This is a personal favorite of mine when it comes to Beatles songs. I just absolutely love what they did with the vocals. So, a music only version of this that I've wanted in my arsenal for some time now. So, I recorded the rhythm guitar first as well with this one. I did the lead bits next, and did two tracks to emulate the Rickenbacker 12 string accents. I then threw in the bass guitar, with my friend Bruce's Yamaha 5 string (RBX5) equipped with Flat-Wound strings, through the Korg A4 and Ampeg SVT-IIP. Then, I played the drums myself on the Yamaha RY-10 along to the music tracks.
Other musical collaborations between Jake & Dessajo can be found on the original Jake Skylyr Demos CD (Info here.)
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