Dan Barracuda: Inside A Musician's Mind

Here's an example of a beat I whipped up. It's pretty un-mixed, but you get the idea. I'm using EZ Drummer 2 here, and a Yamaha MX49 for the synth sounds. I'm excited to ramp up my production skills - looking into buying Kontakt to get some real synth sounds, as well as a Tech 21 Bass DI Pedal to get some more serious bass tones!

Today I’m talking about some of my thoughts after a weekend full of mixing tutorials, home production, and Cloudbounce (automated mastering service). This is a continuation of last week’s podcast – about the incredible tools we have at our disposable here in 2018!

This one was written on the final day of Sophomore year in college while I was moving out of my dorm. It marks the bittersweet end to something. I can hear this one in a movie! It's in G Major, alternating to and from Em. Reminds me a bit of "Wish You Were Here". Could you hear some strings here?

Today I'm featuring a song from my first album (Released May 2017) called "Violet". I play my 12 String Taylor guitar in it, which gives the riffs a unique character. It's a spiritual song about our chakras. Enjoy :)

Celebrating 49 years of the MASTERPIECE "Abbey Road". Definitely one of the Beatles' greatest pieces of work. I'm in love with George Harrison's "Something" - especially the famous guitar solo.

Today I'm talking about my current thoughts on the ever-growing tools we have at our fingertips as musicians. It's easy to deny change, but vital to embrace technologies like this. I don't discuss it in this clip because it all happened afterwards, but consider looking into automated mastering . All I'm saying is do some research before denying it. There is potential in this area - the technology is only going to get better!

A song about Surrealism. It's actually about Erica Baptiste's surrealistic, abstract paintings. (@eb_russo_art). Wrote this one in Winter 2017. It's got some potential, what do you think?

One of the most badass Beatles songs. It was fun to make a warm fuzzy version of the vocal melody :)

This song was a request from one of my followers - (dyerknight12) - Being a huge fan of 70's music, I can't believe I hadn't heard of it until now! I tried to basically emulate the exact sound of his solo in this short clip here.

Working on your project on your own timeline while at the same time growing your audience is a blessing! You can choose however you want to portray your process, while simultaneously slowing building up some buzz for the album.