May Need to Drop Back and Punt

Worked a bit on Predator Game last night. Trying to get a decent drum track.

I'm fighting against a couple of things.

For whatever reason, my monitor headphones, which I use pretty exclusively when recording to spare my neighbors as much as I can (Sometimes I end up working a chord progression dozens of times...I can't imagine how annoying that would be to someone who doesn't know why), kind of turn acoustic tracks into mush. On the monitors it sounds OK, not perfect, but I'm working with a track that is, in the main, just for me to play drums to. I find myself struggling to hear where I am in the song.

The other factor in that is inhearant in how I record. When I'm playing, it's not with anybody but myself on "tape." There are no visual cues to follow, as you would have playing with a band. Not impossible, but I didn't make it easy. I, in an attempt to break up the tempo a bit, added in some transitional stuff between sections. Nothing too fancy, but the beat I'm working with on the drums is a 2-bar cycle, and when I drop in a single bar of transition - that I'm having trouble hearing - it can get me off track pretty quickly.

So, at this point, I am weighing the pros and cons of changing the song. It's just transitional sections, so the main parts Verse/Chorus/Bridge/Lyrics/Melody should be unaffected. The other thing is that this number, witch is designed to be acoustic with an electric lead, may just sound better with a consistent beat. I may like music that jumps around a bit rhythmically, but I know it's jarring to many ears. While this is mainly a hobby, something I do for myself, I enjoy it when people actually like my stuff.

I'll be digging in to it soon. I feel on the cusp of solving the question/problem, and getting some forward momentum.

While on this subject, I want to sing the praises of some freeware I've been using, Power Tab Editor. For a self-taught musician like myself, who neither reads or writes notation, putting down what I'm playing so that it can be replicated has always been a challenge. On the off chance that I ever play live, I'd have to be able to show people (and myself) how to play my stuff. This software is flat-out terrific, and allows you to put together professional-looking tab sheets with notation. On top of all that, It's helped me tremendously with being able to visualize rhythm and time, and to begin to understand regular notation.  I'm actually doing a fair amount of writing with the software (you can assign parts, and "play" the track with a simple synthesizer). it's just terrific.

Now, I'm sitting here weighing the pros and cons of dropping "Game" from the title. Predator?

Too Schwarzenegger?