First try at slide guitar

V

VotaIdiota

New member
Hey guys, it's me again. I don't really post here (in the mixing clinic), mainly because I've never really recorded anything to a sound quality I would be comfortable with posting.
But last march, I was messing around in my dorm room with a pretty basic chord progression, and my room mate had a bottleneck slide.... so I decided I would try my hand at slide guitar. This is the result of it. First takes on both the acoustic and the slide (as I'm sure it shows). I must warn you, I've always been a fan of minimalism, so if more showy songs are your style.. sorry. I'd just like to see what you guys think, but I'm not exactly going to pursue this as a song or anything. Also, just for the hell of it, you could try and guess the setup, although it's probably not that hard.
 
Izotope vinyl...eh? ..or however you spell it..

first a first try...dang, you're actually on tune. The slide seems a little low in comparison...and some "smacky", echo-y, fret bangers on the slide too.. so what...eh? Nice diddle.
 
Interesting. Maybe make the slide more up front and behind the rhythem guitar. Maybe a little viabrato technique on the slide. I'm pretty new to the whole minimilist slide thing myself. Although, my approach is completely different than yours.

The vinyl crackles were a good idea, but without the track sounding like it comes off of vinyl, it kinda didn't make sense. Plus, I usually associate vinyl sounds with old vinyl... 20's, 30's sounding kinda stuff. But that's just a preference of mine. I've used that effect a few times before too.
 
I like it. Somber and sad sounding. I would put a shorter reverb on the slide part myself, but YMMV. I would encourage you to develop this more, as it seems a good base to work from.
 
hey guys, thanks for replying.
first, let me explain my motives about why I did it how I did it.
I first ran the slide through cool edit's FFT filter, with a not-quite telephone eq (I used the Telephone Bandpass as a base, and then modified it from there). Then I compressed it a little with RCL, and then added some "analog" delay with that free plugin from DB. I then put on Izotope Vinyl, which seems to be fairly popular amongst these parts.
Mixmkr, those clangy echo-y things you're hearing are a few of my mistakes at the beginning. I accidentally hit the open B string early a few times, so when I put the slide down, it made that sound. Run that through the delay, and it gets a little obvious.
Now, the reason I put the Vinyl just on the slide, and not on the whole song, was because I wanted it to sound like I was playing rythym guitar to an old record (I could say Delta Blues, cause it's slide, but I'm not going to flatter myself). I'm guessing that effect wasn't quite noticed, and maybe it is because the slide was a little low in the mix. If so, I will boost the volume of the slide.
JJ, just out of curiosity.... how could I put the slide up front, and at the same time, behind the other guitar?
 
wow... ok... now I see what you're doing... I've done something similar, but with a music box instead of old vinyl...anywho, try this on for size.. how about starting the tune with actual "life" sounds? You know, you talking to yourself about finding some old vinyl, taking it out of the sleeve, putting it on the turntable, scratching it on accident... then start playing along to it... and then after a few seconds of that, take the listener from your room to the song... ie a normal mix.. just a thought...

As far as putting the slide in front of the guitar, you could do a stereo mix of the rhythm guitar and add a touch of 'verb to put it further back. Change your eq on the slide and pan it right up the middle and experiment with pre-delay on the 'verb to keep the slide in the same room, but closer to the listener. Again, just a thought.
 
hey man....

i thought this had a great guitar sound......well it beats the crap outta my guitar sound anyway.......what is that click echoey thing...???.....this reminds me of somethin off of the soundtrack from pulp fiction......maybe?..lol...nice playing man...

thanks
jamal..
 
I noticed something else guys.....
the mp3 conversion seems to lower the volume of the slide, for some reason.... the volume is just fine in the original .wav...... I guess I'll just have to compensate.

jamal, the click echo is just from when I hit the frets with the slide, and since I have a delay going on it, it echos it quite a bit.

thanks for mentioning the guitar sound. it certainly is nothing special... I'm sure you could get around the same sound too, if you have a 58... cause that's what it is.
I'm actually really starting to like the sound of a 58 on acoustic guitar.... at least on sparse numbers like this.
 
JR#97 said:
try this on for size.. how about starting the tune with actual "life" sounds? You know, you talking to yourself about finding some old vinyl, taking it out of the sleeve, putting it on the turntable, scratching it on accident... then start playing along to it... and then after a few seconds of that, take the listener from your room to the song... ie a normal mix.. just a thought....
Click to expand...
Man that's an absolutely awesome idea. If he doesn't do that to this song; I'm going to do it.

VotaIdiota.....pretty cool little jam there. I agree with most of the comments and the ones I agree with most are: 1.Slide needs to come up, 2. Too much delay on the slide ( no way that sounds like an old record)
But an interesting exercise....do some more please.
 
Lt. Bob said:

Man that's an absolutely awesome idea. If he doesn't do that to this song; I'm going to do it.

VotaIdiota.....pretty cool little jam there. I agree with most of the comments and the ones I agree with most are: 1.Slide needs to come up, 2. Too much delay on the slide ( no way that sounds like an old record)
But an interesting exercise....do some more please.
Click to expand...

hey bob, knock yourself out. it sounds like a very cool idea, however, I'm not quite sure I'd be able to do it. I'm not entirely aware of how to make it happen, and even if I could, knowing me, it would end up sounding rather comical and silly, which is not what I want for this song.

I'm definitely bringing the slide up. and yeah, the delay thing....
I'm sure by now I've given away my affection for MMT-era Beatles, My Bloody Valentine, and Radiohead.
 
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