"Rockwood" Country Rock (sorta) Instrumental

JohnnyAmato

JohnnyAmato

New member
This is another one from my "older recordings to get mastered and be done with" list, this one recorded about a year and a half ago. As I've stated in other threads, I have dozens of these, I'm just picking a few here and there for some helpful feedback.

This one is pretty cut and dry- two clean rhythm guitars panned, bass and drums, a lead guitar centered, a little piano, and some underlying keys.

I'm sure I'll get comments on the drums again, as this one was also done with my Boss DR-770 drum machine. I just bought and installed Superior Drummer, and Protools is on the way, so I'll finally be moving up from my Tascam Neo2488. Excited about that.

Looking to finish all these old recordings and get them mixed and mastered before I start anything new with the new gear. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Rockwood (Demo) | Johnny Amato
 
Sounds really good, nice chops and writing. There's something with a long reverb tail on the sides, yes? It seems a little cluttered on the hard pans for some reason. There's a clarity to the track that I can imagine. Of course, upgrading the drums will help big time.

Is it just the pad on the sides with a long delay or verb? What am I hearing way out there?
 
If you could bring up the bass a little. I could hear it, but had no energy.

Pretty good, but for an instrumental it became rather repetitive. You could probably get way with this if it had vocals, but just instruments, kind of stayed in the same place. Everything was good, just stayed on hold.
 
Andru-

Hmm, not sure. I just gave it a quick listen with my phones and couldn't pinpoint exactly. The guitars all have a little reverb, and so does the piano. The snare, hat and crashes has more reverb, but I don't think that was what you were hearing, not sure. I don't recall putting much reverb on the keys, but again I don't remember what I did.

The only tracks hard-panned were the clean rhythm guitars, one on each side, but I agree it sounds a tad cluttered for some reason. The piano and keys are off-center, but not hard panned. The leads were dead center, but in stereo. I wonder if that makes a difference. With instrumentals like this, I always record my lead guitar in stereo, even though some have told me not to. I just feel it usually sounds bigger, and more defined. Hmm.

Thanks for the input!
 
DM, I hear ya. That's all I was really shooting for with this one, background music sort-a-speak. I stayed away from any big transitions with big impact, specifically wanted it to sort of "stay in the same place".

I'll probably bring the bass up a tad and be done with it. Thanks!
 
Cool-Makes me feel like I'm driving across the country. The clean soloing is excellent, great compressed sound and good playing. Seems like the mix could use some top end in general, maybe its the verb muddying things up a bit. Good job!
 
Thanks Strat! That's sort of the theme I was feeling too while recording it. Driving on the highway, in a good mood for where you're going kind of thing.

I was actually doing just that when I was thinking of what to call it, and passed a sign for Rockwood, and that's how it got it's name.

I'll leave the overall high-end sparkle to whoever masters it, but I think I'm going to turn the bass up a hair and just go with it.
 
i get it. sometimes you just have to let that country thing fly.

the first thing i noticed, the keys are dripping in reverb and they dominate the mix. they sound good. but they are so big in comparison to the guitar.

the riff is classic country, kind of Mark Knopfler like.

yeah bring that bass up some.
 
The heavy verb seems to be mostly on a synth string section that sounds "stereoed" like it's been widenend...i.e. doubled and placed on full pan L + R with a bit of delay.
Very nice playing
 
Very tasteful lead playing. I thought that was nice. Good tone on the lead guitar.

The drums were a little programmy. Every crash sounded exactly the same, in the same spots, etc. Cymbals were a little sizzly. Snare was a little slappy.

The mix needs a guitar part that will warm it up. The track has a kind of sterile/cold feel. It needs something to give it warmth.
 
Will be loading this tune back up within the next few days to attempt a new final mix. Going to raise the bass a tad, and look at those keys. I did record the keys in stereo, at the time of tracking it sounded cool. Hopefully turning them down a little and lowering their reverb will help clean up the mix a bit.

Might throw in an extra crash or two here and there to add some variation.

TripleM- when you say to add another guitar for warmth, are you suggesting another rhythm track? There's two clean rhythm tracks, one hard L and one hard R, but the tones are quite similar and the exact same chords were played. Are you suggesting re-do one of them with a warmer tone, or add another track altogether? The lead lines that are there leave basically no room for noodling, so I assume you're talking rhythm. Maybe a slightly off-centered acoustic track?

And thanks for the compliments on the playing. The lead tones were all on a '97 Jeff Beck Strat.
 
JohnnyAmato said:
TripleM- when you say to add another guitar for warmth, are you suggesting another rhythm track? There's two clean rhythm tracks, one hard L and one hard R, but the tones are quite similar and the exact same chords were played. Are you suggesting re-do one of them with a warmer tone, or add another track altogether? .
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, I wasn't real clear. If it were me, I'd replace the rhythm guitar tracks you have now with tracks that have a little more warmth and a little more gain dialed in.
 
Ok, so I loaded the song up tonight and addressed a few things.

-I turned down the synth strings a bit and rolled off a little 5k. And there was no applied reverb on them, so any reverb must have come from the keyboard itself when I was tracking. Oops. And they were recorded on a stereo track.
-I turned up the drums a hair, and rolled off some 1k to try to tame the slappy snare a bit.
-I turned the rhythm guitars up a bit and rolled off a little 1k to try to "warm" them a little, they seemed a little mid-range strong. Not sure if it worked.
-Turned down the piano a bit.
-Turned the bass up a bit, hopefully not too much.

The Tascam I'm using only has 24 tracks, and on this tune they are all used up. So no room to add anything else (I hate bouncing tracks)

Hopefully, I'm headed in the right direction to finish this mix and move on. I understand TripleM's suggestion to re-do the rhythm guitars, but I'd rather just get these to sound as good as I can and be done.

Rockwood (Demo) | Johnny Amato
 
Thanks for the input chris. Still trying to get all these older recordings as satisfactory as I can, then I'll be moving on to Superior Drummer and ProTools. Already bought and installed SD, PT is on the way. Excited, I just hope SD is as easy to use as my old drum machine. And PT will be a big change from my Tascam.
 
Nice tune and recording overall... but piano part is repetitive, and there is kind of a reverb "wash" that permeates the whole recording.
If you are happy with it by all means master it, but if it were my money I would get rid of that background reverb and redo the piano part.
 
Thanks poobar. The piano is a bit repetitive, but this is more of a background music piece so it doesn't really bother me. The reverb issue was recorded in with the keyboard, I believe, so not much I can do to tame it down. I have a slight memory of cranking up the reverb on the keyboard itself when tracking because at the time I thought it sounded good. Oh well, you live and you learn.
 
Nice job, Johnny. This is the 2nd song of yours, I think, that I remember and both were really nice. Dig the country style and that it's not overdone (i.e. it's actually musical, unlike a lot of riffers/dudes who play licks non stop). The mix sounds good. I can't think of anything I'd change with it other than maybe program the drums a bit better.
 
Thanks Nola. I recently bought and installed new drum software, and just bought Pro Tools literally yesterday. Excited for the change, been using a Tascam 2488neo for the last 7 years or so, and a Boss BR-8 for like 10 years before that. Still have a handful of recordings I'm tweaking out on the Tascam before I start new any recordings on Pro Tools, so I'm sure I'll upload one or two more here for input. But once I start with Pro Tools and Superior Drummer, I'll be reading the heck out of those message boards as I figure them out. Looking forward to it.
 
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