Steely Dan cover -- Reelin' in the years

M

mbrusko

New member
Hope I attached this correctly. Been awhile since I've had a chance to post anything.

My sense is the guitar needs to be brightened up and may be a little too gain-heavy. Recorded with a Marshall DSL40, Lead channel, gain at about 7. Tone controls at high noon. Playing a '75 Firebird with mini humbuckers, Pickup switch set in the middle, with bridge PU at 10 and neck PU at 8. Both tone knobs set around 3.5. Mic'd with a 57 at about 4 'clock.
 

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  • MB Reelin in the yrs.mp3
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The acoustic is a little off, and becomes distracting at times. I would retrack it being mindful of staying in the pocket. The drums might be a touch off too (?). The part where the tambourine comes in sounds sloppy, possibly drums and acoustic both being out of time.

The bass guitar is almost not there.

The harmony for "years" is wrong, you hold the note when the original does a slight descending thing there. That harmony is so well done in the original its absence here is glaring. I WANT to hear that harmony! :p

Lead guitar is the strong point of the song, and it sounds like you spend a majority of your effort on that based on the notes you made in the original post. But there's much more to this song than the lead guitar, and most of those elements need work. To be fair, I thought the vocals (aside from the harmony I mentioned) were solid. Might be a little too up front in the mix, but one thing at a time.
 
Isn't it the drummer that lends a slight lag bounce to that song too? I think your drum really needs to cut through better and lag just a hair more than your timing does.
 
Kick drum in particular is killing that song - there's way too much of it and the timing is all over the shop, and I agree with what Pinky said - not singing the correct melody in the chorus is a bad idea. I can't tell if it's the drumming that's wrong or just the way the rest of the instruments are playing TO the drumming. I suspect the former. It's just messy. No swing at all.

I can handle the lead sound in some spots and not in others - sounds a bit like a bad amp sim in places, but my main issue with the lead is the playing... it's not sharp enough, not cleanly played enough - some of the transitions between notes on separate strings where a really good player controls what's happening to the note you just left, have it still ringing out and you're getting not particularly pleasant harmonic effects happening. That's one of the things that sets apart competent players from really good ones, in lead terms. Some of the harder bits get too blurry, so I'd clean up the sound just a touch overall, and I'm not getting the sense that the guitarist actually knows what the notes are in a couple of those spots.

I like your ambition, but it's a tough song.

(BTW, I played that song for years in a cover band, so I know all about the lead guitar...)

Keep at it, but whichever of your friends is singing out of tune in the chorus, sharp as, shoot them, or at least lock them outside.
 
Thanks for your comments, folks. Definitely got lazy with the vocal harmonies. Tried to wing it without carefully listening to the commercial track and dissecting each part. Should have known that indiscretion would draw your ire. Wouldn't have it any other way. That's what makes this forum so helpful.

The out-of-synch percussion has a simple cause: It's programed on an SR-18 (not that you couldn't tell), and after I had tracked the entire song, I decided I didn't like the drum kit or beat that I originally picked. So I went back and tried to retrofit an entirely new percussion track onto the song. Did my best to synch it but ended up with less-than-perfection, to be sure.
 
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