Time to boogie... or not...

[Pinky]

Well, in customary fashion I'm posting another original tune here for you all to enjoy.

Starz 2005

(there's also an original "Starz", recorded in 2002, available on the website)


BTW, this isn't dance or disco!!

[scrubs]

The guitar/bass playing is good, but I'm not too fond of the recording itself. The mix is very dense and "muddy" sounding to me. The instruments lack definition and space.

[deepwater]

The lead guitar is ear pearcing. I had to turn it off about 20 sec into it.

[Rokket]

Other than the ear piercing feedback in the beginning, I have nothing bad to say about the level of musicianship, but the mix is pretty muddy. The instruments need more space, and it's really tinny sounding. You've got something there, it just needs some more time mixing.

[hybridsound]

I would have used a compressor on the bass and turned down the lead guitar... It tends to drown out the rest of the mix. I like the sound clips!

Other than that... Not too bad.

[Pinky]

Well, I came back AFTER I did some remixing. I heard a lot of the same issues you folks did. I learned a while ago to give yourself a few hours away then come back, and behold -- issues!

I simply lowered the volume of rhythm guitar 2db, lowered the lead and first slide guitar by 3db. Made all the difference. I agree that it's a pretty harsh sounding recording, but I wanted it to be that way... edge with clean tone isn't edgey.

The bass definition is there, just isn't pushed up in the mix. I rarely play basslines worth noting, so they usually get shuffled into the background. I'm pleased people are enjoying it, it took me 10 hours to write, record, and produce this. That's a long time considering I've been home recording for 3 years and most of my songs take less than 6.

As for the mud and separation -- there isn't much to separate. The confusion may be the loudness of the single rhythm guitar, it realy overrides the rest of the song. There's a single rhythm I can hear fine throughout, a lead part, then an acoustic that's well recorded and mixed in my opinion, with a distinct and equally well recorded slide, then back to rhythm and slide for the end. The bass is chugging along in the background, where I wanted it, and the drums thumping and rolling away. This piece was intended to focus on the guitar work, as is true of most of our stuff since we used canned drums or single drum hits pieced together. I figure why showcase something you're not technically playing? So the drums are more an afterthought, and that's admittedly our weakness as a project. Finding a drummer locally just to do small recoridng sessions with has proven impossible, so this was the best solution I could find.

Keep the feedback coming, I'm open to suggestions as the files are still on my project hard drive.

[jake-owa]

That's a sonic mess.

Sorry, that is noisy as hell, you may like that but it won't make fun anything music. You can't put it on in the background and you don't wanna listen to it.



I dunno, I have done worse.

[Pinky]

What do you folks use for monitors?

I used two different headphones (one studio grade AKG, and a cheaper pair of Sennheisers), and my main monitors are the Logitech z-5500 5.1 PC speakers (which have proven to be rather accurate as monitors). I then take a drive and try it out in my Monsoon car stereo, which is where I originally started hearing some of the things I corrected earlier.

To say this is a "sonic mess" is very inaccurate. It's definitely 'in your face', but there's dinstinction between all instruments and their respective places in the sound field. I really hate disagreeing with feedback, I just don't hear a "mess".

[B.SABBATH]

very cool change around the 2 minute mark.. decent tune but the mix doesn't sound too good...

bass needs some serious compression or something to start evening out the levels... also needs a low cut.. the distorted rhythm guitar sounds over eq'd and noisy..

[Pinky]

Okay, did some overhaul. No re-tracking, but I did trim the high end on the rhythm guitar and panned it slightly more (to even out the mix). Did the same with the bass and it seems to have given it some extra 'life'. Lowered the volume on the lead but it still bleeds with the rhythm, nothing I can do about that (apart from retracking the rhythm with a slightly less aggressive distortion effect).

[jake-owa]

Ok, giving a listen again.
Ok, the "mess" in my opinion is not just in the mixing, which is still a mess in my opinion (no offense). The bassy tones are flubby and teh heavyness is pretty much drowning the mix.
The real problem is in the composition in my (always very) honest opinion. Teh clean (dum dum) riff is way outta place and it keeps popping back in. Here's a tip, just because you can copy and paste doesn't mean you should.

The meat of the song has some possibilities but the composition is not complementing what is strong here.

[Pinky]

Originally Posted by jake-owa

Ok, giving a listen again.
Ok, the "mess" in my opinion is not just in the mixing, which is still a mess in my opinion (no offense). The bassy tones are flubby and teh heavyness is pretty much drowning the mix.
The real problem is in the composition in my (always very) honest opinion. Teh clean (dum dum) riff is way outta place and it keeps popping back in. Here's a tip, just because you can copy and paste doesn't mean you should.

The meat of the song has some possibilities but the composition is not complementing what is strong here.

The first part I think I understand, and there's nothing I can really do now about how they were recorded. The bass probably could have had more tone and natural thump, you're already hearing the compressed end result. Guitar tone sounded good in my living room, but as a line-in didn't translate as well. This is relatively new gear so I'm still learning how things will end up in the final form. I agree that there are definitely some things I will do differently next time.

The second part about the composition I don't understand. What "dum dum" and what's popping back in that's clean? I'm lost with your description there.

FYI, there were a few sections of samples used to create the drum and bass parts (is that what you mean by copy pasting?) but the rhythm guitar is actually the only live track. The lead, slide, and acoustic parts are also live.

[jake-owa]

The little pasted in cleaner guitar single note part that keeps coming back.

[Pinky]

Originally Posted by jake-owa

The little pasted in cleaner guitar single note part that keeps coming back.

There is one spot I do a run, but it only happens once and right before the first lead. I think you're hearing the single notes ringing through on the rhythm guitar track. I ride the A but play a line over it (A-G-F#-E-D-E-C#). That's all on the same track, buried under that canopy of distortion. I have the entire track of the acoustic playing along and it sounded good when I was initially tinkering, forget why I opted to only bring the acoustic up during that one part...

[jake-owa]

Ok, at :28, :41, ect..

Whatever it is it sounds dumb.

The main guitar line is superslop, try playing without distortion and see how it sounds. That will almost tell you how a part will hold up.

[Pinky]

Originally Posted by jake-owa

Ok, at :28, :41, ect..

Whatever it is it sounds dumb.

The main guitar line is superslop, try playing without distortion and see how it sounds. That will almost tell you how a part will hold up.

Ah, I see what you mean. Yes, it's what I described in my last post (the line is part of the rhythm track).

I thought I was missing something 'hidden' in my song! lol

It's a different approach. I go for the unusual. If I find myself sounding like something or someone, I'll intentionally muck it up! No, really. If I wanted to sound like Vai I'd just steal his licks. That E and D open note ring on the rhythm is a set of unusual and probably musically retarded open chords. Sound fine to me, because they make sense in the context of the whole song. It's just maybe not how you approach it. Is it "dumb", well -- music's subjective and the only one that needs to be pleased in the final anlysis is me.

As I said in my last post, I played this on my Martin and I liked it even more than the electric version, but wanted the muscle from the electric.

Thanks for the heads up on the technical recording stuff though, you're dead-on with most of that.

[Pinky]

I've done some considerable retracking and other work on this song. If you could listen and provide any more feedback before I 'put it away again' I'd appreciate it.