Jessie Star

  • Thread starter Thread starter jedblue
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jedblue

jedblue

beep beep beep beep beep
Here's one I've noodled away at on my Boss BR digital portastudio in the attic over the last week. It's about a guy contemplating the fact that one of his old school kids' gang has made it as a big Hollywood star.

I used the cheapest bunch of mikes I've got; some Behringer condensers and some JTS dynamics and another no name LDC thing just to see what would happen and then recorded it the old analog way - no beat maps, click track, midi sequencing, quantization, autotuning, etc. I play and sing everything and just played and sung it through from end to end track by track and mixed it up from there. It's the usual one man band thing I do on the portastudio and just uses the portastudio's internal effects and guitar patches. Same old cheap Chinese drum kit I've got up there in the attic for drums. Guitars and key's went direct in through the Hi Z jacks - no amps used at all.

It was composed and arranged pretty much as it was being recorded. I think it started off with the little opening Rhodes riff and went from there.

A few bounces went on given that the Boss's only got 8 mono tracks and three stereo ones available. It's also limited to 16bit / 44.1kHz.

Anyway, that's the story, here's the tune. Comment as you see fit if you want :).

http://www.mp3.com.au/Forms/MediaView.aspx?MediaId=136347

G
 
Not a bad song at all, considering what you used to do it. My only nit would be the drum performance. I detect a few timing hitches here and there. But this could serve you as a good demo if you want to record it right.

Joey :)
 
Very cool dude, I like the main guitar line. Your voice is quite cool too.

I agree with joeym in that I detected some minor burps in the timing, but certainly not too big of a deal. Did you record the drums first or last? I know it can be tricky to get the drums to sound dead-nuts when playing them last. Good song, good mix, good work.

Matt
 
mattdee1 said:
Very cool dude, I like the main guitar line. Your voice is quite cool too.

I agree with joeym in that I detected some minor burps in the timing, but certainly not too big of a deal. Did you record the drums first or last? I know it can be tricky to get the drums to sound dead-nuts when playing them last. Good song, good mix, good work.

Matt
Click to expand...

I'm a crap drummer Matt, I've only been bashing them for a year. The drums went on first. No click or guide track or anything like that. I just hummed the tune in my head and bashed away then put everything else on top. That's probably why there's odd numbers of bars in the verses. I can't hum, bash and count all at the same time. It started off as an experiment with drum miking and wasn't really supposed to be a tune. It just ended up that way.

It's hard to move drum hits around on those little Boss machines, not being visual editing based and all that, but you can do it if you work at it. I might give it a go and see if I can improve on the most obvious ones.

G
 
jedblue said:
I'm a crap drummer Matt, I've only been bashing them for a year. The drums went on first. No click or guide track or anything like that. I just hummed the tune in my head and bashed away then put everything else on top. That's probably why there's odd numbers of bars in the verses. I can't hum, bash and count all at the same time. It started off as an experiment with drum miking and wasn't really supposed to be a tune. It just ended up that way.

It's hard to move drum hits around on those little Boss machines, not being visual editing based and all that, but you can do it if you work at it. I might give it a go and see if I can improve on the most obvious ones.

G
Click to expand...

Well you're a better drummer than I am, which is why I have to settle for using drum loops. :) Best of luck.

Matt
 
It was such a pleasure to listen to something recorded the "old school" way! I prefer to record just like you described; lay down a drum track, write the guitar and bass parts while listening to the drums, then when perfected lay them down, etc...

I loved the moody quality to the track and the Rhodes licks and bass lines are cool! The drums sounded REAL, which is awesome, even if there are some timing gaffs here and there. It adds to the character of the track IMO...

I firmly believe in using the ears as the guide. I think DAW's have brought a "visual" style to recording that can be overused. Looking at waveforms, endlessly tweaking until all the soul is robbed of the tracks...it happens sometimes. This song was a breath of fresh air Dave...Thanks.
 
Cool tune. You're a better drummer than I'll ever be. You've got talent as a musician and composer too, not to mention the vocals sound pretty cool. This is the kind of music I love driving down the road to, tapping the steering wheel. The recording skills will come with better gear and more experience. It's actually pretty good the way it is.
 
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