The New Tone Thread

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I'm just trying to practice until I get whole takes, or at least whole verses that I'm happy with.
 
I'm just trying to practice until I get whole takes, or at least whole verses that I'm happy with.

I'm a big stickler about doing solid performances, but clearly I'm firmly entrenched in the smallest minority. I like to treat the recording process like it's analog. Editing has always been possible, but with tape it's a cumbersome pain in the ass and guys just had to know how to perform their parts back in the day, and I respect that. I know that punch-ins can be useful, and I'm not against doing them myself, but I'm not gonna track the same thing 5, 10, 20 times and then piece the "perfect" take together from it. No fucking way. The end result is not all that matters to me. I think I get great end results ALONG WITH doing things in a way that I can be proud of. No one has to like my mixes or music, I couldn't care less, but I can stand right in front of you live in person and blast it from my hands or my voice right into your fucking face exactly the way it is on the recording, and I like that.
 
haha, I'm not sure about that myself - they sound better in the mix - they slap quite a lot when you listen to them solo'd. Here's the full mix.

View attachment 97711

There's a touch more 'verb on the hard panned rhythms than the more centred leads.

I like this. everything sounds good man.
 
I'm a big stickler about doing solid performances, but clearly I'm firmly entrenched in the smallest minority. I like to treat the recording process like it's analog. Editing has always been possible, but with tape it's a cumbersome pain in the ass and guys just had to know how to perform their parts back in the day, and I respect that. I know that punch-ins can be useful, and I'm not against doing them myself, but I'm not gonna track the same thing 5, 10, 20 times and then piece the "perfect" take together from it. No fucking way. The end result is not all that matters to me. I think I get great end results ALONG WITH doing things in a way that I can be proud of. No one has to like my mixes or music, I couldn't care less, but I can stand right in front of you live in person and blast it from my hands or my voice right into your fucking face exactly the way it is on the recording, and I like that.

I do agree with you but I haven't managed to do that with any vocals yet. Part of the problem is the style I'm going for coupled with underdeveloped technique, my voice is normally fucked in one or two takes.

No reason to punch in with guitar parts though, that song I recorded on Sunday, I just arranged it all with a few cups of coffee early in the morning, got used to the arrangement. DId the bass through in one take. Then I played along with it with my amp quiet a few times until I was confident of the changes and rhythm pattern and just recorded two solid takes. It's not hard if you practice what you're gonna do first.
 
It's not hard if you practice what you're gonna do first.

Right, that's about it in a nutshell. The relentless pursuit of absolute perfection on recordings has really been a strange phenomenon. Modern DAW trickery has made it easier than ever to piece together a "perfect" track, and it's being done by people that don't have enough talent to do it any other way. More music being made by less talented people is not a good thing IMO.
 
Right, that's about it in a nutshell. The relentless pursuit of absolute perfection on recordings has really been a strange phenomenon. Modern DAW trickery has made it easier than ever to piece together a "perfect" track, and it's being done by people that don't have enough talent to do it any other way. More music being made by less talented people is not a good thing IMO.
Don't suppose it matters at home, as its a great hobby if you're a music lover. It also happens on professional recordings too though: Shit bands getting "perfect" records put together that a) they're not capable of playing well, and b) sound soulless and anodyne.
 
As for as doing multiple takes...it depends. To me, multiple is 4 takes. I might do that on vocals if I'm singing a ballad or a country song. With me it's mostly a phrasing thing. Every take will usually be good as far as pitch and timing, but after listening to each take I choose the best one. 90% of that track will be used, but I may like the phrasing on a line or 2 in the other tracks...so I edit it in. As far as a lead rock guitar track, I usually record 2 swipes just in case I flub a passage I can fix it quick instead of having to retract the whole thing. Most of the time I just go with the better of the 2.
With drums there really isn't any way to edit when you have overhead without screwing up the cymbals. Well, I can't do it anyway.
 
Here is a 3 piece rock song I'm working on. It's not really mixed...I just aproximated the volume levels of each raw track. No eq'ing or processing yet. Im still trying to get keeper tracks. I tracked the guitar last night and my ears were kind of shot. The guitar is my clownburst LP copy into my Fender mustang modeling amp. I'm playing bass, guitar, drums, and vocal.....The drummer is struggling but he likes to play drums.
;)
Its and old Rick Derringer song that I really like

 
Here is a 3 piece rock song I'm working on. It's not really mixed...I just aproximated the volume levels of each raw track. No eq'ing or processing yet. Im still trying to get keeper tracks. I tracked the guitar last night and my ears were kind of shot. The guitar is my clownburst LP copy into my Fender mustang modeling amp. I'm playing bass, guitar, drums, and vocal.....The drummer is struggling but he likes to play drums.
;)
Its and old Rick Derringer song that I really like


Overall I do like the guitar tone. It's pretty boxy though, like it wants to breathe a little more in the higher frequencies. It's got a great vintage vibe though. The solo tone with that LP on the neck pickup is great. I agree that the takes could use some practice just so it flows more comfortably. Cool, energetic song.

My drummer (me) is about to get a lot worse as well...he's getting his first drum set soon, and can no longer cheat with using MIDI to trigger samples. It's going to be quite a learning process :)
 
Yeah and then he probably autotunes it? Lol. Whatever. Doing a million takes and piecing something together is fine if that's what you want to do. It's called comping and it's been done forever. I think it's pretty silly with today's editing capabilities. I mean, it's super easy to precisely just punch in and crossfade one note or syllable if you want to, but whatever. To each his own. For some people, whatever they think a good result is is all that matters.

Andrushkiwt is consistently producing new, original music and putting it out there for all to hear and critique. So there's that.
 
Here is a 3 piece rock song I'm working on. It's not really mixed...I just aproximated the volume levels of each raw track. No eq'ing or processing yet. Im still trying to get keeper tracks. I tracked the guitar last night and my ears were kind of shot. The guitar is my clownburst LP copy into my Fender mustang modeling amp. I'm playing bass, guitar, drums, and vocal.....The drummer is struggling but he likes to play drums.
;)
Its and old Rick Derringer song that I really like


I agree with Tad, the tone is kind of boxy. But that does lend to the vintage feel of it, so that works if you want it to. :thumbs up:
 
Jimi: Sounds good man, I don't know how you do it, but most of your stuff sounds vintage-y dude...Keep at those drums man, I can hear improvement each time you post a clip...
 
Jimi: Sounds good man, I don't know how you do it, but most of your stuff sounds vintage-y dude...Keep at those drums man, I can hear improvement each time you post a clip...

This is true. Your drumming has improved. :thumbs up:
 
Thanks guys. I'm putting in some time on the kit. Thats one reason I haven't been around much lately.
This song "still alive and well" is a bitch to play.
I'm very weak on fills and I know this is an area I need to work on.
 
Jimi, I'm not familiar with the original. You playing on the guitars and bass and your singing is great. Your drumming has improved a shit load too. Your right hand is keeping up much better now!

Guitar tone is a little odd though, sounds alright on the crazy lead stuff but sounds way too re-verbed and boxy on the rhythm stuff. Having had loads of tones like that myself it sounds to me like you need to use less verb and turn the amp up more.
 
Edgar Winter's White Trash. Tough tune to tackle, James. Good start. Work to do but not bad. Wasn't Derringer playing a 335 then? Got access to a hollow body?
 
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