First Post of Tune by a Aging 70's Semi-Newbie

[blackscot]

No, not yet IN the 70's (that'll happen soon enough), but FROM the 70's and like doing re-makes of the music from that era, specifically with cool lead-guitar parts. Have actually been into it for a couple of years and have a handful of projects "finished" (are they ever really finsihed?). See "howdy" post at:

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?p=1333196#post1333196

Just now finally got off the stump to start posting some results. Any of y'all from my time should (hopefully) recognize this, my most recent (and probably best) of my recording efforts, but the very first to "go global". Let me know what you think (but please, be gentle. I bruise easily).

http://media.putfile.com/reelin-98

 

[joeydego]

I recognized it right away, even though I wasnt even BORN till 74! I LOVE the 70's tones, even though I'm an 80's rocker. How was this recorded? Theres clipping happening in the drums on the louder parts. Guitar work is accurate and faithfull to the original. I did MOST of the horns. Im 95% sure they are all midi, and when they sound "too" midi its what Im not digging. Just one or 2 spots. How were the guitars recorded? I like the tone. Id work on trying to get the trombone ( I think its a bone on the verses ) to get more real sounding, and work on the drum track to kill the clipping. For a 1st time effort, the Dego gives it a B. Good job.

 

[DonF]

You have chosen a challenging tune to cover. I'll give you points for that.

There are some timing issues here and there, some of them severe. It sounds like you quantized some of the parts to the wrong grid (like straight sixteenths instead of the song's "shuffle" beat).

In my opinion, replacing DF's whiny snarl with a synth horn is sacrilege. Kind of moves the tune toward the Muzak realm.

You nailed most of the guitar licks pretty well. The drums and piano need help, though.

Don

 

[blackscot]

Thanks. Very constructive feedback, and I will follow up.

The lead is the American Standard Strat you see as my avatar, through a Mesa Boogie DC10. Everything else is MIDI, from a Roland JV1010 synth and M-Audio controller. Recording platform is the Digidesign Mbox w/Protools 6.1 to a Dell PC w/Windows XP.

As explained in my “howdy” post, the main purpose here is to give me a backup for jamming lead guitar, but of course I’d like that backup to be as high a quality as I’m able. Hence, my joining the site here.

Challenges are many. I have no – repeat NO – singing voice. It’s a mistake to even try. Many of the things I want to play lead guitar to have vocals in the original, and I don’t have access to a good singer, so have to come up with some other “arrangement”, both in the musical sense and physical sense. Brass, strings, woodwinds….something has to take the singer’s place and usually with mixed results, to some ears having a musak quality (as has been noted).

I sort-of stumbled across the Chicago (the band) sound for this project, which I realize is far from the original and likely not to everyone’s taste. I have other projects that I’ll post presently that are similar.

I do think though, that I shouldn’t necessarily try to stick strictly to the original in every aspect, and that with my various limitations it would be unrealistic to expect to. I want something that will sound "good", even if not entirely faithful.

I also have some mixing challenges. Space is a near-empty spare bedroom, and sound comes from Roland’s el-cheapie monitors - about $100 for the pair. (At least I have them up on stands now and not still on the floor.) I think the resulting mix ends up being treble-biased, but am not sure.

All for fun though (strictly a hobby), which it truly is. I need you guys to help me get the most out of what I have to work with. Thanks again, and I hope to hear more from you (I’ll get a couple more tunes posted soon).

Randy

 

[DonF]

That guitar sure does sound nice to me. I was afraid that I was imagining that. Being mainly a vocalist and keyboard player, I'm quite easily fooled by Pods and similar gizmos.

Don

 

[blackscot]

That guitar sure does sound nice to me. I was afraid that I was imagining that. Being mainly a vocalist and keyboard player, I'm quite easily fooled by Pods and similar gizmos.

Don

Thanks Don.

And yup, that part is all me and what you see in the avatar. I'm no genius though, and can tell you it took a lot of work just to figure out all the riffs, let alone gain any proficiency. I need to practice this tune often to stay up on it.

Major ego boost from your comment -- thanks again.

 

[Nakatira]

I love this tune.

Nice playing, a few nits here and there, but nothing much.

It sounds intresting, I like the way you captured the guitar solo sound.

I`m not to keen on the the vox replacement, reminds me of a asian karaoke machine

cool work man

 

[DavidK]

Its good, I enjoyed listening. Indeed its a tough one, and it has a few nits but you could work it out. The main thing is that its fun and it sounds cool! Yeah, Naka is right about the vocal replacement, I would rather hear just a piano sound or something. Good stuff.

 

[jpw23]

You have chosen a challenging tune to cover. I'll give you points for that.

You nailed most of the guitar licks pretty well. The drums and piano need help, though.

Don

I agree that the tune is challenging and deserves a few points but, the guitar was very sloppy......need to work on your chops a lot! This tune is nothing more that one huge signature lick.....gotta get it right so others won't drill you for it.

 

[jaykeMURD]

Heck, I was born in 87 and I recoignized it pretty quick. That's some pretty diffucult stuff. I was hoping you'd be singing!

 

[blackscot]

Thanks once more!

I fully agree that the absence of any vocals will always be a challenge for me arrangement-wise. 'Fraid that's a limitation I'll always be working around. I'll be curious to see what you think of the approach I took in some of my other projects, once I get them posted.

As far as the lead guitar - although some improvement is always to be sought - this is realistically about as "tight" as I'm likely to get in the near future (even though I can hear some slippage here and there). Although I've been playing some kind of guitar since I was 14, it was mostly accoustic until getting my first electric in my mid-30's, and didn't really try lead work until a few years after that. Now 48, the brain-to-digits connections don't enjoy the same baud rate they once did.

Oh and also, the first step was to bring in the original SD version as a track, then lay over my stuff starting with the drums and bass, and finally mute the original during mix-down. So it's timed to SD's own as close as I'm able and, although it's MIDI, it isn't synced to a grid (I think the tempo actually increases slightly during the tune).