Found some 25 year old 4-track tapes..

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lt. Bob
  • Start date Start date
Lt. Bob

Lt. Bob

Spread the Daf!
OK...here's something you can laugh at. I found these old tapes I did about 25 years ago on a Teac 3340. The drums were, believe it or not, drum tracks on vinyl! :rolleyes: The records were called Drum Drops and they had drum tracks with specific structures. If I remember correctly I didn't really worry about following their order.
I'm the only player and singer on these and Midnight dream had 13 different parts on it so there was a lot of pinging down.
The tape was actually self destructing as I mixed this down so I'm glad I ran across it before it was too late. There's a lot of memories there for me...........but I think I burnt them out 'cause I'd almost forgotten doing these. Go ahead and let me have it for the poor sound but....they are 25 years old.

Just a Midnight Dream and If I don't Have You (I'll Die)
http://www.nowhereradio.com/wondercow/singles
 
I'll leave out any mix thoughts due to the situation


Just a Midnight Dream - good stuff Lt! You have a great voice man.. Obviously the horns are very good, (if not almost too much :D), but I think your voice is as good as your horn playing.. Sounds perfect for the song.. Chicagoish?



If I don't have you - ha! :D This is quite good.. I dont know what it reminds me of, but it reminds me of something.. Very 70's.. I dig it.. very cool 'Shaft' era vibe to this.. Nice vocal harmony. This is really cool imop Lt! This would be the song I would do if I was to cover one of your tunes.. A lot of cool things in this tune..


The highlight of both of these songs for me was your vocals.. Very real delivery in them... I dont know how to describe it, but it just sounds authentic to me..


good stuff, I enjoyed it.. especially 'If I dont have you'... that guitar solo was real good..... and real loud! :D


Thanks for posting this.. The Real Lt.. :D
 
I'm impressed! I'm listening to "If I Don't Have You". It almost sounds like a mixture of Rare Earth and Average White Band. This is a KILLER tune. All things concidered, this ain't too bad at all.
 
Those are very good Lt.
I'm glad you found them before the became dust and memories.

Thanks for sharing them. Really.
 
Lt. Bob - seeing that these songs are ALMOST as old as me, I had to give it a listen.

I Don't Have You - this song definately shows it's age, but I liked it. I definately heard Hendrix on the verse vocals. The guitar solo didn't really follow the drums, but it sounded correct that way. There was some rhythmic dissonance going on there that created tension. (Actually I don't know what I'm talking about but it sounded good).

So my question is, when you dig stuff up like this, does it remind you of any of your basic stylistic influences? Do you listen to it and say, "Hey, thats where that lick always comes from." or is it more like, "Man, I'm glad I don't sound like that anymore."

Good stuff.
 
Wow LT. Bob
this is great staff. So the tapes are lost now hu?

They have places to restore them don't they. Of course you could probably rerecord it too. But man! drum track on vinyl, that's presiouss. do you mean it was a premade track you could buy?

very cool

cheers
 
Listened to "if I don't have you" cool bass on the side it actualy worked. it's great to see example of this.

all things considered the mix is good and performance is good with some mastering this is ready for release. :)

cheers
 
Thanks guys for your patience with the sound. It sounds a lot harsher than I had remembered but I don't know if it sounded like that back then or if it was because of the age of the tapes. Also, there was a lot of pinging. I'd say by the time I got it finished and put up here, we're talking 5th or 6th generation.

Sam and badgas and trackrat.........thanks for the listen. I'm thinking of modernizing these tunes and seeing what they might sound like today from a modern perspective. Sam........you're welcome to do anything you might want with any ideas you might get from them. That's be cool, a sabbath spin on If I Don't have you. :D

John Wayne.....mainly I'm glad I sound better than that today. But there's a youthfulness to it that I wish I still had. ;) It also reminds me of that soul-destroying woman that prompted me to write those tunes, (and about 20 others :D )

Fed....yeah it was predone drum tracks. They had various styles on about 7 or 8 different volumes. They had the "Rock" volume and "easy listening" and "latin sounds" and so on. Each one had about 12 tracks and on the cover it spelled out the order, how many bars to each verse....where the choruses were and so on. I still have them. You know they might be useful with a sampler or some other modern day equipment. If anyone wants a copy of some let me know.
 
Hot damn! I listened to Just a Midnight Dream, this is just too damn cool. Tight, soulful horn arrangements, great singing.
Brought back memories, too. Around that same time I had an Akai reel-to-reel with........Sound on Sound!!!! I thought I'd gone to heaven. For drums I used a cardboard box full of paperback books with a set of car keys on top...and it wasn't half bad. :D

Gotta run some errands, will be back to listen to If I Don't Have You (I'll Die).

I can't tell you how cool it was to listen to this song from 25 years ago, and to hear how well it holds up. Wait, I think I just did!

Lt. Bob=strong mojo. (but y'all knew that)

Mark
 
Both tunes really rock!!

Great arrangment on "Just a Midnight Dream" Horns kick the usual ass (even back then!)

If I don't have you is well written and sung. thought I heard a little Hendrics in the melodic placment of the vocals.

Glad you got to the tapes before Ol' Man Chronos did.

Great Stuff!!


Theron.
 
I thought this stuff held up well considering its age. And Midnight Dream could have been a hit song back in the day. Reminds me of several of the horn bands of that era. I thought your singing and playing were great, so you've been playing at a high level for a long time.

Those 3340's were good sounding machines. I bet they are responsible for a million recordings. I have heard whole albums done on them that sounded really good. Oh--and the Drumdrops! I can't tell you how many songs I demoed using those things. I had a pitch control on my record player so I could change the tempos of them for different songs.

You took me back in time with these!
 
Hey Lt.......... "Midnight Dream" indeed,
COOL!!! Damn where's that Carlos when you need him. One of his solos would have slid in here real nice. Great horns!......but thats no surprise. For as old as these tapes are, they dont sound too damn bad. ......and you are a singin' MoFo! I didnt picture a big fat vocal like that coming from you....... Im very impressed. ........Im off to the second song, back in a sec. .......coooooooOOOOOOOOL!!!:D g
 
"If i cant have you" woooooooo weeeeeeeee........ damn dude, your vocs ROCK! I too hear the "Jimmy". This is so nostalgic......... it knocks me out!! :D The first thing that hit me was that bass tone.....what kind of bass and amp is that......(is that an ampeg?)...... I love that tone....and i want it, .......I have a song that it would work perfectly on. I dont care how old the recording is, these are keepers! It's like listening to old vinyl.... Its not supposed to sound pristine..... just take you back to the sound of an era. This makes me wanna put on an old pair of bells, kick back on a velvet bean bag and twist a fattie. He shoots......he scores!!! I could listen to a whole album of this stuff. I dont know how old you are LT..................................................but you were just a big ole pussy magnet in your prime, werent you :D :D :D
great stuff man!
g
 
way cool!!

man that is some good stuff, both tune's ripped, but i liked if "i don't have you" better. groovy stuff. your a horn blowin fool!!!!!!!!!!.

thank's for sharing!

peace

rick
 
Wow! Thanks for listening guys. Considering the obvious flaws I wasn't expecting ya'll to be so gentle. :D I appreciate it.

mkg and rushfan....thanks for taking the time to listen and comment.

Crawdad....thanks for listening. I think very highly of your songwriting so it means a lot for you to think they held up fairly well after all this time. You used Drum Drops? That's so cool....I never met anyone else that used them.

theron....Hendrix is definitely one of my biggest influences. I still listen to him regularly.

Guernica.....there are actually a couple of other tunes from that tape I might stick up. One, in particular, might lend itself well to today's sensibilities. It's a pretty angry tune called "If I Had My Way (You'd be in Heaven Today)." I'll probably clean it up as well as possible and stick it up in the next few days. Thanks man. BTW...I'm still a big ol' pussy magnet.
 
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

........what a bout that bass amp/guit? If you dont mind me asking?
 
Sorry....I forgot to answer that. I'm sure the bass would have been my Precision bass. I replaced the stock pick-ups with Bartolini pick-ups. As for the amp, I'm a little vague.......I think I was loaded that night :D but I played through an Ampeg SVT at the time so if I used an amp it would have been the SVT. But to tell you the truth I think I just went direct into the recorder.
 
Hey Steve!

Man Sergio Mendez and Brasil 66 aint' got nothin' on you dude....:D
Very cool tunage.....mix issues aside......good jams...ya know?

Take it easy man,
Joe
 
Wow, these recordings show again that musical talent and skills are way more important than just having a 24/96 multitrack recording rig.

Respect
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top