How should I flesh this out?

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Zarathustra

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Me and my band are working on a cover of "All Along The Watchtower", which I play differently from pretty much any version I've heard (I just picked the chords out of a Bob Dylan songbook and attached the rhythm that worked best). I did the main chord progression using my friend's 15-watt Marshall and my OE30, which I think is about the coolest sounding amp-guitar combo I've ever played. We got the sound by using a cheap dynamic microphone and the line-out into the mixer.

My friend did some A minor pentatonic stuff over it as a "solo", which came out alittle stilted sounding, partly because the microphone broke during our recording process and we were stuck with the line-out. His solo was only the second take he did, so some goofs are evident, but not excessive. Some tips on how to flesh out the excessively "dry" sound of a line-out would be nice. =P

The main problem? I didn't do the chord progression long enough, and I'm not sure how much longer I'd need to go. Anyways, it stills sounds alright, and I'm wondering if anyone thinks doing an acoustic version and fading it together with the electric mix would work (probably going to wait awhile so we can just buy some SM57's and a kick mic and be done with these cheap microphones we've got).

http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.php?id=11816
 
The rhythm sounds OK but the guitra is really wooly or has a heavily ripped & blown speaker. How did you get that sound.
The solo iok but I couldn't get beyond the wooly stuff.
 
Uh, we got the sound by mixing the mic'd sound with the line out of the amp, as I explained. It's got some distortion going on, but I really don't get what you mean by "wooly" or a "broken speaker", the amp works just fine. The solo was done entirely with the line-out, which may explain what you're talking about, there's no actual speaker involved there.
 
Your rhythm guitar is different from much of the classic sounding guitar tones I've heard. My initial reaction was too much bass and too much distortion. It's not wrong it's just not that familiar sound. My suggestions would be to remove some of the bass and distortion and do two takes and pan them left and right. Then put the wah'd guitar up the middle. The wah'd guitar won't be fighting to be heard so much. I'll leave you with those suggestions....

Oh yeah almost forgot, line out is okay but mic out usually has a better tone, distortion (speaker break up) overall. That's from personal experience....as little as that is ;)
 
I suppose not, but I'm very very proud of the sound we got.

Oh, I actually don't really care about using the same old sound, but yeah, I will probably have to do another take anyways.

We're actually currently out of microphones, as I explained, which is why we were forced to use line out, rather than mix it in with a mic'd sound, for the "guitar solo" bits.
 
The rhythm guitar sounds really.......... Original.


Fair playing, but the sound is difficult to overcome.
 
Slap a low cut on it & raise it slowly until you get a more succinct tone. Wooly may not be a helpful adjective - how about really bass/middly with very little definition?
If you used the current tone in a mix you'd cause havoc with bass, bass drum & the bottom end of the vocal - honestly.
I'm all for original tone - I cant get a "decent" tone no matter how I try so I live with & enjoy a unique tone.
 
I'm definitely stuck in the past, as I've played this song a zillion times, but you need to get a copy of Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland and hear his version of this song-or even find an MP3 of it somewhere.
The rhythm is kind of robotic-it sounds okay but may just be the lack of a beat to propel it along-just listen to Jimi and then after you absorb his take on it-make it you're own!
 
Anfontan said:
I'm definitely stuck in the past, as I've played this song a zillion times, but you need to get a copy of Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland and hear his version of this song-or even find an MP3 of it somewhere.
The rhythm is kind of robotic-it sounds okay but may just be the lack of a beat to propel it along-just listen to Jimi and then after you absorb his take on it-make it you're own!
Click to expand...

Or even better find a copy of Michael Hedges playing the song. Best version of it I've ever heard.
 
I've actually heard the Hendrix version several times, and while I enjoy it alot, I still prefer Dylan's. I suppose I filled out the tone alot because I'm used to playing through a bass amp (and wasn't playing with anyone else). We'll redo this along with what we had going here, but I'm not doing a cover of Jimi Hendrix here and I'm not just going to play it like he did.

Yeah, my sense of rhythm is pretty poor, but I was doing my best to keep time, and hopefully we'll get this song together in full. One thing though, I really do dig the sound we got, and it wouldn't be hard to shave off the low end.
 
I play guitar through a bass amp & get a crisp, aggressive, chimey tone with a bit of defiinition on the bass strings.
 
That wooliness is definitely because of of the line-out situation. I could hear that right off, because I used to record the same way when I first started. The playing is fine, but even a cheap mic on that amp will sound a hundred times better than the line out. If you like the wool, that's ok, but instead of mixing the two sounds into one track, pan them about halfway out to the left and right, so you get two distinct sounds. All I hear is the line out, and that's usually not a good sound by itself. The solo will also sound better miked, and you might consider putting a delay on it if you have it.
 
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