just for fun..."Highway Star"

  • Thread starter Thread starter GONZO-X
  • Start date Start date
this is awesome, really fun and listenable... I really like how the levels of everything are here.

one thing I dunno about is the guitar tone for the rythmn... seems too "direct" for a fuzzy or distorted thing like that... but I dunno what you are using for that. honestly it's really mostly apparent at the beginning when it starts the palm mutes just before the vocals, the rest fits. Kudos if you just wanted it to sound -that- clean, but I -personally- like a more organic, round feel for rythmn work.. even if the guitar tone is particularly fuzzy in that high end area.

totally rad stuff, though haha, awesome vocals. And I like the solo, it's performed REALLY well. I really wish I was that accurate with my own lead stuff. I just realized even though this song reminds me of like some van halen sort of stuff, some of the melody (not to mention the theme) is a little 50's esque, a little 60s. cool.
 
That's pretty darn good!

.............. :eek: ;)

I think your playing/singing talent could carry it without doubling the lead vocal throughout. Maybe save the doubling of vocals for the chorus and harmonies. ;)
 
soundvile -
hey, thanks for the great review!
you know, you're right, about the fuzzy sound of the guitar.... i don't like it either, i've decided i'm going to re-record it.

it's actually my Mesa Boogie Mark2B 60 watt head (which is an extremely 'organic' amp!), but run thru my Demeter Iso cab, and a 57 on a Eminence Legend 122 speaker in it, which i've decided i do not like, and i did some funky experiments with the eq on it, and this was the result.
normally i just open-air-mic up my 1x12 cab (with a greenback) at low volume, but, this is really an experiment for me, in recording with a brand new system..
it's Sonar 4, running on a PC, thru a Maudio 24/96 card, and this was the very first project i've done with it! a friend programmed the bass and drums, and then played all the key parts, and then we mailed tracks back and forth...

it's not the DAW that made the guitar fuzzy- it's that funky cab and the funky settings i used.
i thought the same thing when i mixed it, but i dug the performance (it's a really hard rhythm track to do well)

the siren/fake vocal parts at the beginning, is my regular 1x12 miced up, and it actually sounds just like it did!

the solos, worked better in the Iso cab, cuz i used a single coil neck pickup, which rounded some of the fuzz off... plus, i just set the amp totally different for those tracks anyway...
the vox, i did in an hour long session, just kept recording the lead and backups til i got it close, and ran with it..
good ears....... thanks!


a reel person-

glad you liked it!
it was fun to do... i've only listened to this song for about 27 years now.........! LOL :D
 
Killer dude!!I like the way ya did the vocals...makes your version unique....great mix to my ears...everything sounds well balanced and full...love that "chugging" of the rhythm guitars before the solos...nice.No nits here...love it!!!
 
thanks variaxman :D

actually, on the issue of the singing the lead vox twice, that's how the original is.

i kind of dig the sound of it, raised on classic rock (well, what we now call classic rock, was just whatever was on the radio when i was a kid)...
a lot of these lead singers back then (or whoever the producer was) tracked lead vox twice, i imagine to cover up the messy pitches.....
nowadays, it's all Autotune, but i like the old fashioned method!

it is a bit out of vogue, i guess...

but this was just a down and dirty quicky on the vox, really, just to see how they'd sound straight into the pc with no eq or compression...
 
GONZO-X said:
:D
actually, on the issue of the singing the lead vox twice, that's how the original is....
Click to expand...
Yeah, well it must be so tight that I've never noticed it, while listening to this song for the last 35 years! If that's the case, then okay. I'll have to listen again to the album cut real soon.

I realize that doubling of vocals is a super common practice since the Beatles and probably before, and I know it's use is so common to be almost ubiquitous. I'd never noticed it on Highway Star, though, although I'll admit my most memorable recollection is of the several different "live" versions, more than the "album" version. (I believe I have most, if not all, Deep Purple albums, including many 'harder to find' live recordings.

Anyway, you rock!

Maybe demo "Speed King" or "Bloodsucker" for us, too, eh? "Pictures of Home", anyone???

Thanx!!
 
reel person-

"I'll have to listen again to the album cut real soon."
:D
well, it helps that it's ian gillan singing his ass off!
LOL
in the cans, it's easier to spot... it's very well produced, so it's subtle...
Plant used to do this a lot too.
i love the live version of this song, one of my all time favorites.

you know, i always dug 'no one came' and 'rat bat blue' as possible covers.

used to play 'lazy', 'smoke', of course, and 'burn'.
 
good song!! good choice

everything sounds like it was recorded really well .. i didnt read the other posts but, maybe turn the hi-hats level down. Other than that really nothing, maybe turn the synth up? my opinion doesnt really mean much but there it is lol
 
AWESOME! :D

Almost forgot how much I love Deep Purple, and you have done a GREAT job of interpreting the song. All the sounds are great (especially your vocals ;) ), and the mix is generally good. My only beef is that the KILLER keys don't stand out a bit more when they should. It feels like the guits are panned a little harder left than the keys are right, if you know what I mean.

Other than that, it ROCKS! :eek:

Nice solo! Pretty much note for note.

Well done bro'!

Chris
 
Dude, thats freakin kick-ass. Everything sounds top-notch on my end. I really like the sound and quality of your vocals. If you don't mind me asking, what kind of vocal processing/signal chain do you use?
 
Nick The Man
i dig your avatar....kielbasa, or good ole beef dog?!
;)
those drums, are a preliminary scratch mix from the guy that programmed em....
so, yeah, he'll probably go in and tweak em a good bit once all the parts are in....
the synth, yeah, i missed the mix on the keys for sure....
it's on the (long) list of stuff i have to figure out how to edit in sonar.
my 1st stab....
and thanks for offering up your opinion!

bigmahon-
deep purple, will always have a spot in my heart, for being an honest and forthcoming group....
they understood 'arrangements', and then when it came to live, it was menacing.
yeah!
good pic on the keys, i'm a gonna fix em, soon as i re-record the rhythm guitar part...
some of the vox performance i like, some i don't, if the other collaborator (singer) can do it better, he can go for it...
if the keyboard player wants me to do em, i'll probably try to do a better performance, maybe even listen to the original a little closer!
LOL
ian gillan, no, i don't want the duty of actually trying to cover THAT guy!!
;)
the solo, well, that took a few takes!
:D


Greg L
thanks for listening...
that vocal track, i almost laugh.
see, my whole 'good' chain (A Designs Audio Mp-1, DBX compressor) is in one rack...
and my little ART DPS (that i use for digital into my sound card on the pc) was the only thing handy..

so for this, i used a ADK Hamburg, direct into the tube pre of the ART DPS, set the levels for 'in the red', and with absolutely no other processing, went straight to hard drive.
normally, i always compress the vox...
so, with this new DAW, i'm only putting in peaks at around -12, and you'd think that i'd lose something, but, no, it's perfect...
even without compression, even without hot levels, the dynamics came thru just fine.
i backed off the mic about 12", and just worked it a bit on the harder (louder) parts.

it's almost a joke, how easy and non-technical it is.

but, it could sound even better, using the nice A Designs tube pre, and some mild compression before hitting the 'deck'.
i figured these were scratch vox tracks anyway, so i didn't spend more than about 10 minutes getting the levels set, and then off we go!
 
Well that's cool that we actually think alike on that part... Even cooler is that setup it sounds like you love original and customized setups, I'm jealous of your guitar stuff for sure.

I'm even happier you are a sonar guy, thats comforting.

About the whole vocal chain - super cool proof of doing a little with a lot. Love that.

Definitely embarassed I didn't know what the song was though. heh, oh well no biggie.
 
I cant add much, but this was f=?`)=?( great sheer class.

I tried doin a version of this and you made me look like a school boy.

Naka hails the allmighty Gonzo :cool:
 
Gonzo-X - you make this sound easy (when I know it ain't lol) Very smooth and tasty.

Vocals are spot on and I like the doubling you've done especially the pre-chorus. No doubt, best cover I've heard of this tune.

Solos/Drums/Keys/Bass are all fabulous. Sounds like you had a lot of fun with this. Will you be licensing this for your next release?

:) :D :) :D
 
some notes on the recording:

done in sonar, the keyboard player programmed drums and bass guitar, then played the actual keyboard parts.....
sent me the .cwb file, and i added rhythm guitar, 2 solo guitars, banshee wail at beginning, and all the vocal parts, with each part tracked twice and mixed together. my very first stab at sonar.

keys:
(keyboard player) I played the organ parts on Native Instruments' B4, the bass on Spectrasonics Trilogy (still work in progress there), and programmed the drums in Sonar using Toontracks' EZDrummer

drums:
(keyboard player) Programming the drums was quite a challenge. I started out by importing an mp3 of the original tune into Sonar so I could play and record along with it. It became really obvious right away that there are LOTS of tempo variations in the original. I couldn't figure out how to make Sonar track those tempo changes, so I sliced up the original (in some spots one bar at a time) so that it pretty closely lined up with the strict Sonar tempo (not pleasant to listen to any more). Then I played the kick and snare parts on the keyboard along with the original, quantizing as little as possible to keep it in time but still keeping as much human feel as possible. The crash cymbals were played in... I didn't quantize those at all. But I couldn't play the snare and tom fills, so I entered those in Sonar's "Piano Roll" view. Painstakingly... bar by bar, adjusting velocities note by note to match the accents and rolls of the original. The ritard and rolls at the end were the hardest part. I probably spent about 8 hours over 3 or 4 days to finish the drum parts. It was a lot of work, but I'm pretty happy with the result. The samples here are from EZDrummer.

The organ parts were played in real time. That was quite an exercise for my chops. The combination of precision and slop is really important for capturing Lon Lord's feel. It would have sounded too sterile if I had programmed it. I recorded it in two passes, one for the upper keyboard and one for the lower. But the lower part doesn't sound right coming through the same overdriven Leslie as the upper, so I've now split it off to another track and separate instance of the B4 with a little cleaner tone.

guitars:
it's actually my Mesa Boogie Mark2B 60 watt head (which is an extremely 'organic' amp!), but run thru my Demeter Iso cab, and a 57 on a Eminence Legend 122 speaker in it, which i've decided i do not like (the speaker), and i did some funky experiments with the eq on it, and this was the result.

vox:
it's a ADK Hamburg, about a foot away, run directly into a ART DPS, and digital into sonar.
 
got the new tracks from the keys guy....

sounds even better...

i'll try to get new rhythm tracks down, and take another stab at the vox....
maybe... this weekend.
 
One of my all time favorite songs and a kick ass rendition.

Great job!!! :)
 
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