New Song - Texas Heat

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chili
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Chili

Chili

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I've been completely uninspired and non-productive lately, so a bit excited since I started working on this song. It still needs some work, but I'm anxious to see what everyone thinks.

I've done something new which I thought I never would. I pulled the old guitar amp out of storage and plugged in. Nothing blew up and it sounded good. Not sure how good I captured it. Definitely sounds different through a mic vs live. But hey, no amp modelers were used on this song.

All comments, critiques and concerns are welcome; good, bad, or ugly.

Thanks!!! :)

Song Here
 
Sounds good, I like the lyrics :D The kick sounds a little buried to me, but the rest seems fine. I like how the guitars came out.
 
I can relate to this. I water my lawn so it'll stay alive, but also so it literally doesn't burst into flames. I honestly can't ever recall a summer this hot and rainless. Supposedly this is the driest year ever for the SE Texas area. The only positive I can get out of this summer's weather is that at least it seems to be less humid than usual.

Anyway, the song is pretty decent. I like the rhythm guitars. The chicken-pickin sounds pretty good. I think the mix overall is a little light on the bass. More kick and bass.
 
Nice production. The guitars and vocal are very clear, but as Saads and Greg say, the bottom end is a bit too flappy or something and doesn't quite match for clarity and punch. Hard to tell, but it might be that the bass needs to be boosted in the upper ranges to make it a bit more brittle and hard. I would also tighten up the snare, it sounds a bit distant to me.

It seems like it can all be fixed in the mix, so have fun... and make sure you keep the original version... because often when you chase others people’s advice the mix becomes a mess :)
 
Thanks for the comments, guys. Sounds easy enough to fix the low end. I spent a lot of time on bass, kick and snare, so I must have lost focus. But that's what the mp3 clinic is for.... :)

It was the first song with my GFS telecaster and first time micing an amp. I don't do much of that chicken pickin playing yet, but I've been watching YT vids and practicing. The rhythm parts are straight up finger-pickin playing.

Yeah Greg, I was hoping that tropical storm was going to bring some relief, but nothing.... not a single drop. That Texas Heat ate it right up. Saw on the weather radar sites how it disappeared when it hit land. amazing.

0805-tx-dm.jpg
 
Dude--I love the pickin. Great riff, great job playing it.

Im sitting here messing with DADGAD tuning, and not surprisingly coming up with some country-esque sounds--then I clicked on your song. I'll take it as confirmation.
 
I agree, either the snare is too loud or bass & kick drum is needing a boost. The drum track works nicely though, it makes me think of a cajun 2 step-a cool addition might be a keyboard part of an accordion to fit with the rest of the song.

Guitars are good, especially the Martin on the songs intro-the Tele has a good tone for the song too. The solo sounds more like Jerry Garcia than chicken pickin'-solo sounds a bit too busy. When I try for chicken pickin' I use the bridge pickup and hit the strings hard, and I use lots of 'double stops'--more or less harmonized notes. It's sounding very good-keep at it!
 
Really enjoyable tune, Dave!
Nice bluegrass feel to it. Guitars sond great, nice warm tube sound. Your voice fits this style very well. Yeah, get that walking bass and that kick to stand out and this pie's done!;)
 
Also--I love the full stop after the solo break. It's perfect! And Joey's right, your voice is spot on in this one.
 
Great picking - really liked the solo. Nice singing.

I'm noticing some crackling on the right side - 1:10 - 1:14, 2:12 - 2:14. Might be coming from a guitar amp.

There's a late snare hit here and there. Other minor tempo clams.
 
Not much to add, but those acoustics at the beginning sound really nice.
 
I think this is my favorite thing I've heard from you yet Chili.

A little loose rythmically here and there, but mostly it flows nicely.

Love the guitar sounds. Nice job there. I really like the snare sound for this, but it seems a little excessively reverberated maybe? I just wish it came forward a bit without necessarily being any louder.

Agree on a kick/bass boost - that would lock things in better I think. Give this thing some stomp to it. Well done.
 
Hey, thanks everyone. I'll make some adjustments tonight on the low end and repost. Also want to fix some phrasing in the lyrics. Like I said earlier, still a WIP.

Anfontan said:
Guitars are good, especially the Martin on the songs intro-the Tele has a good tone for the song too.
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I was curious what others thought about the acoustic. Thanks for mentioning it. I thought the mic'd amp sounded so different from the live sound. Much darker than I wanted. I see a challenge to get what I want through the monitors.

joeym said:
Your voice fits this style very well.
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It really makes my day to see you say that!!! You're the best vocalist I know. Thanks much!!

WhiteStrat said:
Also--I love the full stop after the solo break. It's perfect! And Joey's right, your voice is spot on in this one.
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Very cool, glad you liked it. :)

TripleM said:
Great picking - really liked the solo. Nice singing.

I'm noticing some crackling on the right side - 1:10 - 1:14, 2:12 - 2:14. Might be coming from a guitar amp.

There's a late snare hit here and there. Other minor tempo clams.
Click to expand...

Well, I'll admit, I don't know where those two runs in the solo came from. I just kind of did it and I was like, Whoa, that sounded cool. Glad I had the record button pressed. I'll look into the distortion. I didn't use any compression on the guitar track before going into the interface and I might have clipped. Or could it be the 128kbps encoding??

Drums are ezdrummer, not sure about late hits, I didn't write the code. :D j/k. Thanks!!! :)

aaronmcoleman said:
Not much to add, but those acoustics at the beginning sound really nice.
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Thanks, really appreciate it. Just one acoustic track and one tele track for the rhythm stuff.
 
heatmiser said:
I think this is my favorite thing I've heard from you yet Chili.

A little loose rythmically here and there, but mostly it flows nicely.

Love the guitar sounds. Nice job there. I really like the snare sound for this, but it seems a little excessively reverberated maybe? I just wish it came forward a bit without necessarily being any louder.

Agree on a kick/bass boost - that would lock things in better I think. Give this thing some stomp to it. Well done.
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Ah, your post came in while I was wrting mine.

Ya know, I learned a few things from you when we did that GD collab. I tried to get a more musical rhythm track rather than just strumming out chords. But you're right, there are a few parts that fall apart. But that's my STYLE!!! :D

Hmmm, there is very little reverb on the snare. I turned it way down from where I usually have it. Maybe it stands out due to the kick being too low.

Muchas Gracias, Heat!!!
 
Chili said:
...when we did that GD collab.
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We should do another one some time. I have been high and dry this summer in terms of new material and need something to work on. Let me know if you have any ideas...:)
 
Really cool tune ... the guitar through your old amp sounds nice ... I enjoyed listening!
 
The relationship of the drum elements reminds me of stand up rockabilly which isn't really at odds with the song BUT I'd like more bass guitar (nice lines) & bass drum (traditionalist aren't I).
Good song mate - I like it & the tempo changes are cool.
I gave up on a lawn about 10 years ago - now we use a ground cover called native violet that doesn't need watering, just some shade (easy here you can't see us on google earth) - the dry spell that was the noughties did a lot of damage - we lost 2 20ft tree ferns amongst other things.
Nice picking by the way.
 
jeffmaher said:
I think the whole kit could level up quite a bit. Nice!
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Thanks much, Jeff.

heatmiser said:
We should do another one some time. I have been high and dry this summer in terms of new material and need something to work on. Let me know if you have any ideas...:)
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Feeling like an acoustic tune?? Dark Hollow from the Reckoning album??

Jimtl said:
Really cool tune ... the guitar through your old amp sounds nice ... I enjoyed listening!
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Thanks so much for listening and taking the time to comment.

rayc said:
The relationship of the drum elements reminds me of stand up rockabilly which isn't really at odds with the song BUT I'd like more bass guitar (nice lines) & bass drum (traditionalist aren't I).
Good song mate - I like it & the tempo changes are cool.
I gave up on a lawn about 10 years ago - now we use a ground cover called native violet that doesn't need watering, just some shade (easy here you can't see us on google earth) - the dry spell that was the noughties did a lot of damage - we lost 2 20ft tree ferns amongst other things.
Nice picking by the way.
Click to expand...

I've made some changes. Brought up the bass and kick & snare. Also made some lyric changes and fixed some phrasing issues. Adjusted levels across the board... did I go far enough or too far??

Same link, but here it is again.... If you all want the old link I can put that back up. Thanks again for listening.

Song Here
 
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