Something new, yet old in a way

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jon X
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Jon X

Jon X

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I was playing around with loops, and put together a bunch of mess to back some other parts I recorded. The guitar is nasty sometimes, but I'm just trying to work out an idea. Any comments appreciated, but I'd really like to hear what people think of the changes in guitar tone about midway through, about the use of the samples themselves, and mainly how bad is it that I crammed all these samples together at once. I was also going for an older type of sound, so any comments on how I could better achieve that would be great as well. The bass is fine on my monitors, but is overpowering on some smaller computer speakers, so I'm not sure yet what to do with that either.



The song is temporarily titled "Can I go now?" while I'm working on it. Thanks for any feedback.
 
Hey old friend...first off I really like this funky rhythm you got going here. I like the clean raw guitar tone thru out and also that nasty tone when that came into play. I'm listening on head phones right now so the bass sounds pretty constant, I'll listen to it again when everyone wakes up around here on my speakers. But I personaly like the tone changes in the guitar mid way. This can't be..."the pod" can it? hehehehe! If it is I want one! don't know if I like this loop thing or not, i dont know crapp about loops. Anyway this is gonna be great when ya get everything worked out as is everything I've heard from you.
 
bass clipped on my little speakers...I messed with the eq in winamp, first chanell, and that fixed it.....that flute thing was unexpected and nice.....cool use of loops and samples, and the guitar playing was sweeeeeet....gibs
 
Jon....

Hey, bro... haven't seen you around for awhile until just recently! Glad to have you back. :)

The Song:
What a cool, groovin' little tune it is!
I agree about the guitarwork... great job!
The only thing I thought was over-used was the scratchy part (sliding up and down the strings) at the :58 second mark. It sounded cool the first time, earlier in the song, but doing it again was too much.
This song sounds like The Dave Brubeck Quartet cutting loose at a late-night jam-session. If you've never heard of them, do a search on the song "Take Five" and you'll hear what I mean. Smokey-Jazz with a groove!
Great job, overall. I think the doc is really gonna like this one, too.

Buck
 
Very nice Jon X, really like the guitar tones and their sense of placement. Distorted tone is killer to. The scratch thing, I don't know. Take it or leave it I guess..

You have a very identifiable style which is a good thing, I listen to it and it's "hey that's Jon X"! Is that a pod? their a tricky thing to get to feedback, gotta crank those monitors!

Good job.
 
Like Buck62 most accurately predicted- I love the sound of this one. The only guitar tone that didn't fit the nice backdrop you created with that strong MMW bass and drums riff was that 'rock-like' tone where the lead starts around ~2:04. Not to say that I didn't like the lead there or the tone there, it's just that the rest of the choices fit the mood better.
Some great playing and great tone choices.

It's really in need of a B section. You know- something to keep the whole mantra religiously focused. The whole band in a prayer so intense that they can feel that 13 repetitions have elapsed and it's time for the break. :)

Doesn't have to be long or fancy: that song thrown out by Buck62 by Brubeck (Take Five) fits the template nicely.
As to the bass- didn't clip here. Some of the those samples seemed to have clicks or pops at their boundaries. And the scratching wasn't so in-your-face for great lengths of time that it bothered me. Liked the vibe sound and that flute. Even that muffled timpani interlude was nice.
 
I like the scratches. The guitar work is excellent. Bass is too soft, although I dig the tone The flute part helps the song from getting too monotonous. Cool.

-Jett Rocker
 
Jon X,

I'm getting the same thing that I got a few months ago when I clicked on your link. A white page with a bunch of characters on it. Am I the only one getting this?

Ray J
 
I remember, one of the first tunes I d/l'ed here was 900 - which I found to be totally enjoyable for what it was. This bit reveals depth and expression, much more real and emotional. My guess is - it is the players you have surrounded yourself with. Stand-up bass, steel drums, flute are what it seems like I am hearing. Tasty.
 
Cool jam.

Bass too bassey, it should stand out more. Flute and scratches both fit great. I'm not sure what you meant by an "older type of sound". Too me, old is stale. This didn't sound stale at all, and the fact at that you used scratches tells me that you are trying to keep at least a little bit of a modern edge. Ever listen to Fun Lovin' Criminals?
 
Here's what I can offer

Nice groove. My favorite elements are the marimba/xylophone thing going on in the background and the flute. The guitar playing was great, but I have one suggestion: if I were mixing it I might roll back some of the low frequencies on the gtr and let the bass occupy that space a little more.
How much of this was loop-based? Drums? Perc? Flute? Just curious.
The only other thing I might suggest is another theme somewhere in there, perhaps right before the guitar kicks back in w/ the distorto tone. It would give the song a chance to develop a little, and then really bring it home w/ the main theme again really rocking.
Just my $.02.
Aaron
http://www.aaroncheney.com
 
groovin'

I dig it. I totally dig it. This is Jon-X at his best - experimenting with new sounds and always looking for killer tone. Of course the playing is dead on; the perfect blend of emotion and flawless execution. The man can play anything. I know those loops are just done with samples, but its a cool way to noodle around and see what happens.

Rock out JOSEY!!!
 
hi jon-x,

This is off the hook. I've listened to it at least once (more like 5 times) the last three days.

I love it, especially the guitar.

keep it up man
 
Thanks for listening everybody. As always, I've gotten great feedback so far about how I can improve the song. I'll have to check the bass again and do something about bringing it out more while trying to keep it from clipping. I'm also going to see if I can bring about a compromise with the scratching and lower it in the mix in places, and drop it altogher in one place. After doc and Aaron mentioning that it needs another section or at least some sort of break in the middle, I can definitely hear what I want to do there. Great idea. I think I might also try something with just the original guitar tone all the way through instead of the distortion towards the end like you mentioned doc, cause I was wondering about that myself as I was recording it. It's worth at least seeing what I can come up with that way. Also, I do hear now where some of the samples are rough around the borders, and need to fix that. Mainly I was going for somewhat of an older sounding thing, but with a modern edge, so it seems with some of the comments that I got close to my vision for this song... even though I can't really explain it in words.

I recorded the guitar by miking my amp with an SM57, so no POD at all for this one. I don't think I could make the thing feedback without a lot of effort, like Emeric said. The hardest part to do and what took the longest for the whole song is the flute sample that I cut and pasted sections of wave files until I got what I wanted. Thanks Buck for the welcome back, and the tip about "Take Five". I love that song, and have heard it before, just didn't know the name of it. I worked for a while to get that guitar placed in their, Emeric, so thanks for the compliment on that one for sure. I love the stuff that Money Mark did with the Beastie Boys, rats, but never heard either of his solo albums or the Fun Loving Criminals. Going to have to check them out though.

Thanks again to everybody for downloading and for the compliments, cause it motivates me to fix the parts that need it and keep trying to get more ideas recorded.
 
Cool!

I love the guitar that comes in at 2:04...very Big Brother.

Great guitar overall. The flute samples were pretty realistic and fit the piece well.

The low end was kind of weird...hard to hear. I'm not sure if that's a bad thing or not though.

Good work!

Slackmaster 2000
 
Thanks for listening Slack. I know what you mean about the low end, as I went for the upright bass sound and it tends to get lost with everything else I got jumbled together in there. The kick drum is lost as well, but I was aiming for a more jazz type feel and everything I listen to in that realm that I was going for tends to downplay the kick, and I don't know if it really fits this song right. I'm not sure if it's a bad thing either.

It's weird cause the low end tends to overload smaller speakers, but comes through as weak on most everything else. That is the bane of my recording existence, and by far what gives me the most trouble. Anyone have suggestions?
 
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