Working on a new piece (JKKP). Any advice?

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bigbubba

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Hey gang,

I've been working a new piece. This also is a hymn that I've been putting music to. I would appreticate any input you folks can give.

http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.php?fid=1849

I don't remember who it was that suggested Hydrogen drum machine, but this piece started out as a test for the Hydrogen Drum Machine. Pretty nice so far. Better than my other drum machines. I need a good critique of the drums.

How's the guitars and the playing?

Thanks all. :)
 
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I'm listening on a laptop right now, Bubba, so take it with that in mind. The feel of the tune is very nice. I like the sounds I am getting. Drums sound fine, to me. I dl'd the program, but never got to play with it before I left. Sounds way better than s drum machine. I like the giotar tone, even on these speakers. Seems to fit really well. Nice tune overall. I really enjoyed it.
Ed
 
Nice track bigbubba. The drums sound great to me... none of that sampled-cymbal-and-snare tone on this. The tone quality of the gtrs is great. I like the playing of the right and center gtrs. The left gtr isn't tight enough in its rhythm and intonation, I think. Imagine it'd sound good with the center and right gtrs just moved to about 9 and 3 o'clock and leave out the left gtr.

Tim
 
Yo Bubba, sounds good man.
Your best drum sound yet. Nice guitar work too. Wild, yet dramatic, and strangely relaxing at the same time. ;)
I can't pinpoint it since my speakers aren't the greatest in the world and aren't monitors, but something in the mix doesn't sound right to me. Maybe it's what Tim was saying. Or maybe since one of the leads is panned far to one side, maybe the overall volume of the lead is too low now. You could bring that up or pan it less, since the rhythm section does seem to be taking over a bit much. Just a suggestion...

OOoooo, big pops at 0:22, 1:48 and 1:58, I could give you some tips on how to remove those for free without messing up the recording if you don't know. 3:10 and other places too.

Anyway, good work here. Enjoyed the melodies and sounds :D
 
Timothy Lawler said:
Nice track bigbubba. The drums sound great to me... none of that sampled-cymbal-and-snare tone on this. The tone quality of the gtrs is great. I like the playing of the right and center gtrs. The left gtr isn't tight enough in its rhythm and intonation, I think. Imagine it'd sound good with the center and right gtrs just moved to about 9 and 3 o'clock and leave out the left gtr.

Tim
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Left: Ah, that's my favorite guitar. Actually that's how I imagine I'd play if the main melody was being sung by a singer. I'd keep the left and right guitars and of course the singer will sing the middle guitar part. I do think that in some places that guitar is too distracting from the main melody. So I tried to keep it down. :).

So I'll try to either lower it or move it to a "subliminal" layer. HAHAHAHAHAH! I mean, thanks for listening. :)
 
SnakeDog5050 said:
Yo Bubba, sounds good man.
Your best drum sound yet. Nice guitar work too. Wild, yet dramatic, and strangely relaxing at the same time. ;)
Click to expand...
Thanks. :)

SnakeDog5050 said:
I can't pinpoint it since my speakers aren't the greatest in the world and aren't monitors, but something in the mix doesn't sound right to me. Maybe it's what Tim was saying. Or maybe since one of the leads is panned far to one side, maybe the overall volume of the lead is too low now. You could bring that up or pan it less, since the rhythm section does seem to be taking over a bit much. Just a suggestion...
Click to expand...
You know I sense that I should stop with the "introducing" of more and more guitars playing different things, but I just can't help myself. :)

SnakeDog5050 said:
OOoooo, big pops at 0:22, 1:48 and 1:58, I could give you some tips on how to remove those for free without messing up the recording if you don't know. 3:10 and other places too.
Click to expand...
Stupid Hydrogen Drum Machine. I fixed the very first pop in the mix by rendering one snare hit to a separate file altogether. So I have 2 project files - one with the drums minus that one snare hit, the other with only the snare hit. I thought I'd taken care of it and when later I turned the volume down, I realized there's a lot of pops that will have to be fixed.

SnakeDog5050 said:
Anyway, good work here. Enjoyed the melodies and sounds :D
Click to expand...
Well these songs already exist. I just think of an arrangement and put it behind the song. Sometimes, I just randomly come up with an arrangement (like this one) and then try to fit a song over it. In my case, most "songs" are Christian hymns. :)

All, So maybe I should lower the left guitar (the one doing the aux. solo) a little, eh? Maybe take down the rhythm guitar (to the right) a little, too?

And I gotta fix those pop somehow.

Thanks for listening all. :)
 
Dogman said:
I'm listening on a laptop right now, Bubba, so take it with that in mind. The feel of the tune is very nice. I like the sounds I am getting. Drums sound fine, to me. I dl'd the program, but never got to play with it before I left. Sounds way better than s drum machine. I like the giotar tone, even on these speakers. Seems to fit really well. Nice tune overall. I really enjoyed it.
Ed
Click to expand...
So I'm a hopin' you didn't have any issues with the two guitars playing their own "leads" while the rhythm guitar is trying to keep the beat with the drums. :)
 
bigbubba said:
Thanks. :)


You know I sense that I should stop with the "introducing" of more and more guitars playing different things, but I just can't help myself. :)
Click to expand...

I personally think it's cool. Hehe, I'd say never stop because I do it all the time. It's just difficult to mix at times.

bigbubba said:
Stupid Hydrogen Drum Machine. I fixed the very first pop in the mix by rendering one snare hit to a separate file altogether. So I have 2 project files - one with the drums minus that one snare hit, the other with only the snare hit. I thought I'd taken care of it and when later I turned the volume down, I realized there's a lot of pops that will have to be fixed.
Click to expand...

Poor Hydrogen, after all that work drumming he gets called stupid. Jk,
anyway, here's how I de-pop-clickicize my tracks.
1) download goldwave www.goldwave.com (it's free)
2) install it and open up your file
3) Select the part of the file that clicks
4) Under the effects menu choose --> filter --> pop/click
5) from there you can mess with the settings to see what gets rid of the pops/clicks... it usually works right away for me under the "aggressive" preset, otherwise you can mess with it.
6) apologize to Hydrogen :p

Hope that helps
 
Drums sound great - sounds like a lot of effort was put into that..... Lots of melodies and rhythm going on there. Cool stuttering effect on the guitar at 2:35. Nice one...
 
SnakeDog5050 said:
Poor Hydrogen, after all that work drumming he gets called stupid. Jk,
6) apologize to Hydrogen :p
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Do we "know" hydrogen or someone that works on that project? Am I missing something here? Or are you just yanking my chain?

ido1957 - Thanks. It means a lot that you would think that drums were put some effort into. Thanks for the listen. :)
 
Hey Bigbubba - He's just yanking your chain - but in a nice way :D He's feeling sorry for the hydrogen drum machine being called stupid (lol). Good sense of humor there. :D
 
ido1957 said:
Hey Bigbubba - He's just yanking your chain - but in a nice way :D He's feeling sorry for the hydrogen drum machine being called stupid (lol). Good sense of humor there. :D
Click to expand...

Hehe, exactly... I'm just yanking :D
 
bigbubba said:
So I'm a hopin' you didn't have any issues with the two guitars playing their own "leads" while the rhythm guitar is trying to keep the beat with the drums. :)
Click to expand...
No, man. I thought it sounded pretty cool. Sounds like you put a bunch of work into this. I enjoyed it.
 
Thanks guys.

Ok I have removed the pops and lowered the second soloing guitar by 1db. I know it's not much but it's a start. :) :D.

Any suggestions on the mix?

Here's a new link: (I've also updated the original post at the top. :))
http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.php?fid=1849

Another note: Some verses have the guitars more tightly played than the others. 'Coz the first verse was a proof of concept. Then came the second verse just to hear it more. Then came the interval 'coz repeating the same thing four times will eventually get to the listener. :) Then came the third verse which I liked so much with a different lead guitar tone that I went straight into the fourth verse with another take. So each verse (4 total) and the interval is a different take that appears in the mix. Each take on it's own took many takes to get the timing right (and it's still not anywhere close to where I'd like it). When you're sitting on the computer just clicking and thinking, you can't always jump and start playing on time. :) It takes me a while to get in the proper mood but then the hand is already cramping. So generally it's a miracle that I get a take that I keep. :) :D

I think it would be more fun just getting the band members in the recording booth and have another person man the DAW or the studio so you don't have to worry about about cueing up the whole thing again for another take thus taking you our of the "mood".

Anyhoo, thanks for the suggestions guys! :)
 
Hey bigbubba - just listened to the second version, and I can hear the differences on the left speaker- lower guitar. I listened with headphones this time and it was easier to hear all the different parts. This was a pretty busy piece and must have taken a while to put together. Smooth playing man...
I like the second version better..... :D BTW - did you buy a bass - I thought you were using a guitar before but now I hear a bass?
 
ido1957 said:
Hey bigbubba - just listened to the second version, and I can hear the differences on the left speaker- lower guitar. I listened with headphones this time and it was easier to hear all the different parts. This was a pretty busy piece and must have taken a while to put together. Smooth playing man...
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Thanks for the compliments. It's not as smooth as I'd like it. :) This piece actually took about 3 days. Mostly, once I have the proof of concept down, I play it so much that I get bored of hearing it and can't come back to it in the near future to complete it. Or it simply takes more than a month to put together the pieces. With this one, I forced myself to finish off all the verses, at least, before I got tired of it. I might come back in the future and add a solo. :)

ido1957 said:
I like the second version better..... :D BTW - did you buy a bass - I thought you were using a guitar before but now I hear a bass?
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I was using a guitar in the extremely cheap cover of "Everytime you go away" that I did. :)

Mostly I use Guitar Pro 4. It's a MIDI editor but the editor uses guitar strings instead of a piano roll. So I just load up a bass guitar (4 strings - standard tuning) and just pick one of the MIDI instruments and play the bass. Then I use ACID Pro 4 to do a MIDI-to-WAV dump and EQ it a little and off I go. :) I've also used FLStudio 4 qutie a bit. I've even used ReBirth a few times. :)

Guitar Pro alone has taught me a lot about music timing, playing in different times, and about how to write down the music exactly the same as I hum it, whistle it, or play on the guitar. Figuring out the intervals between notes used to be extremely hard but is getting easier with time. Surprisingly, it also helped in developing a good strumming ability on the guitar. Also helped in understanding the strumming patter in other songs that I hear. :) That's probably more than you asked for, but there it is. :)
 
SnakeDog5050 said:
Hey yeah, this sounds very good. I'm listening on headphones this time, so I'm hearing more of the panning with different guitars you did, something I missed on the loud speakers. Sounds all good, nice work ;) Keep it up Mr. Bubba.
Click to expand...
Thanks. Thinking about about joining the Christimas Challenge over at Llarion's. :)

So any comments on the mix, guys? Does the rhythm guitar sound full enough. I thought that was one instrument that didn't sound full or present enough.
 
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