Guitar Solo recorded on Guitar Rig 4 with Live8 Instruments

[Joefro]

http://soundcloud.com/joe_fro/reggae-jam-4
Hi, this is my second track since getting Ableton and Komplete. Its a guitar solo inspired by Santana's Europa. Looking for any and all advice. Here is what was used to record the track:

Guitars: Jackson Kelly KE3 with Guitar Rig 4
MIDI Sequencer: Oxygen61
Drum track: AbletonLive drum kit
Bass track: AbletonLive bass instrument
Synth track: Absynth synth
Recorded through Apogee Duet

Thanks for listening!

[Joefro]

+1

[gjm]

Some things that came to mind when listening...

1. I thought it dragged.... might have been nice to ad 20-30bpm.
2. Drums are rhythmically to stiff... needs some 'groove/swing/something to make it more human, esp hihat.
3. The 2nd guitar part needs some more variety...
4. The synthy stringy sound thing was lost for the most part.
5. The bass also was lost and lacked some definition, espcially when trying to replicte that 3 or 4 piece band thing.
6. I thought your panning fields were to narrow.
7. Guitar sound was definitely evocative of Carlos Santana's sound, not sure if that is good or bad.
8. Seems like you had some wammy bar in there, sounded cool.
9. All n' all, a nice little jam piece with some potential, some nice guitar skills

[Joefro]

Thanks for the tips. The bass and drums are definitely very repetetive, they are only about 4 measures looping over and over. Drums were placed digitally in the clip, not played by hand so maybe I will try the ramdomizer effect for the first time. Hadn't tried anything with panning. How would I go about making it sound wider? Make two tracks, one way out left and the other way out right? I could space out the drums a bit too I suppose.


I'll see about adjusting the tempo, but I was worried about crunching real audio once it had been recorded (as opposed to midi) and thought it might affect the sound. Thanks again for your tips, just got all this stuff and trying it out!

[gjm]

How would I go about making it sound wider?

A basic way to start with panning is to imagine where the instruments are placed on an intimate stage and how your would hearing them. Use the pan effect to 'place' your instruments on that virtual stage. Imagine where you would like the sound to come from and adjust the panning controls to suit.

Pan control in Arrange view.



Pan control in Session view



All the best.