Rock Instrmental - Ay Oh - guitar symphony

[smili]

All, I recorded these guitar and bass loops on Ableton over the weekend to a hook that had been in my head for a couple weeks. Moved the loops to Acid for mixing.

Anyhow, I like how this turned out.
Click HERE to play
Click HERE to download

[vitamin-e]

I really like the way you went from a wild west acoustic feel progressively into a more rocky feel, and the electric guitar solo was pretty badass.

A+

[tlennon]

Different than what Live is used for. Thanks for sharing.

[smili]

thanks for the comments. they are appreciated. I partially posted because it is different from how Live is often used - but it's an excellent tool for building layers for songwriting.

I've posted in several places. going to clean up the mp3 conversion, make sure the intensity builds more before it gets to the chill part, and add a 2nd musical break with variation of a background chord progression. also need to work on the drums a bit to add some variation - currently they don't change. Oh, and also plan to re-record the jangly guitar part.

thanks again for the feedback.

[som]

Nice piece of guitar music, I like it, thanks...

[smili]

All - thanks for the comments this far.

Made some revisions to the song this weekend. Getting closer to final. I APPRECIATE YOUR COMMENTS - IT HELPS ME ADJUST THE MIX.
- Added a couple new parts to reduce repetitiveness. It's is loop based, but I don't want it to feel overly repetitive.
- Added what I think is a pretty cool section starting at about 3:40. Kindof a cool funk groove bass harmony thing going for a while and then
- breaks into an Allman brothers inspired 4 guitar harmony thing after that. I was grinning ear-to-ear when I started hearing this part.
- rerecorded acoustic guitars and added some parts.
- changed mp3 converter to get much better conversion. I'm not real good with my software, but I just found out I could render directly to mp3 and it sound considerably better now imho than the converter I was using previously.
- haven't messed with any variations on drums yet, but I'm hearing some hand claps that might be some of final touches.
- also hearing some harmonized vox and a vocal variation in one part, but I'm not a good singer so this will be harder for me.

Again - I appreciate feedback if you have time to listen and respond.

Here are the links from Unsigned Band Web:
Click HERE to play
Click HERE to download

After burning out pretty bad music is starting to get fun for me again.

[jamers]

Aaaaaay Ohhhh Aaaaaaay Ohhhhh........ way to bring it back for the end, man. sounds great, I'll be aay oh-ing in my head for days, thanks

[Neil Gard]

Hi mate, i really like you piece. like you say the drums dont change, but in the place where you have layered guitar, they dont need to!.
The constant rhythm they provide helps build the piece particularly in those areas. I also like your guitars tone very much. It reminds me of snowy white in thin lizzy. I admire the way you have not added a lot of reverb, sounds very clean and fresh.


Best.

Neil g

you can find my ableton work here http://www.youtube.com/officialneilgard

[UKRuss]

Got that wide Floyd style layering early on, liking that.

I like tha change through the piece as the guitar becomes more textured in the distortion...there is perhaps a bit too much repetition though...

The solo where the backing gets quieter is the best bit for me, but the guitar tone lacks bite and space. Needs a bit more work.

In terms of the mix, the low mids are far too muddy, the sharing of the bass elements in the bass guitar with the bass elements in the guitars is mud city! Each guitar really needs it's own space, some more really detailed EQing methinks.

I like the Lynyrd Skynrd style harmonies on the guitar later on, then when the guitars come back in they have much more space in the mix, this is better. The bass is still unclear and undefined to me though.

One final point, I get what you're doing with the guitar opera idea but it is simply unnecessarily long. 6mins??

Let's here a well structured, clearly mixed 3.40mins version and I'm all in.

Great idea though, hope the critique helps and sorry if it comes across wanky.

[smili]

I also like your guitars tone very much. It reminds me of snowy white in thin lizzy. I admire the way you have not added a lot of reverb, sounds very clean and fresh.

Thanks for comments. It's really a very basic setup. Yamaha HSS guitar >> Fulltone OCD pedal >> Blackheart Little Giant amp set at 3W >> Marshall 1965B 4x10 cab >> with an SM57 in front of it >> Mackie mixer. (in some cases the pedal is bypassed and on the cleaner tones it's just tube tone coming off the amp.)

There is currently nothing added to any recorded signal except EQ on boomy acoustic guitar tracks and a compressor on the master to control levels. This is not by design, but to a large degree due to my ignorance of mixing on a new platform. (I've had several comments about deficiencies in the bass area of the mix, so I think I need to get some EQ and compression going to work there too).

I do appreciate the comments.

[smili]

UKRuss - thanks for the detailed listened.

Don't know if I can get to 3:40, but I get where you're coming from.

Got that wide Floyd style layering early on, liking that.

I like tha change through the piece as the guitar becomes more textured in the distortion...there is perhaps a bit too much repetition though...

Repetition - Looking to find good parts to cut. I'm thinking some stuff in the first half of song will need to be slashed. For some reason I think the back end of the song comes together better than the front, although they're all using many of the same loops.

The solo where the backing gets quieter is the best bit for me, but the guitar tone lacks bite and space. Needs a bit more work.

hmmm.... thats one of my favorite parts of the song. can you elaborate on what you mean by bite/space? I just winged that bluesy solo part - not sure if I could get the same feel again.

In terms of the mix, the low mids are far too muddy, the sharing of the bass elements in the bass guitar with the bass elements in the guitars is mud city! Each guitar really needs it's own space, some more really detailed EQing methinks.

Thanks for comments in the low mids. In some places I've got 3 bass guitar parts going at the same time and I'll give that some attention. I may need to scrap the acoustic strum parts almost completely. They just don't sit well I don't think, even after re-recording and EQing boominess. These acoustic guitars just don't seem to like layering in general, especially in a mix this thick.

I like the Lynyrd Skynrd style harmonies on the guitar later on, then when the guitars come back in they have much more space in the mix, this is better. The bass is still unclear and undefined to me though.

I'll see what I can do there. This is helpful. Based on your comments I'm wondering if I've got a few too many parts going at once - there's probably 10-15 guitar lines going at one time in some places. The part you reference has 4 main line melodies, 1 rhythm part, and 1 acoustic going (with panning to help create space). I might need to cut some of the doubling back in other areas to get to similar "space" that you mention.

One final point, I get what you're doing with the guitar opera idea but it is simply unnecessarily long. 6mins??

Let's here a well structured, clearly mixed 3.40mins version and I'm all in.

Great idea though, hope the critique helps and sorry if it comes across wanky.

Yeah - I need to cut. 3:40 is probably too short for the number of parts, but shorter than 6 is doable. Thank you for the detailed comments!

[UKRuss]

OK, in my studio now and listening on monitors instead of phones.

Drums are lovely. Overly critical, you could make the kick slightly less boxy, that really is a splitting hairs comment though.

A suggestion: Cut the acoustic lead completely from the first 17 seconds and just run with the rhythm guitar, then when the harmonised electric leads coming in at 0.18, they'll have real impact. They sound great. Lovely tone.

The vocals sit great in the mix by the way, excellent.

From 0.18 to 2.08, essentiall everything stays the same, you could cut a whole minute out there. Into the first solo which plays over the full backing, lovely switch, really adds something.

OK, no we're into the quiet backing with the next part of the solo.

here's my detailed comment on the bite and space.

OK, it sounds a lot better on these monitors than it did in the phones. I think my feeling in the phones listen was that the guitar was to up front in the mix leading me to think it needed some kind of reverb, but you know what i think would work well, now, a really short delay to give it some space like you might use on vocals. Simple Delay with say a 120ms delay on the right hand side and a 90ms delay on the other with a 20% feedback and say 50% in the mix? Something like that.

Here through the monitors the tone sounds great, but I'd like to hear a more unique (to the track) tone, maybe all right up on the neck PU with the tone rolled off slightly, but understood if you don't want to re-recrod.

From 3.07, those harmonics could do with being pinged off with a delay and panned nicely as the delay runs, maybe a ping pong?

The note that rings out at 3.14 and again at 3.22 and 3.31 is your rogue frequency by the way, master EQ that out and you will get rid of that boom around those freqs.

4.02 onwards is my favourite bit! Love those layered harmonies! YEAH!!! Extend it!!!

Lovely again at 4.55 onwards back to the main hook.

And to lose a bit more time you can start to fade out from 5.45 or cut there and go straight to your vox and harmonics ending.

Damn I wish i was mixing this for you on a nice big desk!

OK, finally on the bass, here's a couple of things to try. They might work they might not...

cut a litte at 200-300hz for definition and a slight boost at 2.5 - 5khz for some attack.

If you add anything to the kick, cut it from the bass.

on the acoustic guitar, find that rogue frequency and notch it out. Roll it all off below say 80hz as well, see how that goes?

[thomoim]

well done, just like others I lokie the way you brought that acoustic guitar

[UKRuss]

So desperate am I to mix your track, I made my own and mixed it using the tips I suggested to you, there's some ping pong on the harmonics at the beginning and a short delay on the lead solo.

I can sum up all the EQing for the drums, bass and guitars I did if it is the sound you are after. I'm quite pleased with this mix, OK, there is alsways something that can be tweaked but, as it isn't mastered, I think it sounds OK.

Let me know if it was what you were aiming for and I can talk you through the mix elements. There are three riddim giutars, one bass, one lead and drums.

Russ Mix Demo

[never]

Already downloaded! Thanks for sharing nice track