Escaping Nero

[sgulley]

John might have classified this classic-style song as "Strange Days Indeed." (or maybe not). This is a bit different, and it kinda fits our society's helpless feelings during the harder times.


www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=221925&songID=7685055

[chrisr]

Stan, this song and recording have a “je ne sais quoi” that makes me like it.

Strange, cause this is absolutely much too avant garde style for me, usually.

Let’s see :
• the drums is OK, simple and straight forward
• there’s vocals dubbing in the right places : very good
• the bass is a bit all over the place, but adds to the strangeness of the recording
• rhythm guitar is very OK ; vintage Strat (a perfectly good guitar, as Leo Fender said)
• lead/solo guitar : typically Stan Gulley
• lyrics : yeah, I like them
• ending of the song : again, typically Stan
• the melody : Bob Zimmerman wouldn’t do better

All this recorded kinda “push the button and let’s just put it on tape, boys”, which gives it an intriguing naturalness.

To put it bluntly : make me do this, and it would be ruined, made into something far too complicated, soulless and very common. Let you do it, and it has that ah…”something” that we should find a name for. Stanleyness, maybe ?

Some may not like it, but to me, this is good work, Stan !

Chris

[sgulley]

Chris,
Thanks for your evaluation. I agree that the bass was kind of slopped together (could be entirely pulled away in parts) and is worth while to redo and maybe bring up a little.

The drums were a simple 2488 rock pattern slowed down to an 80 tempo, which usually makes things a little harder to line up.

Thanks again for listening...
I hope you are recuping OK.

[chrisr]

Jun 8, 2009 21:20:06 GMT sgulley said:

......I hope you are recuping OK.

Thanks, Stan. A little better each day ; gonna be fine in a couple of weeks.

Chris

[Tom]

A good effort Stan. Nice song. I think vocals are especially good, and the guitars sound nice as well. The bass may indeed ramble around a bit, but that would seem to be appropriate for the song.

Just curious -- what do you mean by "usually makes things a little harder to line up".

Regards,
Tom

[sgulley]

Tempo of 80 is slow so any track that isn't following almost perfectly will get exposed in the mix quickly. Faster tempos seem to be more forgiving on the timing accuracy (for me anyway)

Thanks for listening Tom.

[sgulley]

I went back today and tighened the bass track to make it more pronounced (which wasn't that easy for me). There's quite a bit of sound and more dynamic range to manage now so I hope my EQs balance.

[mcarp555]

Oddly enough, the volume of the drums drop perceptibly at 1:20 in. This was a problem with the last one as well. The guitar takes a short dip at 2:40 as well.

I like the extended V chord at the end of each verse; it makes the transition back to the I chord much more interesting. The song overall has that Neil Young sound (think of a slow 'Ohio'). The ending is at least better than just chugging along until an arbitrary stopping point. It's not an earthshaking track, but it strikes a mood, and is obviously recorded in a confident manner. A solid piece of work.

[sgulley]

I added a simple synth track with my new MIDI controller which shows the limitation of my use of the keys. Still, after dropping out the distored guitar off the left side and replacing it with the sync it seemed to be a much more transparent mix. Distored guitars take up so much space in the middle that it's hard to get everything else sitting right.

I'd like to know what you guys think.

[Tom]

Hi Stan,

You have the synth voice pretty far back in the mix, perhaps intentionally, so I can't comment much on that. I didn't save the earlier mix without the synth, but working from memory I think this one sounds a little nicer.

Tom

[sgulley]

Thanks Tom for listening again.

Even if I knew how to play this thing (which I don't) I'd probably keep the synth down at a low or medium level. So you hit it on the head, it is down for a reason but at least detectable.

One thing it did seem to do was bring everything out a little more (maybe some reinforcement in various parts if that make sense.)

[Tom]

Stan,

I think reinforcement is a good way to put it. The main ingredients of your songs -- guitars and vocals -- may remain classic Stan, but having keys and other instrument voices can be used to do just what you say.

Tom

[mcarp555]

The mix seems better overall than I remember. Transparent, perhaps. The synth is exciting when it pokes in and out; it sounds a bit 80's when you can hear it properly, but as a first tentative step it's headed in the right direction.

[sgulley]

Thanks for the encouragement! Unfortuately I'll be out of town this weekend so no playing.

I'll try to give my self a little time to practice and then try again later, and then I'll feel more confident about making it more distinct (probably use the same patch)

2 mistakes last night: the midi metronome kicked off at tempo 120 and I was playing at 80, and 2) I forgot I already had some midi data on the track that I recorded on top off..... ooops.

[sgulley]

OK I promise this will be the last time I'll bug everyone with this song but it's good to experiment with for the synth sounds.

I finally worked out a synth that mixed fairly well with this and just wanted to share. It's the same notes that I originally played that were not coming through, but they are definitely more apparent now.

I think it changed mood and complexity of the mix.

Fun stuff, but I think I'm driving everyone and myself crazy with this MIDI controller.