Recording - New song idea (JP2C)

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Thaymz

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Apr 20, 2016
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Hi All

Recently I took a couple weeks off work and one of the things on my to do list was to try to write a quick song.

A little bit of background about me. I'm in my early 30s and used to be in a thrash heavy metal band in my late teens / early 20s for about 4-5yrs. We were not musically trained in theory but am pretty proud of the music we wrote. Heavily influenced by Metallica. Then for about 8 years I didn't really play all that much (maybe once a fortnight at best) because I didn't really have the gear to make it enjoyable. Over the past few years I've gone on a tone quest that has led me to my current setup. My first personal projects was to re-record some of my old bands work and then also try to write new material. Through this I've come to realise how difficult it is to write music on my own and how reliant I was on the band (mainly the other guitarist / co-writer) for feedback. This includes both positive and negative feedback on riff ideas, compositions etc and I now have a deeper appreciation for band dynamics and how much it contributes to the creative process and how much the output is impacted by the personalities in the group.

So, over my time off (and having recently been forced to upgrade to Logic Pro X with High Sierra) I set myself a goal to write a basic quick song in a short amount of time using the new software. The new arrangement marker function has been great for this and for anyone that uses logic and hasn’t tried this yet, I highly recommend it.

I put together a couple basic riffs over a couple of days and wanted to get some feedback on the song. Note: the harmony and solo are just placeholders to see if they fit into those areas with those backing riffs. Also, I'm generally pretty ordinary with vocal melodies so I've overlaid some guitars to represent the general gist of the vocal parts.

https://soundcloud.com/user-946024871/180714-thaymz-song-idea-old-harmony-with-vocal-melody/s-BF6KY

It's still very much a work in progress and I particularly like the drum rhythm and the overall rhythm up (until the harmony solo bit). On my to fix list are the transitions into the harmony, the leads (harmony / solo), mixing of leads, and transition into the outro. Notwithstanding those changes, wanted to get your views on guitar tone, general recorded sound, composition, overall melody, feel, recording mix or anything else that you may pick up as listeners.

Signal chain:
- Ibanez Jem
- JP2C
- Axe FX II for Delay and Wah on solo only)
- Torpedo Reload
- My Custom IR (2x12 Vertical Mesa Recto into SM57) - For whatever reason this IR is fairly bass heavy and can sound airy in some riffs
- Apogee Quartet
- Logic Pro X
- Superior Drummer for drums

Keen to hear your thoughts... the good the bad and the ugly.
 
Love the sound you are getting with the JP-2C. Definitely the palm muted chugger amp for those who love palm muting riffs. Nice and tight. Sounds like I am in the room with the amp. Great capture of the JP for sure. The guitar tracks are great. Nice composition. Not so much in desire of the drums as they sort of sound synthetic. One of the reasons I got an acoustic drum kit as I found my Roland TD-15Kv was not as natural sounding but it did a good job at simulating the real deal. I can get past the synthetic drum tone though. Liked your quick song. Loved the guitar tracks as I said. Overall, great composition. I would work on the drum parts to see if you can get a slight bit of resonance going, probably more to so with the accent parts of the kit and the snare section more so than the kick drum parts. I have not used a DAW program or plug-ins. I do know how difficult it is to get everything to be precise. Excellent job on synchronizing the instruments. I like doing it the hard way, and drumming is a fun activity to figure out, much easier with an e-drums kit than an acoustic set. Bass, that is also different but have manages with my limited skills. One thing I can state if you learn to play the other instruments, it helps you get an idea how the other instruments will take part in the composition, or is it even humanly possible to do it in a live setting. Sometimes I think most of you that have this amazing stuff are not even human, or would that be the other way around? :roll: How did you manage to share a private recording is the big question as I have tried that before but nobody could hear it but me. Thanks for sharing. Always great to hear other compositions created by others. Great job.
 
bandit2013 said:
Love the sound you are getting with the JP-2C. Definitely the palm muted chugger amp for those who love palm muting riffs. Nice and tight. Sounds like I am in the room with the amp. Great capture of the JP for sure. The guitar tracks are great. Nice composition. Not so much in desire of the drums as they sort of sound synthetic. One of the reasons I got an acoustic drum kit as I found my Roland TD-15Kv was not as natural sounding but it did a good job at simulating the real deal. I can get past the synthetic drum tone though. Liked your quick song. Loved the guitar tracks as I said. Overall, great composition. I would work on the drum parts to see if you can get a slight bit of resonance going, probably more to so with the accent parts of the kit and the snare section more so than the kick drum parts. I have not used a DAW program or plug-ins. I do know how difficult it is to get everything to be precise. Excellent job on synchronizing the instruments. I like doing it the hard way, and drumming is a fun activity to figure out, much easier with an e-drums kit than an acoustic set. Bass, that is also different but have manages with my limited skills. One thing I can state if you learn to play the other instruments, it helps you get an idea how the other instruments will take part in the composition, or is it even humanly possible to do it in a live setting. Sometimes I think most of you that have this amazing stuff are not even human, or would that be the other way around? :roll: How did you manage to share a private recording is the big question as I have tried that before but nobody could hear it but me. Thanks for sharing. Always great to hear other compositions created by others. Great job.

Thanks for the feedback Bandit. No doubt I'll keep tweaking it for months until happy with it. As I'm not musically trained this tends to take longer as I often have to rely on trial and error rather than targeted writing.

As for the drum sound, at least for this track specifically, I took out any of the humanise function in the plug in. I found this to be an unreliable feature when sometimes the velocity (hardness of drum hit) changes so slightly but the impacts the sound so much that it sounds like a mistake. So in this case I took power and consistency over realism. I can drum and do love it so would love to get a kit one day but my room is far too small. Maybe some day.

As for soundcloud and sharing I just hit the private share button and included the link.

Were you able to see any of my other uploaded tracks?
 
I tried clicking on your user name in soundcloud, no I could not see any other tracks. You are completely hidden.

I was not trying to be hard on you, I love the composition. Nice and aggressive. The drumming is almost too perfect which lends itself to being synthetic. Nothing wrong with what you did, I would be very proud if my stuff came out as good. If you had a means to make some mods to the drum track, maybe add some ambience to some of the toms and snare might liven up the drum sound and make it less sterile. Guitar parts are awesome. :shock: So far, my projects have never turned out as expected. Perhaps I lack the patience required or skill to actually play the guitar. Still it is fun for me regardless of the outcome.

My sound cloud stuff is more off beat, meaning the drums and other parts are out of sync as it is all related to human error. Mostly one-offs without any practice except for parts I did over as I mess up. I am getting much better at playing the drums but should practice more than I do. As it seems I only play them when I am trying to compose a piece off of an idea or per say a new effect that just sounds great. When I started the multi track stuff I used a Boss GT100 for the amp parts. I only have two projects where I used a Mesa amp. I re did one with a live drum kit vs the electronic drum kit. Learned a few things about mic-ing drums, what to do and not to do. Finally got a Focusrite 8 channel preamp with compressors for each channel so I can isolate the Dynamic mics from the phantom power as my mixer hits all mic channels with it when you need it for condenser mics. I will be working on another project sooner or later once I figure out what it is. I have been wasting time making comparative videos of this amp vs that as an exercise to get used to some new gear. Here is something I have done that does not compare to your project. Lots of error and lack of focus. Probably too long or just repetitive. Odd that I do actually listen to most of my tracks. I have one called "dream of no tomorrow" that I copied to a CD and repeated to fill the disc. Call it meditation as I try to pick out one instrument and try to listen to that only. The main melody was done on a 6 string bass just playing harmonics off of the strings. I have several recordings where I have more than one bass track. This one was done with the Mark V and using an attenuator so I can push the limits on the amp. Turned out ok. not perfect but parts are good and some are just lame. Hard to believe I did this 2 years ago. Last recording I did except for the repeat on the Roadster with live drums.

https://soundcloud.com/user-353100000/tempted01wav
 

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