There were two blown notes in my video performance I had to basically punch in audio from my finished track, before reamping this - that bend, and then the very slight pause on an A, if I remember right, at 1:00. I actually meant to mention that in my post, but I forgot. So, thanks.
I ended up re-recording that section on the keeper take - the note it resolves to at 0:40, in the performance here that’s a G#, against an A chord, and then jumps two octaves to a G# I bend up to an A, I think, against a C#m. But, that felt too repetitive in the context of the solo and an A fit better anyway. I was just going to punch in that single note and the slide up to the next, but I thought the performance of the run itself leading into it was a hair nicer so I kept it all.
Liquid legato on an Ibanez always hits different. Perhaps is just the emotional connection to my teenage years listening to Satch and Vai all the time.
Really nice solo. I like that it adds a bit of the shreddy stuff without losing context of the melodic nature of the piece as a whole.
Thanks man! Yeah, the rest of the song is acoustic driven and pretty sparse, so it was a balancing act of wanting to add energy and complexity, but also not sound like a random blizzard of notes, as the demo with an improvised placeholder solo and the first several passes as I was trying to figure out WTF to play did.
I’ve gotten a little less into Vai over the years, his Zappa-esq weirdness is awesome, but just not really my thing… but I’m to this day still a huge Satch fan. I think he’s still my favorite player, and he really opened my eyes to what could be done with a guitar.
Figured I’d bump this thread and keep all my spam all together - I THINK I’ve finished mixing this album. You know the drill, you’re never REALLY done until its out of your hands and off for mastering/replicaiton and even then you’re going to be tempted to keep fiddling… but I finally, as I was making slight 1-1.5db volume automation moves in the overhead drum mics, and realized I might be jumping the shark, just gave myself a deadline to hit, a week to pass mixes around to a few more trusted ears, and then another few days to incorporate any changes, and here we are.
This is one of the songs - since I still have some graphic design stuff ahead of me (and I don’t know where to begin - my friend who was going to do it for me is jammed up and doesn’t have the bandwith) and probably won’t be immediately ready to release after I get this mastered, I’ll likly release a single or two first, and this probably won’t be one of them… but it’s a song I like and has enough different “moods” to it that it’s a pretty good testbed for mixes for the rest of the album.
Very little fast picking I’m afraid, though! But, I’d love to hear what you all think!
Thank you! This one was a lot of fun to write; the second “verse” melody is my Strat, bridge pickup, and a mix of close intervals (first, in E, F# and G#, 2nd and 3rd, on the B and E strings, before dropping to the open high E, then sliding up a position and G# on the B and A on the E, before again going to the open E, before the ending G#-A on the B string, and 12th fret high E) and ringing open notes, and that sort of bright edgy singlecoil tone, with those tight intervals of first a major and minor second ringing against each other, coupled with the open E string and some delay was a lot of fun. I think that’s where the genesis of this song came from, though the acoustic part (originally written on cleaned tone position 2 Strat) was probably the first part written.
The real trick was the second verse, when I’m juggling that theme, parts of the first theme, and trying to interject fills in there. Writing it wasn’t THAT bad since I was just punching stuff in qhile coming up with ideas… but actually tracking it and maintaining that really loose feel on the fills, that took a while before I felt like I was comfortable going back and forth between two very o-the-beat melody lines, and thay sort of behind the beat feel for th fill.
Recording is a pain in the neck, but it’s GREAT for finding things you need to get better at, and getting better at them!
