Gerudo Valley Transcription - Rescuing a terrible acoustic guitar tone with IRs and dynamic EQ

[tommo]

Ok, had to do one for Gerudo Valley too, one of the best tracks from Ocarina of Time on the Nintendo 64

Was actually a nightmare to record due to my equipment + some issues that my acoustic has. The tone is not perfect but I did manage to improve it significantly compared to the original piezo DI (ewwwww) — see video below for the summary of the process.

Gerudo Valley Guitar Tabs (from Legend of Zelda - Ocarina of Time)

Rescuing an acoustic guitar tone in Reaper with free plugins | Acoustic IRs and TDR Nova dynamic EQ

Incidentally, this is a really fun tune to practice short scale fragments:

Gerudo Valley - from Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time

EDIT: one minute version of the tone explainer, for people in a rush

Rescuing an acoustic guitar tone - in under a minute! #acousticguitar #guitartone #musicproduction

[joebegly]

It sounds awesome! And the timing in your playing is SO good. The pick attack on all the harmonies is just perfectly syncedm It almost sounds like it was manually lined up, but I’m familiar enough with your work ethic in not cheating on your recordings, so I know better than that. Very well done! And the dynamic eq idea is very smart.

[tommo]

Haha thank you!

Well, I took the best of several takes for both parts, and they ended up lining up nicely.

Also, without the backing track it’s easier to hear that they are actually two separate parts not 100% in sync. When you mix it all together, the strongest transients come from the clapping hands and they tend to glue the guitar transients a bit more tightly!

PS: the clapping hands were actually me clapping my hands Also there I recorded for a while and then chopped up the segments where I was most “on the grid”, then looped them. Same for the rhythm guitars.

[Fossegrim]

@tommo

Also, without the backing track it’s easier to hear that they are actually two separate parts not 100% in sync. When you mix it all together, the strongest transients come from the clapping hands and they tend to glue the guitar transients a bit more tightly!

Same with a good rhythm section in general. They really are the unsung heroes, and never get the spotlight even though they are the glue. You also don’t want time stretched and quantized precision, otherwise you do miss out on some of the nice depth that does happen with slight and randomized misalignments.

Anyway I still have an N64 sitting by the tv, and that gold cartridge is around this place somewhere…

As if I don’t have enough distractions in life, but now after hearing this I have to play it! On the N64 of course, not the guitar. That would be too…productive.