Jimi/SRV style ballad unaccompanied intro for a song I'm working on

General Music Discussion Songwriting
#1

I’m in the middle of recording an album (all the various rhythm/accompaniment tracks are done, I’m just starting melodies and leads) and have been trying to film bits and pieces of it and kind of blog about the recording process on my site while I work, in part for accountability to keep me on task and in part because a few other sites I’m active on have recording forums and some of the behind-the-scenes stuff could be valuable for some of the other members.

I haven’t been posting about it here since there isn’t really the same sort of recording process focus, but now that I’m moving on to melodies and solos and whatnot I might share the occasional snippet or two.

This is the intro to one of my songs, a soft Jimi/SRV sort of ballad, and while there’s nothing particularly CtC-focused in here, it took me a long time to figure out how to capture the vibe I was seeing in my head and I’m proud of this composition. There’s still an off chance I might re-record this at some point but for now this is the take that’ll be on the album, and while the tone isn’t final (I have a 9mo old daughter at home and work mostly during her naptimes on the weekends, so I’m DI and reamping everything), this is a scratch reamp through my Mark V and I’m really happy with the tone, too - this is an ash Strat with a set of Suhr V60LPs in it, and while for most things I prefer their ML Standards, this has a darker, woodier tone with still a good amount of high end sparkle.

Idunno. I’m excited to be working on music again, and I wanted to share a snippet of it. :+1:

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#2

Drew, you’re hitting 10NPS here, MAX, on the chord strums. Absolutely unacceptable, rookie numbers. Pump those numbers up.

Just kidding, I really like your tone and playing here! Sounds great.

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#3

Nothing’s set in stone until I finish recording, but there’s likely to be a Gilbert 6s run in the main solo of this where I get the note count up a little, so never you fear! :laughing:

#4

Just because you CAN play fast doesn’t mean that you SHOULD. :laughing:

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#5

Joke’s on you for mistaking me for someone who can play fast! :rofl:

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#6

Beautiful tones there @Drew

What’s the cab and how are you miking it. Any post processing? I really like it.

I’m back to an SRV mode atm, nice to hear something like this here.

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#7

Thanks man! The Cab is a Rectifier 4x12, and I’ve got a sm57 and a MD421 on one speakwer, each about an inch off the grill. Dial in the sm57 to sound as good as I can get it on its own, generlly right at the edge od the dust cap, then move the MD421 around to get a darker, deeper tone, then pull them both up together set at about unity and throw one out of phase with the other, then fine-tune the MD421 to sound as bad as humanly possible, then flip back in phase and it should sound great.

No post processing beyond some delay and reverb, and honestly I might have a compressor on the bass but that might just be the raw track there as well. The Drums are a Superior 3 preset, '91, which I assume is their take on the “Nevermind” drum sound, but I’ll takle that from scratch after I finish tracking.

The guitar tones/mix were still pretty quick and dirty, I just wanted something better than the LePou Lecto VST I throw on the DIs while working just to make it sound like a guitar. :rofl:

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#8

Fast? Compared to what? :thinking:

Well, you might not be up to Rusty Cooley or John Taylor speeds just yet, but I’m sure that you’re faster than many artists on the enclosed list. As much as I love people that are fast, to earn my true love artists have to serve the song, and sometimes that means no face-melting arpeggios! I trust you to have the self-discipline to play “appropriately” for your upcoming ballad. Good luck, go get 'em!

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#9

That’s so interesting, you have the second mic out to phase physically then you invert it! I have to try this, I too use an SM57 on the edge.

I’ve been running my reverbs in post via my monitors, for recording that probably the way to go, do you think I should get a good reverb for the loop in my amp? Would it sound tighter, though I’m not sure how that will pan out recording a wet mono signal! I’ haven’t pulled the trigger but been thinking about the golden reverberator. I’m using the lexicon 244 plugin with their plate and roland echo machine thing, all form UA spark in logic. Though I’m only using the plate these days with SRV.

That track is lovely, you should finish it, take a somewhere, it’s got potential.

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#10

Tone is sooooo good :fire:

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#11

Your trust is probably misplaced. :rofl: I will say, though, that it’s in the context of a very on/off dynamic - asolid 90% of the song is mellow clean toned, and then there’s an 8-bar higher intensity lead break. Mostly big bluesy overbends, a la “Life Without You,” but then a fast legato run and an ascending picked run to a bluest bend. I’m having a hell of a time getting. take for this section I’m happy wth though, so I suppose its possible I could change at the last second…

@Twangsta - it’s worth a shot, it’s certainly the easiest way to get a solid tone out of two mics, though you lose the possibility to use phase cancellation creatively as like a free EQ on the way in. And yeah, this is one of 8 tracks I’m halfway through recordin.

@jptk - thanks! It’s a great sounding amp, and the Suhr V60LPs I have in this guitar are an awesome sounding set of very “classic” sounding singlecoils. I like th eML Standards a hair more for the most part, but for bluesier stuff these are just magic.

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#12

By the way, I took advantage of my lunch break today to overdub a cranked-amp blast of feedback on the final note of the lead break (I’m reamping everything, so I have some flexibility with stuff like that), and then did quick reamps of the clean and lead parts. Here’s what it all sounds like in context - there’s certainly an aegument to be made that the two bars of shred at the end of an 8 bar lead break are NOT serving the song, but… eh, part of what you want to accomplish in a song and an arrangement is speak to who you are as a player, and for better or for worse Kurt Cobain was the reason I picked up a guitar, so that sort of on/off dynamic is part of me.

Shot some alternate take video afterwards too, this is a different performance than the one in the mp3 above, but still a pretty good take:

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#13

Ditto from me, sir! This sounds incredible. Keep us posted as the tracks progress. BTW as the proud owner of a 9mo also, my heart goes out to you. Babies are a young man’s game. Guys in their 40’s like us… :sob:

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#14

Oh shit, you two? May I offer you both my sincerest congratulations, and deepest condolences. :rofl: This is definitely a young person’s game, although to be fair I can way better afford to throw money at the problem in my 40s than I would have been in my 20s.

I figured that fatherhood wasn’t for me, but it was critical for my wife, and indirectly the fact that I was sick all winter and couldn’t train much on my bike was one of the impetuses for me picking up the guitar and trying to finish writing all the songs that will become this album…

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#15

:100:

That is true, good call. Let’s take all the wins we can hear. Don’t need to add financial stress to the mix lol!

I’ve also got a 9 year old so I thought I knew what I was in for. But I did not. This stuff is just different being almost a decade older than last time. And of course, the wife gets it even worse.

But yeah, still, best thing ever of course. Congrats to you. I’m glad you’re finding the time to play still. I get to in bits and pieces but it’s rough to be able to dedicate solid chunks of time to the ol’ geetar.

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#16

Nice, I like the mp3 take, that bit when you get on the gain, for such bits I’ve started to really appreciate a clean boost, it keeps that open tone but adds the cream and fire, that thing that strats do, that SRV made famous, I think he would use his TS as a boost, at least that what I hear. Good stuff, I really thought it had some great moments, enough to may do a collab jab on parts, was fun to play along it.

I think I should blame you for me ordering a custom handbuilt super reverb. I was almost there with my SRV revival, your OP took me over the fence :slight_smile:

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#17

In some ways it’s helped - I’m also a pretty serious cyclist and a lot of the fact I’m working on this album now is because first my indoor trainer (basically, a resistance unit for a road bike) died and it took a couple months to get a warranty replacement to me, and then I was too sick to ride, so I used all my free time to write music this winter. And, especially since Im recording eveyrthing with DI tracks for now and I’ll reamp when I’m done, I’ve been able to get a lot of work done during naptime. My daughter is 9 months though so naps are getting fewer… but I’m two tracks in to leads, and I’m hopeful even with my recording time limited to lunch breaks on work from home days (I’ve tried after work on days I’m in the office and it may be the 20 mile round trip bike ride but I’ve just been too tired and it impacts my playing) and weekends, I can keep up a pace of at LEAST one track a week which would have me done before July, with luck.

Still, congrats to you and your wife, and it’s nice to know we’re not alone here. :slight_smile:

It’s supposed to be a very sparse, open, kinda ambient piece at the end of a more conventional shred album, so all that space is very intentional… but by all means, feel free to jam on it. :rofl: I actually ended up recutting parts of this after I shared it since there were a few esections that didn’t feel perfectly in the pocket to me, but I think I’m at a pretty good place now. And, the nice thing about recording is, it’s VERY good practice for playing tightly; it took me a long time to get performances I was happy with, but then as I was going back and finding things that didn’t sound quite right, it would only take a couple takes to do it better. I think my playing has already gotten a lot tighter here. :rofl:

And congrats on the new amp!

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