Comment

Comment by Slowpaw Steve T on November 10, 2014 at 8:21pm

good song and sound mr V - keep 'em comin' ! :)

Comment by RTZGUITARS on November 10, 2014 at 6:44pm

3 Seconds in you killed the Tom Waits reference I had, but its a great tune shotgun attitude through a kazoo.   Great job on the vid too

 I was lazy and did write a song just for this,. but I did take the drum loops of my song to give it more a roots vibe. Once you record one of these instruments your compelled to use odd stuff percussion and build a bass and wind your own pickups and on and on.

Comment by Jim Morris on November 10, 2014 at 2:42pm

Great song and recording Vinylhed. After reading your recording process I've decided to stick to my Luddite philosophy of minimalism. That's really just my excuse for being too lazy to do stuff like this!

Comment by Vinylhed on November 10, 2014 at 2:32pm

...Or to be fair, I couldn't programme the percussion to keep in bloody time!

Comment by turtlehead on November 10, 2014 at 2:29pm

A-Ha! That's why it sounds so good! Actually playing the keys. Hmmm...

Comment by Vinylhed on November 10, 2014 at 1:54pm

Thanks Turtlehead, coming from you that's praise indeed.

I physically pressed the keys on my laptop to play the percussion, and I do think that can make it sound slightly more organic than the rigid metre of programmed sounds. 

Comment by turtlehead on November 10, 2014 at 1:26pm

This is a standout on an album of great original tunes.  I feel the same way about using the sampled drums, but I don't mind doing it on a tune with lots of tracks to hold everything together.  The trick is to make it inconspicuous in the mix and you have it dialed in perfect here.  I wouldn't have given the drums a second thought until you mentioned it. 

Great tune and a super mix!

Comment by Primitive Acoustics on November 10, 2014 at 12:43pm

Very cool! Thanks for explaining your process.

Comment by Vinylhed on November 10, 2014 at 12:08pm

Well, Tom, I recorded in a couple of ways using my Blue Yeti USB microphone.

There's quite a lot going on in this tune, and it uses 16 tracks on Mixcraft 6.

I firstly recorded my tin box electric guitar playing through my little Belcat 35w amp with reverb, using the metronome on Mixcraft to keep time and this became my base track. I then recorded my wine box classical guitar playing almost exactly the same thing in the same way through the amp with a little reverb. I recorded it again, but this time just playing acoustically. These I panned left and right.

I did the same thing with my Rocky Patel CBG playing the offbeat 'chunks', recorded twice, panned left and right and added some compression and reverb effect from Mixcraft this time.

The vocals I recorded three times, layered them and added compression and some effects to make each of them slightly different sounding. 

The musical saw was a one take thing, but I recorded the kazoo twice and blended the two takes together.

The percussion was done using the samples on Mixcraft, but in the future I really want to do my percussion myself as I feel slightly embarrassed to use samples when the rest of the tune is played on home made instruments. I might go the Tom Waits way and use all the pots and pans in the kitchen next time.

In summing up, it's the layering of sounds that really fills the track out. You might not be able to hear all the parts clearly, but the result being greater than the sum of its parts.

Sorry. I got a little carried away.

Comment by c# merle on November 10, 2014 at 9:02am

it's got an dark  threatening tone. very polished production and an excellent tune all round

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