Further Fodder....

[indierik]

Hello again,

This is a song Gabriel and I have been working on for our band Bolder Park. Gabriel sent me the original idea which was a stripped down version without any guitars, just vocals and a very cool and inspiring drum beat. I loved it, so he asked me to write guitar for it and this is what I came up with. I have actually never done this before, written guitars for someone else's song. I found a drum beat on the micro BR that was most similar to what he had created (we encounter some technical problems from time to time as he is a mac user (Garage band) and I a PC..and a MBR) and went from there. Perhaps I got a little carried away, but I certainly changed the feel of the song. I really got into it and therefore became attached to what I had written and wanted to use it, but it threw off his vocal melody and has since as been tossed aside, for future use, I hope.

Oh, and I was feeling rather ambitious and decided to write a bassline for this as well.

[BAG]

I'd really like to hear this with some decent vocals.

Reminds me a bit in places of Lou Reed. As he said, "two guitars a bass and drums.... what more do you need"

[OsCKilO]

Stunning Guitars!

Great feel to them!

Vocals would take this track to another level!

Great tune!

Peace

T(Osckilo)

[indierik]

Thanks Osckilo! Vocals would do this piece some justice for sure as it was written with vocals in mind. I'll keep you posted. 

[Ferryman]

Sounds great - you are getting a really strong guitar sound here, recorded really well. As always, the different guitar parts play well off each other and there's great potential for this once it's got vocals on it.

Cheers,

Nigel

[Bosko Schwartz]

Damn, man, I still can't believe you just started out in music recently.  This is sensational!  I love the layered guitars!  I love the SOUND of the guitars!  Vox will flesh this one out, but it's so good as it is!  Sounds a little different from your other stuff.  I don't hear the new wave influence as much.  More straight-up rock, but definitely awesome!

A couple of minor notes on the mix -- it sounds like the guitar panned left is clipping.  The bass also should be louder, but that's just my opinion.  Good to hear a song of yours with bass on it!

Another great indierik/Bolder Park song!

[AndyR]

I'm really getting into your guitar playing

I can hear the clipping Bosko's talking about as well (my sennheisers are plugged into the laptop at the moment!). I'm finding I have to really watch what I'm doing on the MBR - it's easier to control clipping than on my computer set up, so it lulls me into a false sense of security. But it seems you can get just slight clipping that you don't notice in the heat of the moment, especially when the drum track is running... then it comes and bites you in the *rse when you're mixing

EDIT: Forgot to say - another great inventive piece

[indierik]

Damn, man, I still can't believe you just started out in music recently.  This is sensational!  I love the layered guitars!  I love the SOUND of the guitars!  Vox will flesh this one out, but it's so good as it is!  Sounds a little different from your other stuff.  I don't hear the new wave influence as much.  More straight-up rock, but definitely awesome!

A couple of minor notes on the mix -- it sounds like the guitar panned left is clipping.  The bass also should be louder, but that's just my opinion.  Good to hear a song of yours with bass on it!

Another great indierik/Bolder Park song!

Wow, thanks BOSKO and AndyR! I didn't have much of a response from this one after i posted it, so I just assumed people didn't care for it. If only the original lyrics worked with it (read above).

So here's where I get a little embarrassed and reveal the moister behind my ears; what is "clipping"? I can only assume it's when the guitar has been recorded too loud in some places. 

As for the bass, this is only the second song I've ever recorded bass for, or even tried to write bass for, I'm not very good at it and therefore have some insecure with my bass skills, which is why it's not loud enough.

Thank you for the pointers, seriously!!!! I have a lot to learn and want to keep learning and sometimes we so quick to pay compliments on this site, which...believe me is great, but sometimes a little constructive criticism goes a long way.

Again thanks!

[joseph]

This is great indierik, I like the feel of it and your bass playing sounds good to me!

It's a shame it had to be tossed aside for now, thanks for sharing it with us.

[AndyR]

So here's where I get a little embarrassed and reveal the moister behind my ears; what is "clipping"? I can only assume it's when the guitar has been recorded too loud in some places. 

Yep, that's right. It's called "clipping" because the tops of the waveforms are clipped producing jagged edges that sound like distortion. With digital recording it shows up as extra clicks, fizzyness, etc that you didn't record.

Imagine the notes going through the ceiling of how loud you can record - they're literally cut off by the ceiling and the flat bit with it's jagged edges is the slight fizzy-crackle you can hear.

A compressor enables you to "squash" these same notes down so that they don't reach the ceiling and get cut off. The trick is to get the performance as loud as possible without going throught the ceiling and without sounding too squashed.

Unfortunately, once it's gone through the ceiling, that's it - if it the clipping is on the original guitar part you can't get rid of it.

I try to record my guitars safely below the ceiling, with no clipping, knowing that I'm going to process them afterwards during a bounce. This way, if I add clipping when I'm trying to make it as loud as possible - at least I've still got the original performace I can go back to.

I still mess it up - but unless I don't spot it, you don't hear those 

- I just go "AA**GGG**HH!" and record it again.  

(Actually, I have posted something with clipping on - but it's a work in progress whose guitars I'm about to replace anyway, so I wasn't too worried)