"Have a Nice Visit" - Original by Ted

[Ted]

Have a Nice Visit

©2025 Ted Johnson

Ted: Lood Guitar, Guitar Synthesizer, Bass, Vocals, Drum Sequencing
Recorded on Micro BR
Vocal Effects, Trimmed, and High-Pass Filter in Audacity

[Verse 1]
To any voyager
To any scavenger
To any beachcomber
With a metal detector
To whom it may concern
To whoever finds these words.

[Verse 2]
Now you've deciphered this
Know this
It was no accident
No cosmic freak event
No one-in-a-billion stroke of bad luck
What transpired here.

[Bridge]
If you're a curious creature
You might try to piece together
From shards and the cinders
A plausible story.
Let me save you the time.

[Verse 3]
Yes, we loved our lives,
As any complex species does.
And that might be perplexing
As it was to us.
But we knew what we were doing the whole time.
And we did it anyway.

Anyway,
Have a nice visit.
(We did it)

I tried to be spontaneous with this – like my heroes Trevor, ORH, Stephen, Kenny, and others. But it still took me about 3 weeks to kick this out, stealing a few minutes at a time.

My most recent songs are new recordings, but they are songs that I wrote a long time ago. This is the first new song I've written in a long time.

[AndyR]

Cool.

Paints a very bleak picture... and then I realised it's meant to.

Powerful stuff.

[kenny mac]

I love your vocal on this.
It's a suprise When it springs to life.
Very atmospheric.
Probably one of my favourites from you Ted.
That single instrument at the start sets the song off nicely for lift off.
Excellent

[StephenM]

way cool Ted...

it bores holes into me.

it's good that it took some time... like a great pot of stew, longer cooking and then setting for a while brings the flavors out more.

I love the guitar sounds... they are so beautiful and the reverb you use or delay is energizing.
yeah man... this is ground control to major tom kind of stuff

brrrrrrrbrrrbrrrrrbrrrrrrbrrrr
and the bass sounds great too... but I really like your voice on this...
had a nice visit here.

starrider kind of stuff.... loving it

[StephenM]

would you explain the trim and high pass filter you are talking about?

I know about the filters in Audacity... they work good.... did you filter the whole track?

[DarrenG / The Devil's Toupee]

I love this, really good song, it's great the way it all builds up. And the lyrics are good. Those effects are cool, that squelchy guitar fx is nice. love the  bass lines.

[Farrell Jackson]

The first thing that hits me is how good your vocals are, Ted...nice! I like the way the song slowly builds into a full blown production. The drums and bass are perfect. A great song and mix!

[thetworegs]

That intro makes me want to go and mess with my echo pedal really sets the vibe when the bass steps in. Excellent vocal

[Ray Brookes]

This is one of those songs that hook you in from the start, just with those single notes on the guitar. Such a well crafted song and very nicely performed both instrumentally & vocally.

[Ted]

would you explain the trim and high pass filter you are talking about?

I know about the filters in Audacity... they work good.... did you filter the whole track?

Re. Trimming: I just lop off the beginning and end of the sound file – the 2 to 4 measures before the song actually begins, and after it's over. I also frequently use the "Fade Out" effect or the "Studio Fade Out" effect in Audacity.

Re. High-Pass Filters: Yes, I filtered the whole track. A couple of years ago I became obsessed with infrasonic frequencies. I thought there was some kind of low-frequency hum in my house that was bleeding into my songs. I also learned that, although humans can't hear these frequencies, there (a) can be a net harmonic effect and (b) those frequencies still sap power from speakers and can cause distortion and other unwanted effects. It's practically a superstition at this point, but I always master in the Micro BR, and then run a HPF on the entire track in Audacity. I don't even A/B test with my ears. I just do it.

makes me want to go and mess with my echo pedal

In recent years I bought two cheap echo pedals: a Mooer Echoverb, and a Donner Echo Square. I was goofing around using both at once with my stereo chorus – one echo on the left, the other on the right. I came up with that single-note phrase which reminded me of Blade Runner. I saved it in my music sketches with the name "Blade Runny Nose."

I appreciate the comments on the vocal performance. I'm never happy with my vocals, but I remember the wise words of AndyR: (Paraphrasing) "Don't use your real voice. Use a cheesy parody of a rock star voice." And that's kind of what I was doing here.

What AndyR actually said:

Ted mentioned using a silly rockstar voice for a scratch vocal - and he got a better performance. THIS! It's this.