Spread My wings by Oldrottenhead : old song revisited

[hooper]

Mr. Higgins, I've enjoyed working on this one. It's carefully written but your performance is simple, fresh and direct.  I've probably listened to it around a hundred times now... and I still like your song.

I added on:
Synth bass with auto-pan

Backing vocals- recorded using the M-BR as a channel strip (using on-board mic and signal processing) and recorded into Sonar.

Hi-strung guitar- recorded same way as the bgv's.

Mixed in Sonar and imported back into the BR for mastering and MP3 conversion.

Hope you like it!

[64Guitars]

Great job guys. Loved the background vocals and the ping-pong percussion.

One odd thing I noticed: The original mp3 that oldrottenhead posted plays fine with the site's mp3 player gadget, but hooper's mp3 doesn't. I had to download it and play it in Winamp. I couldn't find any reason for it. They're both 128kbit, 44100Hz Joint Stereo. I don't understand why one plays and the other doesn't. Maybe Pedro can figure it out.

[Oldrottenhead]

just out of bed listening now very todd/wilson background vox yeah. gonna put it on my mp3 player will let you know what ithink when i get home, guitarron is gonna stick some stuff.

[Oldrottenhead]

stuck it on my mp3 player listening whilst i have the prework superstrength coffee, love what you have done hooper, cant believe such subtle changes can affect a song so much.

[Oldrottenhead]

just back from work,

what can i say hooper, i just love what you have done, i think you have added lots of colour to the song by selecting where you placed your additions, love the

Hi-strung guitar- recorded same way as the bgv's.

sounds like a harpsichord or something beautiful. enlighten me re bgv's.

anyway as a contrast here is the earliest version i can find, was recorded round about 1988 or maybe even earlier, i had just bought an alesis hr16 drum machine which was just on the market so any historians can get a bit more specific on the dates. i originally wrote the song in 1983 just prior to getting divorced lol the things that inspire you eh.

[hooper]

Wow. Very interesting to hear the 'real' original!  Maybe that's partly why you are able to play and sing your current version so smooth and relaxed... because it's so familiar to you.  Anyway, again... IMHO a very nicely written song!


About the bgv's ?? (BackGroundVocals...
Four-part harmony with each part double-tracked. 
Once I got tuned up with you (had to tune up to 440 plus 4hz to match) I found it was possible to play along using regular chords.... Dmaj7, Gmaj7, Amaj7.  From there it was easy enough to find the harmony parts.  Just a little bit of a strain to hit some of the higher 'castrada falsetto' parts!

Re: Hi-strung guitar... So, do you know about Nashville Hi-Strung tuning?  Guess it's been around a long time but I just learned it a couple of years ago.  Imagine you take a 12-string guitar and then remove the 6 regular strings, leaving on the 6 higher strings and then play like that.  So, it's got a high, jangling sound.  I've got a beat-up old acoustic that I keep set up like that. Can be interesting sometimes to double-track a guitar part and pan the high-strung guitar and the regular guitar wide L/R.... sounds similar to a 12-string but actually records more clearly than a regular 12-string and doesn't seem to take up as much air space.




 

[Oldrottenhead]

lol i thought bgv's was a band i hadn't heard of. hehe

[hooper]

No..... that was the dB's 

[Oldrottenhead]

aye the decibels think we had a conversation about that recently.

SEEMS THE ALESIS WAS OUT IN 1987 SO MY TIMELINE IS ABOUT RIGHT.
oops cap locks sorry for shouting.

Just a little bit of a strain to hit some of the higher 'castrada falsetto' parts!

that high strung tuning gets yeah every time, the tighter the strings round your nuts the higher the pitch but too tight  and you lose your balls.

[Pedro]

Great job guys. Loved the background vocals and the ping-pong percussion.

One odd thing I noticed: The original mp3 that oldrottenhead posted plays fine with the site's mp3 player gadget, but hooper's mp3 doesn't. I had to download it and play it in Winamp. I couldn't find any reason for it. They're both 128kbit, 44100Hz Joint Stereo. I don't understand why one plays and the other doesn't. Maybe Pedro can figure it out.

Does it work now, can you play it normally? I can play it normally on Firefox 2.0.14. Maybe its just a temporary micro-glitch. 

Another great song by Jim and very interesting backing vocals by Hooper. This is an instant classic.