No tips no tricks

[JohnHurley]

Here is a second take I did just now on the song "The Weight" I did my first recording of it with about 10 minutes of practice on it. For that one I didnt know the riff intro part so I just left it out.

Yesterday I did a little more work on the song and the riff came back to me. Its a simple walk down of some kind might be following some kind of major or minor scale down maybe?

Anyhow I now probably have about 90 minutes in playing the song this week. I did my second recording of it just now it seems more better and starting to sound almost ready to throw out live somewhere soon.

I am sure it could be a lot better if I spent several more hours on it but to me its about 80 percent there and thats good enough for me.

The Weight try2 ==> Second cut on the weight

 

[MikeS]

Pros should not be answering this question

If I considered myself a pro, I'd agree.
A hack at best.

 

[MikeS]

Say what? Sheees I wish I could do it that fast, but I bet you would wish I had took longer if I did. I am going to time one the next time I record one. Me just singing the song over and over and over in my head so I won't forget the words takes a LONG TIME unless it is a song I have played a lot.

#Me too. I think I got it--meaning which one. don't mean I will get it done.

I'm usually just trying to get something out. Not necessarily a great recording.
I've taken much longer (adding stuff to the guitar, making 8 copies of the vocals and panning & pitching by a few cents...
Given my playing and my voice, I honestly can't tell that it makes that much difference. Either way it sounds mediocre at best.

 

[JohnHurley]

Given my playing and my voice, I honestly can't tell that it makes that much difference. Either way it sounds mediocre at best.

The big problem that we all have is we ( slowly over time ) get better we fail to compare what we can do now to how we were farther back in time.

Im now a big fan of just let the wild geese fly ...

 

[blackcoffeeblues]

well John I am going to P.M. you a backing track for "Hound dog" it is not the greatest but the drum and bass are pretty darn close.
I slowed it down a few beats and put it in what seems to be your favorite root chord "G". There is no way you can sit down and learn this song
in less than a hour you might be looking at a few days. I kept it at 3 loops omitting the guitar solo part.
As for the blocking---Sometimes I just don't know where you are coming from buddy? like the other day when you relate "Don't be cruel" to rap music. That is WAY over my head.
So now lets leave this alone and move on.

.

 

[PapaRaptor]

I throw a lot more of what I am recording on soundcloud than I post here actually. I dont know why but I can see on soundcloud that Lloyd appears to play a bunch of my tracks over there but I rarely get feedback. He probably doesnt have enough profane words to convey his thoughts.

This surprises me. Just as a matter of courtesy, if I am posting material for others to listen to, it is only fair that I listen to what they post. While I haven't listened to end-to-end recordings from everyone, I make an attempt to listen to almost everything that gets posted in the forum.

Edit: I should mention that "almost everything that gets posted in the forum" doesn't include everyone's posts within the individual course section. I listen to a lot of them, but not all.

Feedback is a completely different matter. I'm not a great guitarist or teacher. However, after over a decade of watching Griff's videos, working on his courses and participating in old BGU Labs and All Access FIXITS, I have learned to listen with a critical ear. I would like to think I listen like Griff does, but my ear is nowhere near that skilled. He hears music and performances in depth that can only come after lifelong dedication to learning and performance.
It would be inappropriate for me to be critical in the forum and that follows over to Soundcloud or Youtube audio and video. However, I have shared my opinion privately with several people who have personally asked me for it. Some have welcomed it. Some have apparently gotten something other than what they expected and want to argue what I hear. In situations where it appears unwelcome, it serves no positive purpose to offer criticism.

 

[MikeS]

This surprises me. Just as a matter of courtesy, if I am posting material for others to listen to, it is only fair that I listen to what they post. While I haven't listened to end-to-end recordings from everyone, I make an attempt to listen to almost everything that gets posted in the forum.

Feedback is a completely different matter. I'm not a great guitarist or teacher. However, after over a decade of watching Griff's videos, working on his courses and participating in old BGU Labs and All Access FIXITS, I have learned to listen with a critical ear. I would like to think I listen like Griff does, but my ear is nowhere near that skilled. He hears music and performances in depth that can only come after lifelong dedication to learning and performance.
It would be inappropriate for me to be critical in the forum and that follows over to Soundcloud or Youtube audio and video. However, I have shared my opinion privately with several people who have personally asked me for it. Some have welcomed it. Some have apparently gotten something other than what they expected and want to argue what I hear. In situations where it appears unwelcome, it serves no positive purpose to offer criticism.

Yep, after people ask for critique or suggestions, then argue, I stop offering suggestions.
I'm really not qualified to make suggestions any way.
Critique? Maybe. I mean, everyone is a critic right? We all know what we like & what we don't when we hear it.

 

[JohnHurley]

This surprises me. Just as a matter of courtesy, if I am posting material for others to listen to, it is only fair that I listen to what they post.

Oh sorry no I just meant it surprised me that you were willing to listen to so many of my things on soundcloud thats it.

 

[blackcoffeeblues]

Critiizm should be something every one can accept (good or bad) I know it hurts my feelings sometimes; but I remember it, and find it useful in the future and try to avoid making the same offense again,-- but some times I think the critic is wrong, especially when it is my wife--I take hers with a grain of salt. She is my biggest critic and lets me know it.

 

[Elio]

I dont know what you mean sorry. I know you have been on the forum a long time but I think you had me blocked for almost since I have been here. I have not heard hardly many of your songs would love to hear some of what you think were bad ones.



For me if I can sorta keep my own time and ( try to ) sing along I mean yeah drum track would be cool but I dont mind tossing out something just me keeping my own time on guitar. It slowly gets better over months and years ...

One of my issues has always been me thinking I could keep time, when it turned out that I really can't. After having Griff point out enough of my timing inconsistencies in many fix-its and private lessons, I finally realized that I have a serious lack of objectivity and needed take a much more consistent and quantitative approach by counting out loud and taking advantage of a drum track and/or metronome. Additionally, by playing through a song both with and without the click or drum track, it gives me a much better sense of where I need to focus my efforts. The result wasn't exactly immediate and I'm still not very good at it, but I did see a dramatic improvement and, it happened much faster than waiting months or years.

Given that I need all the help I can get, for songs that I want to experiment with and/or something original, I usually use my Digitech Trio, which lets me play the chord progression, and then gives me an immediate selection of dozens of drum and bass tracks across various genres. In my case, I usually find a bass pattern I like and then I learn to play it myself (mostly just to help improve my bass-playing), but I could easily use it as-is.

Given that I know you enjoy busking, I would think that the Trio would be an incredibly useful addition that would fill out your sound and help polish your timing even more. The Trio+ lets you save the songs once you create them, so it's easy to call one up on the fly and even alter the drum/bass mix and tempo for a particular song.

I'm not trying to be critical (and I'm certainly not at the level where I can or should be), just trying to be helpful.

 

[JohnHurley]

I'm not trying to be critical (and I'm certainly not at the level where I can or should be), just trying to be helpful.

Elio you are always helpful!

Im thinking i have posted way too much in this thread anyhow so this will be my last one.

When i am busking or playing out solo by myself i either have a backing track that i will use or just do my guitar and vocals. Been counting and strumming and singing ( badly ) just guitar for a couple years now it works good enough for me.

The nice thing about just one guitar and singing yourself is you can adjust pace on the fly if needed and it still works unless you are major off. Your arm becomes the metronome sorta.

I recorded one song today this morning its on the youtube just me guitar/vocals over 5 minutes it maybe gets a little faster as it rolls but for me its good enough. There is the factor of sometimes you actually do want some parts of a song to go a bit faster or slower … for dramatic effect or pacing.

With a band tho you better be on time with a live drummer been lucky know lots of great drummers.

 

[CaptainMoto]

Back to the original topic.
I think this discussion covers two different things:
- How much time does it take to do what what we do
- If there's any value is what we post.

Let's face it, very few people who hangout here are really top notch players/performers, most of us are here to learn.
I'm 100% convinced that recording yourself is a very valuable component in advancing your skills. That doesn’t mean that everything you record should be posted.
I'm also 100% certain that getting constructive criticism is a key to self improvemnt.
On-line training gets you in the ball game but, constructive criticism is an essential part of growing.

My personal experience is that the feedback and encouragemnet from the folks here has helped me greatly.
So, I try to pay it forward by taking the time to listen and comment on most of the stuff that members post.

I don't have a trained ear and I could never be a guitar coach but, I can usually get a vibe from the posting that tells me something about the player.
A few folks are just DAMN GOOD and that sets a pretty high bar for the rest of use to aim for.
Some are giving their best and over time we can hear the improvemnt, that should give us all joy.

I see no value in posting my worst.
I know it's subpar when it's recorded so, I flush it and try to do better before I waist my time ond others.
If I was to post something that I know is bad, what would the point be?
People are to kind to tell me it stinks so, I'd get no usable feedback.
If I detect I've screwed up something but, can't put my finger on it, I'll ask for feebback.

We are all waering several hats here........student, performer, audience, coach & support team member.
Performers & Students could benefit best if they respect the time and energy of the Audience and Coaches.

I can't remeber the exact qoute from BB King but I recall him saying he respected the audience and no mttar the size 1 person or 1,000 people, he always tried to deliver his best and that included dressing up for the show.

My guess is, If he did shows where he was just throwing stuff out there, and using the audience to watch him practice, he would never have become the King.

 

[blackcoffeeblues]

Well said--I never expected this thread to do what it did. It turned out to be very informative it seems 10 hours is not really all that long to work on a recording, but you got to understand I am 79 years old, at this age them hours get precious plus I had my patience tested and it came back negative.

 

[MikeS]

Critiizm should be something every one can accept (good or bad) I know it hurts my feelings sometimes; but I remember it, and find it useful in the future and try to avoid making the same offense again,-- but some times I think the critic is wrong, especially when it is my wife--I take hers with a grain of salt. She is my biggest critic and lets me know it.

LOL, Yeah, After a few of my first gigs (back when she attended them) I asked my wife how it sounded. She kept telling me "It sounded good". One day I told her to be honest, because it would be the only way I could improve. After the very next show I asked again, but this time she said, "Well xyz was painful" (I don't remember the son, it was years ago). I got what I asked for and my songs improved from then on.

 

[blackcoffeeblues]

Well at least your wife told you it sounded good once or twice---I think I have only heard that maybe once from S;haron.
Just a couple weeks ago I was working on "Gentle on my mind" I thought I had it down pretty decent-put it on my thumb drive and played it through the computer-to check it out before posting it on OMR---I wasn't through the 1st line yet and she says "THAT'S TERRIBLE YOU AREN"T GOING TO PUT THAT ON YOUR BLUES THING ARE YOU?" Talk about throwing wet blankets -she is VERY SKILLED at it. But what can you expect from someone that plays Leslie Gore and The Monkey's over and over again, again and again. It drives me nuts,

 

[CaptainMoto]

The best compliment my wife has ever made about the OMR was about how good @Many Moons sounded.

 

[PapaRaptor]

The best compliment my wife has ever made about the OMR was about how good @Many Moons sounded.

Well, she certainly wasn't wrong!

 

[Many Moons]

I want to use these things as a measuring stick of my progress.

Very good point BJ.

 

[blackcoffeeblues]

At first I thought this thread was informative now I am starting to wonder if it is harmful and a great threat to OMR. With all the QUALITY CONTROL post; we might lose a lot more than we gain. I still prefer plugging everything into my P.A. head and recording it as live as possible with out the audience. I never really got use to recording into the Zoom R-16 then adding effects--EQn after words and making me sound like someone I am not. If I can't walk up to a mic at a open mic jam and play my songs straight out it really does not help me.

 

[sdbrit68]

depends, sometimes I want to work on something, other times, I am working on something for the coffee shop and just go without a net and a camera, which is mormally what I do.

Mainly so I can practice when I screw up not stopping