"Hold Your Fire" - Bluesy sort of Jazz tune (New Lead)

Here's my latest "Hold your Fire". This started as a keyboard riff.  I appreciate all of your thoughts.


Hold Your Fire

Having listened to a few songs today with the drums in your face, I felt like I'd like to hear your drums louder.  Pretty cool vibe going on here. 

Nice rhythym beat there!  However, the solo instruments are a bit soft, is that intentional?  Sometimes it is ok.  There is not a rule that they need to dominate if the rhythym is what you want to get across.  Around 1:29 there seems a sour note on the guitar.  Nice relaxing track.

Hi James, nice tune but turn up the guitar.

Greetings, Rik

This mix extremely out of balance by any definition.  What are you using as a monitoring system? Headphones?  Something's not quite right.

Sweet! Nice work!

Vicente thanks for the input on what appears to be a sour note. I originally intended to add some dissonance in there but I guess it was a bit too much. I added a fix to lower it's impact.

Robbie There are more cases of intentional dissonance towards the end which are much more subtle, in these cases coming from different instruments. Yeah I took some artistic liberties here, primarily for the purpose of creating the effect of stressful uneasiness. Like being stared down by Clint Eastwood with a loaded 44 ("I know what your thinking, he fired six shots?")

Scotty as always thanks for the listen and comments.

Phil my original plan was to add vocals so I dummied down the bite of the guitar. It was actually intended to be kind of like an early Santana or Peter Green style, thus I really wanted a mellower sounding instrument, but I decided to put the lead guitar out front. I recorded it with a tube preamp but it was much more subtle and lacked the bite needed to put it out front. I tried a couple of my more favorite amp sims but they didn't sound right, so I decided to use the Studio Devil British Valve. I couldn't get the exact sound I was looking for but I was able to get the bite I needed. Next time I'll boost up my A/DA MP1 settings.

Thanks, Robbie.... If I get a chance I'll address the Kick, and may also laydown a much sweeter lead guitar line. Really busy at work, though.

*** Added a new mellower lead ***
Thanks for the listen Kev. If you get a chance, check out the new lead.

Thanks for the listen, Larry.  The Bass was a great find for me many years ago when my sister moved out with her bass. I needed a bass and searched far and wide for one when I lived in Florida. I happened to come across a really nice Peavy Foundation Bass. I had no intention of getting a Peavy, but after about 2 months of further searching I came back to it. I tried a couple of other ones which were the same model but weren't anywhere near the same. I finally bought it and have been happy with the sound I can get out of it. It's perfect for recording.  I believe I just ran it direct to my m-audio firewire interface. I believe I put a very tiny lilght delay on it, eq's it a touch and ran that into a clean setting on the amp-sim that came with cakewalk. 

I was struggling with the lead sound. I had recorded it originally with a strat through a tube pre to direct in, but it wasn't enough to stand out. My second attempt added a plug-in, but it was too harsh. This version I used the pre-amp again with different settings, but still can't get the right tone.  I tried mic'ing it through a small amp and I think for future that's how I may go. BTW - Wish it had come off like Peter Green!

Well done Tap.

This really got my head bobbing! Sounds great!! This would be a great live jam tune.

I like it. 

Hi James,

Cool piano foundation and overall groove.

Love your guitar playing and tone...could come up a little, though.

Very nice.

I liked this as well...very cool jazzy/bluesy tune!! Listening through headphones, I thought the guitar could be more upfront.....nicely mixed though!!