Hey - sorry for not getting back here - I have been CRAZY busy working up the presets for a Genesis tribute project I am launching here from Chicago, heading out this Spring.
Thank you ALL for your kind words. My friend, Mike Reidy, and I picked Night Meets Light to cover, because we both have a deep love and appreciation for the Dixie Dregs and Steve Morse, and for that song - and we wanted to get better at music production, so we picked a song with lots of challenges, where beyond the music itself, we could actually get a bit of a measurable comparative on how well we did - against the original.
Certain things were different - I thought there was a bit too much reverb on the original, so that was toned down, and I have a few levels tweaked here and there - a bit more low end in our cover, for example.
For ME, the hardest two challenges were: 1) Trying to faithfully transcribe the drums, because of all the meter changes and because they are incredibly melodic and building to flat-out insane in the ending guitar solo section, and 2) Trying to get the sampled sounds I triggered with midi (all parts but the guitars - bass, drums, keys, and violin), to sound real AND approximate the playing done by the real instruments from the original song. The drums, in particular, were run through a boatload of hardware, but the attention to detail in the transcription and sequencing of the drums REALLY paid off, and I think they came out pretty well.
Again, for Mike and I, the whole project was a combo of a labor of love for the song, and a means for us to get better at music production, and have some sort of way of gauging the success or failure of our efforts. We both learned a TON of stuff, and will be leaping into the fray again with some original music, once I get the Genesis project closer to launch. THAT is really coming along as well - I just spent a few hours this past Saturday, working with the drummer on the Seconds Out version of Firth of Fifth - that middle section has some brutal meter changes, one measure after another at a different meter.
Anyways - I will jump in later tonight, in the wee hours, and give some other songs a listen and some feedback - thanks again to all. :)
Bob Bone