I finally got off my musical vacation and worked up a new song.
I took a month and a half off from recording to clear my head.

Anyway, I decided to write something with a lot of changes.

This one features Polymod on some smoking guitar and synth solos.
I'm playing 5-String bass, acoustic drums, keys, and guitar.  

I do a lot of double kick on this coz I wanted to mess around with my new double kick pedal. Did I mention there are a lot of changes in this song?

It's titled "Blockchain" at:

https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=13686811

This is very cool, got a Jeff Beck/Jan Hammer fusion feel to it. Love the chord changes.

jamesg1213
This is very cool, got a Jeff Beck/Jan Hammer fusion feel to it. Love the chord changes.

Thanks James! It was fun to play and record, and that's the whole point for me.

whoa! Really quite good! What lead synth did you use for the 2:20 feature? Killer!
 
All throughout your tune, great performances on many instruments. Chops for days! A treat to listen to.
 
The mix might be something for feedback - I wanted more bass, and in general I think it tilts towards the bright side. It's a heck of a lot of very well played parts mixed with extra splash! up top. You'll get different opinions on this, of course. Sometimes I wondered if the louder cymbal hits were turning sibilant. Do you have an eq on the master bus that adds high end at the expense of the lower?
 
A terrific piece, very inventive and very well-played.
 
cheers,
-Tom

emeraldsoul
whoa! Really quite good! What lead synth did you use for the 2:20 feature? Killer!
 
All throughout your tune, great performances on many instruments. Chops for days! A treat to listen to.
 
The mix might be something for feedback - I wanted more bass, and in general I think it tilts towards the bright side. It's a heck of a lot of very well played parts mixed with extra splash! up top. You'll get different opinions on this, of course. Sometimes I wondered if the louder cymbal hits were turning sibilant. Do you have an eq on the master bus that adds high end at the expense of the lower?
 
A terrific piece, very inventive and very well-played.
 

Thanks Tom. I appreciate the feedback. The synth that Poly plays at 2:20 is a genuine vintage MiniMoog.
 
I've only been recording acoustic drums again for about two months after a 35 year hiatus using only V-Drums with softsynths. I recently sold my fairly large live drum kit and bought a set of the really small Ludwig Breakbeats by Questlove so I could have an acoustic drum kit in the studio to play around on.  This is the kit I used on the song.
 

 
Then one day a couple months ago I decided to try recording them and was surprised at how they came out in the recording. I used to have a giant Ludwig Octa-Plus set with 14 mics in a dedicated drum booth, but that was 35 years ago. Anyway, after that first test recording the little Ludwig kit, I bought a matched pair of Audio Technica AT2020 mics to use as overheads, and a ported kick head so I can put my Sennheiser 421 inside the kick, plus a low profile boom stand to get an SM58 right on my snare. That's what I used on this song, and I'm still working out how to get the best sound out of the acoustic drums with four mics. The two AT2020s are being used in the Recorderman configuration, with kick and snare mic'd close.
 
Highs are boosted 2db on the master and I'm using a highpass to kill bass below 35Hz.  The EQ is mostly flat on the drums submaster, with some mid emphasis to bring out the snap on the kick, and pop on the snare. Like I said though, I'm still figuring out how to mic my drums with only four mics, and each song I get a little bit better results, and save the setup as a template to be the starting point for the next song.

I remember 'Polymod' now, he used to post some excellent stuff here. You two are a good team

I want it that way.  Really nice!

jamesg1213
I remember 'Polymod' now, he used to post some excellent stuff here. You two are a good team

Thanks James. It was back before Cakewalk had gone to a web forum and was still using an NNTP Newsgroup when Poly and I hooked up. I had posted a song where I played a synth solo, and Poly posted back that I should let him take a crack at doing the solo. I didn't know who he was or ever heard any of his music, but I thought what the heck, and let him record one.
 
I was instantly blown away by not only his dexterity, but also his note choices. Since that day about 20 years ago on the old Cakewalk NNTP newsgroup, he and I have done hundreds of songs together, yet we've never met face to face, or talked to each other on the phone. We both still post at least several times weekly over on the original cakewalk.audio group that leaked onto USEnet from way back in the days of Cakewalk Pro Audio.

eph221
I want it that way.  Really nice!

Thanks David!   :-)

Fantastic!!  I also heard some Utopia in there, but super creative and ingenious.  Encore.