New project

Hi Daryl, you might want to move your link down a line away from the other text, I think it's stopping it working properly.

Nice guitar work on this as always, the piece was well put together. Let down by the synth sounds I think, but I think you think that too

Just curious - why are you referring to the original artist as 'Adu' ? Never heard her called anything but 'Sade', even though Adu is her surname.

Very tasty and skillful guitar playing. You know your scales, still you stick to a melodic style. I like that. I like your guitar tone, too.

Great.

Regards,

Tommy

Hmmmm...I'm not sure what kind of a critique you are looking for Daryl.
For me, there is lots of stuff in this I would change, but I'm not sure you want to hear about that...
Lets just say I like the guitar sound but there is some distortion, especially at :33 and during that descending octave run...and other places.
Also lots of hiss that comes and goes...1:38 is the first time but there is more.
But hey, we're all learning and each time we do a song we get better.

RLD

Daryl, nice take on Sade's (probably only) hit. Takes me back to the late 80s.
At the very beginning (let's say, the first 20-30 secs) I thought I heard a timing issue. I think it's the keys/sax and the bongos. The whole thing is over by 0:40 when the first verse is being played.
I too heard a slight hiss toward the end of the song (preceded by subtle pop sound).
Great guitar performance, as usual. Good job!
Heinz.

Thanks all, still learning since I've only had the system since November (although I've been playing guitar for a great many more decades than that: I might actually live long enough to get to be fair on the guitar).

I guess I need better speakers, I can't seem to hear the hiss a couple folks mentioned. I have 5 inch studio monitors, just some KRKs but that's what the budget will bear right now. I can't hear it on my car stereo either. (Too many years playing loud R&R probably.) What's the best tool to remove hiss that I can't hear?

It was my intent to get the lead breaks more up front, I actually toned them back from where they started. The distortion come from the overdrive pedal that I turned just barely on. The high notes accent it more than the low notes.

Marcos - I don't remember how you feel about guitar harmonies. I unabashedly love them, some people don't. I use them a LOT because I do this all for me, and me likes 'em.

I'm admittedly am a rank greenhorn on getting the drums and percussion right. I'm hoping I can find someone to tutor me there.

I finally hooked up the midi cables to my Yamaha last night and checked out the synths in Sonar Producer. WOWWY WOW! I'm like a kid in a candy store. Compared to the general midi stuff in my Yamaha this is a whole new fantastic world. This is going to be fun, I may have to give up the guitar and take up keyboards. Well, not really but this is going to be fun.

Thanks for the input, I'm trying hard to learn here. I don't know why. My band only does concert shows (openings, benefit shows, etc), I'm never going to play nightclubs again (thank goodness) and I have no desire to get back in the rat race of commercial music. But I like doing this and at least my kids will have some part of dad's obsession to remember me by (other than old rock recordings). Plus it's a lot fun giving away CDs: the general public is a lot less discriminating than we are and the local jazz radio program plays my stuff and it all keeps me from a life of crime and self destruction.

Daryl

RLD.

Yea there are a couple of tracks with long blank spaces.

There is no clipping, that's for sure. I'm actually running the primary lead through two pedals and using the volume on a booster pedal and and over drive slightly on the second. So whatever is there is the pedal. I'm really anal about keeping the recording levels low.

Thanks. What basic things should I do to clean up those unused portions. What is the "remove silence" funcitons. I've been remiss in not learing and using some of those types of features. No doubt I'm doing a LOT of things wrong. On the other hand, I'm pleased with how far I have come in 4 months, much farther than I thought I would be at this stage.

Thanks again for the help.

I know the spot you mean, and I will take that bet.

That' is a double note, so the distortion from the overdrive pedal is magnified. Plus the guitar is going through a booster pedal first.

When you play two notes simulataneously through any overdive pedal the waves are out of synch and the distortion gets magnified and muddy. In this case I have the gain of the overdrive peadal turned down, the volume up, the booster pedal has the gain up and the volume down. It works well but still suffers from the double note problem. I should probalby re-record those beats over with out the drive.

Those same two notes are repeated again later and the same conflicting waves come up again. The wave forms on the track for those beats are right in line with everything else.

Daryl

I will try the clean up routines. Thanks again.

Thanks,

Yea, I just like the chord progression. But at least it got me motivated to get my midi hooked and some synths going up so I can loose the crappy general midi tones from my keyboard. Now I can start that learning curve. But it promises to be a fun journey, if probably frustrating at times. This tune certainly would have benefited from something other than general midi in the background.

Daryl

ed,

Keys are certainly NOT my instrument. But I know all the chord and chord structures on the keyboard and I can stumble around very basic riffs. But it will be infrequent that I bring them to the front. But I am starting to get our keyboard guy interested and I may tap into his expertise.

Once nice thing at least in recording a midi track vs audio, is I can fix bad notes without having to re-record. I sure wish I could do that with the guitar

I think I will use the midi most for an orchestral backdrop. While I love rhythm guitar, and in fact I wish our band had a lead guitar player better than me (which might not take a lot), so I could play more rhythm. Rhythm is an art form and a lot of fun. But some tunes just work better without a rhythm guitar, or at least not as the primary rhythm instrument. And the contrast between the mellow snyths and the guitar makes the guitar sound even better at times.

This is not my favorite SADE tune, but it is a nice drifty groove, fun to riff on.