Pink Floy'd Mother Again: REMIX !!!

Hello Everybody (ur supposed to say: Hello Dr. Nick!!)

I know it took awhile, and some of you probably gave up on me, or thought I was full of it, but, as I promised, it's finally here !!!

I did it, and it's MUCH better. I rerecorded the guitar work, and remixed everything so that the guitar blends in better. Except during the solo, which is in the same place as it was in the original 1979 Waters/Gilmour et.al. vinyl recording, and lovingly reproduced as closely as possible, and where the guitar is supposed to overwhelm everything else, but in the 3rd verse and bridge/chorus, the guitar now is blended with the rest of the mix as just another instrument, only slightly louder than the rest, instead of overwhelming them like before- now you ca hear all the other stuff going on under the guitarized vocals that I quite frankly worked my butt off on but you couldn't tell cuz the lead guitar drowned out everthing. Also, I chucked out the ubiquitous, quite frankly uninspiring generic slow-blues guitar work of my original interpretation in favor of a much more intensively rigorous fretwork session that is far more "Courtney"-ish than the first recording, complete with a lengthy, rather gruelling run up the fretboard to bring the song to its explosive finale.

Also, the acoustic rhythms, although totally remixed, remastered, and carefully optimized, were retained from the first recording in the interest of speeding up the process and getting the song out as quickly as possible- they actually turned out well to start with, IMHO, although there's always room for improvement, I thought alacrity here was more important than nit-picking a recording that was decent to begin with, and stood to gain only minor improvement, so you shouldn't see much change there, although a few GR synth patches that had an 'airy' ambiance to them were removed, cuz they made the recording sound poor. The main difference, though, is in the lead guitar, and I used the newest, most proud piece in my assortment of recording and performance gear: The Roland VG-99. Kids, this thing is freaking awesome. I think you will agree when you listen to the leads, from their authentic vintage les-paul w/rectifier sound to the literally effortless fret-gliding, complete with pull-offs and two handed tapping, that I managed to do without a second thought, with only a moderate amount of distortion, with no noise gate and only a small amount of NR, and very little excess noise- virtually none, in fact. I can't credit this thing enough for the rather spectacular results I managed to acheive, and although I'd love to sit here and take all the credit for that gruelling-sounding tapping/pull off/hammer-on section of the guitar voicing, the fact is, I can't. The VG99 makes it almost absurdly easily to perform techniques that, if I had successfully performed them at a gig with a "normal" guitar/amp combination, would result in the next day finding my arm and shoulder in heating pad, the foul stench of wintergreen sports rub filling my nostrils, and my stomach painfully grumbling from an overabundance of ibuprofen and aspirin !!!

Your advice, I prefer constrictive advice though, please (as opposed to those people who like to gripe about the style of the music I and others choose to play, but I don't think I've ever had a problem with anyone like that in this forum), and all your evaluations as fellow musicians are welcomed. Thank you so much for your original advice, help, and constructive criticism, even those of you that weren't unkind, but didn't soften the blows nor pulled any punches, you ALL made this new, IMHO MUCH improved remix possible. Thank you, thank you <blows kissl> !!!

Click HERE for the Heretic Band Page to hear the new, improved remix/re-recording of our loving tribute to Roger Waters' immortal classic rock ballad of the often irreparable damage foisted upon children by the unchecked ravages of parental fears and WASP paranoia: "Mother" .


Anxiously awaiting your impressions!
Courtney Patricia "GamerGirl" Parsons

GG--I am still learning my way around composing/recording but you are asking for honest opinions and in this case you have something going on that I feel like I can comment on even though it's not a favorable comment. I am guilty of this myself to some extent. In a word, effects. Sometimes too many effects can ruin a song. I liked the original version although it had some unknown (to me) recording issues from what I can remember. This new version is a lot cleaner in the recording sense but the quantity of different effects is just too much in my opinion. There were parts were it worked for a moment or two for me but then the effect would change or something else would come in a draw my attention totally to it. Your rework of this tune into something more symphonic is cool but I think you could pare it down some and still get that cool symphonic feel without the distraction of so many effects. It takes away from your playing which is the real meat of the tune anyway. I can't remember the original tune's lead break but I believe it was a lot less effected than this version and I liked the original better (I believe).

That's my 2 cents.

I really like the lead...I'm guess your using your Roland....I've really got to update me GR-50...

I'm pretty much goin with droddy here....with one other thing to add...Floyd alway had one constant...flow....they never sound forced. This sounded like it was leaning forward instead of laying back and I'm sure thats what you where shooting for...overall....great stuff!!! I love me some Floyd!

really liked the synth swells/pads up to about 1:20...things sound a bit weird after that...kinda like a weird banjo/sitar sound...I think the pure synths/keyboards sound cooler....guitar break was pretty intense around 3:20....would like to hear ya wailing on a more pure bluesy guitar tone on this...overall I think this is much better than your 1st stab at this, definetly a interesting listen and held my attention to the end..

GG - I listened to this on my phones. What a wall of sound and great use of all the various instrumentation! I enjoyed this. Lots of complexity in this. You have good guitar chops. I like that "banjo" sound thru-out this piece. My personal feeling is that this is a work of art. The soundscape alone, along with the composition is a feat in itself. Big difference over the 1st one. Keep going girl!

ORIGINAL: lhansen

GG - I listened to this on my phones. What a wall of sound and great use of all the various instrumentation! I enjoyed this. Lots of complexity in this. You have good guitar chops. I like that "banjo" sound thru-out this piece. My personal feeling is that this is a work of art. The soundscape alone, along with the composition is a feat in itself. Big difference over the 1st one. Keep going girl!

Why, thank you Larry !! I do believe you heard what I intended. It is just a bit short of perfection, as I'm sure you all noticed, but I think its flaws are what gives it originality- much in the same vein as "Thick as A Brick" or "Passion Play," many of the transitions, there, too, are rather sudden, but as IA himself would tell you, that's what his muse told him to write. I'm not saying my work is comparable to such greatness, but it does flow along the same lines, don't you think?


As for the "banjo" sound, of course, that's just a clean electric guitar tone, the 'banjo'-like effect was attained through playing style, since I live just out of Nashville I've long been influenced by bluegrass and folksy-type music, the older it is, and therefore the closer to the original Gaelic/Celtic roots it is, the better I like it generally speaking.

Y'know, when I first heard this in my head (years ago now), then decided to do it, the phrase "wall of sound" never occurred to me. In fact, I had never heard the phrase until the past several months ago when I began to notice the highly publicized Phil Spectre trial. When I first heard the reporters on Court TV use that phrase, I thought to myself, y'know, that's what Ido.

Thanks for hearing what I intended. Ya'll know, my style isn't for everyone, but I think artists and acid-heads will deeply appreciate it.
GG

ORIGINAL: pantherhawk27263

Wow! You have a new fan here. I loved everything I listened to on your page. You have a great take on the covers that is just marvelous. Great work!

Thank you SO much, PH !! Like I said earlier, I have to totally rethink, rework the covers, otherwise, I'd just be another wannabe, with no originality.

Love to hear your stuff, too. I'll click on your username, see if it takes me there. Let ya know!!
GG

ORIGINAL: pantherhawk27263

Wow! You have a new fan here. I loved everything I listened to on your page. You have a great take on the covers that is just marvelous. Great work!

Oh, BTW, I'm a HUGE Zappa fan, as well as one of Capt. Beefheart, et. al., keep rockin' !!
GG

ORIGINAL: CreatingNoise

I am guilty of this myself to some extent. In a word, effects. Sometimes too many effects can ruin a song. I liked the original version although it had some unknown (to me) recording issues from what I can remember. This new version is a lot cleaner in the recording sense but the quantity of different effects is just too much in my opinion.

BTW, CN, there aren't really that many "effects" other than a little reverb (the SONAR PerfectSpace plugin) and chorus, and a final mix compression using the Vintage 64 plugin. What you are referring to as "effects" are actually just different instruments. A synth patch is technically a different "instrument," not an effect, just as a piano synth sound using a softsynth or the GR-20 guitar synth is a different instrument from the String Orchestra patch I use for the first chorus.

I guess you could call the feedbacky thing at the end of the verses (where it goes to the V chord) an effect, but it's a natural part of the guitar model I used for that part.

Anyway, your opinion is nonetheless appreciated, thank you very much for listening and your comment. Keep on rockin' !!
GG

good points

keep creating

-JD

ORIGINAL: CreatingNoise

GG--No sweat. If that's the way you planned it, more power to ya. Remembering back to the original, I didn't think there were as many "voices" on that one. I thought maybe this was a case of adding a lot of the extra stuff as an afterthought. Definitely was not poking at your style of music, I didn't listen to your other tunes so I didn't make the connection.

I've never been a huge ELP fan (never really been exposed to much of their stuff either though). As far as music with a lot going on, I'm a huge fan of Jordan Rudess (Feeding the Wheel). He has a ton of different "voices" going on in his tunes.

Your subject line did say remix. I assumed you meant of your original tune. I didn't take it as a remix rather than a cover tune. Anyway, no matter. You poured a lot into this and it is a unique take on that classic tune. Busy by design, so be it!

Don't apologize, your critique was very valid, I wanted to hear it, sorry if I implied otherwise- let me clarify: the people I was trying to keep away with my original post about "no criticism of ...my and others... style of music," I wasn't trying to keep valid criticism of this style away, who I was trying to keep away are those people (for some reason, they are usually metalheads and hip-hoppers) that think THIER kind of music is the only kind of music there is.

However, if a majority of folks think that the purposefully complex, intellectualized, heavily orchestrated kind of music that I do has already passed its time, then I want to hear that !! I may not respond to it, since, this is my forte, where my talent is, and everyone here knows that we have little choice but to be true to ourselves and our muse, to do any less would be just plain wrong!!

However, you didn't say this before, which indicates to me that the new mix was a much better mix- all this stuff WAS there before, I promise, but you couldn't hear it !! I added NOTHING, in fact, this new mix has LESS than the original, if anything, I removed two synth tracks from the intro, an acoustic rhythm track (there were three, now there are only two) and I lowered the volume of some of the instruments in the original piece.

So, yeah, your comment was appreciated and was also very useful !!!
Thank you !!
GG

It's just that you didn't say
Yeah, actually, there are fewer 'voices' on this one, believe it or not