This Old Guitar (John Denver Cover)

Hello Colonel! It's funny just last night I was watching a show about John Denver on PBS. My wife is a big fan.

The guitar(s) sound nice. I would have them be more prominent in the mix.

As far as the vocals, I'll say you're not as good as John Denver but you're better than me. Parts of the vocals are pretty good and other parts you could probably do better. I'd do a few more takes and edit them together to get a track where all of the vocals are as good as the good parts on what you've got now.

Hi Steve, that's some lovely guitar playing, in stereo . Vocal is a bit uneven, but you can always redo them. For me a recording is a snapshot in time, this is how I sound at a certain point in time and I can always use it to work on my technique and do a new version later. If you keep trying to get it perfect you will go batty .

Greetings, Rik

Very nice guitar work.  Nice tribute.

What helps me vocally, is a few shots of my favorite whisky.  Not enough to get drunk, just enough to losen the vocal chords and lower the inhibition.  I'm a firm beliver in this.

Daryl

My days of singing 7 nights a week, were nearly 40 years ago.  Now I don't sing every day and that makes it tough.

I find that if drink whiskey with a little water, it relaxes me.  I turn the lights a little low in the studio to create some atmosphere, like you might find in a nightclub.  Obviously if you overdue the whiskey you're just making a problem, and I never approved  of "getting loaded" when playing a gig.  However, when I was gigging, my voice was in shape.

A slight buzz from the whiskey and the the right mood lighting allows me to really get into the vocal expression.   Then I take any difficult lines, which are many, and I set Sonar up to loop on that line.  And I sing it over and over until I feel I'm close.

Then I record the line, and listen to it.  I carefully scruitize every note and try to make the corrections needed.  Then I record it again, and listen again, until I get it.

The right amount of whiskey really helps in this process.  Beer is no good because it gums up the throat and makes you belch.  And of course never put soda pop in the whiskey because that will gum up your throat and make the whiskey taste like crap.

I find I have to work out my vocal lines, in just the same manner as I do guitar lines, but I need that extra relaxation and pracatice with vocals and I find whiskey helps.

If I was back to singing 7 nights a week, I would need nothing because my voice would be in shape.

But, at least for me, vocals take far more work than guitar, but in all fairness, I spend a lot more time practicing my guitar.

Daryl