instrumental ballad, "Allan's Resolve"

Anyone that writes instrumentals should have a listen to this song.  Instead of minute after minute of mindless noodling around, this song has a sense of direction and purpose that so many songs lack.  It is well arranged, mixed, and performed, and it never gets dull.  As always, your songs sound very professional.  Nuff said.

And cow bell. More cowbell. ;) Great job all around.

LYNN
thanks for those kind words!
well, this is definitely not a 'jam' type of instrumental, every note of every phrase was worked out.
i've gone thru about 4 versions of this song to get it done.
glad you dig it!

foxwolfen

you know, i tried so hard to find a spot for a cowbell part!

heheh

thanks for listening
 

GENERAL INFO:

guitar parts: melody guitar, and (2) rhythm tracks, panned left and right.
at times there is a harmony to the melody guitar, so at any given time, typically there are 3-4 guitar parts going.

the rig i used for guitar, is my old Mesa Boogie, a Mark2b, 60 watt head, running thru a 1x12 closed back cab with a celestion G12C in it.




the rhythm guitar parts were all run direct thru my Palmer PDI-09 interface. straight to a A Designs Audio MP-1 preamp, into a dbx compressor, and straight to sound card (maudio audiophile 192)

the solo was close miced, using a audio technica 4033. using the boogie, i goosed the drive channel with a Barber Direct Drive Super Sport, and a bit of tape delay patch in the boogie effects loop, from my Yamaha DG Stomp.

all the guitar tracks were done using my USACG strat build, with the bill lawrence pickups in it.

The high pitched bell like sounds, are (4) tracks of chopstick drumming on champagne glasses, run thru a limiter and a flanger.
they also show up at 3:50-3:53 for one measure.
 
drums were tracked at another studio, in the DFW area. i sent in a demo tape with drum machine, then brent learned the song and tracked along with it, he sent me his tracks back, and i re-recorded the entire track with the new live drum tracks.

bass is a Carvin LB70 thru a sansamp bass di, split thru the mesa boogie, and the 2 tracks were summed together.

this is superb, BB. Probably your most conventional song for a while, but no less awesome for that. love the percussion in the second half. your solo phrasing reminds me a lot of chris poland, one of my favourite solo guitar dudes...

holiday push...
before i take her down, and try another.

Good overall mix and construction - I had a few beers with Allan in the '80s when he was working with his "Synthaxe" - he used to pop into "Anderton's " music shop in Guildford, Southern England the town where I lived - so I recognize the sound and mood.

There's a hint of prog there and the last section has quite a Scottish feel to it - One critique and only one - the ending deserves more - maybe a fade out or an allantastic explosion perhaps?

Great work all the same

mahavishnu

(hehe, that moniker always makes me think of 'inner mounting flame')
plus, i have always been a cobham fan......


thanks for checking this one out

it does have a prog edge to it, yet, the melodies are quite simple and direct.

i didn't want to stretch out at the end.... i have a whole slew of instrumentals where i get to do that kind of stuff...i wanted to dial this one back, to make more of a melody statement.


you know, i got to meet holdsworth back in the 90's....


saw him live in charlotte nc in '92
an extremely good gig, in a really small blues bar. 'double door', i think.....

it was so funny, the light show was 4 pars hanging from the ceiling.....

the pa was a single scoop and mid and high tweeter a side......

i think the only thing going through it was a little of the keys and maybe a touch of bass and guitar.....

pretty much the whole thing was stage volume, i don't even remember seeing any mics on the kit........

holdsworth had such a rich tone, sort of like a huge giant violin with a pickup on it..... or maybe a cello, yeah, much deeper tone..... it would rumble the walls.......
he had a stereo rig, 2 mesa boogie 50 watt heads, going into that rocktron loading device he used to pitch, then into a mesa stereo tube amp..... into a pair of 2x12 mesa cabs......
the drummer was chad wackerman, and geez, this guys' got to get the most valuable player award...... what chops!
holdsworth really played left field that night, i personally like it when he's more melodic, but this night was all about showing off the chops, and he did...... he was playing **** that i couldn't believe....... for example, at one moment, he was going up the neck, but the notes were going down......and i saw it, and i heard it, and i couldn't understand it.......so fluid, it was like listening to water come down a rock face, flowing freely which ever way the rock would twist and flatten.....

he had the young swedish dude playing bass with him, he was good, but not as good as some he's worked with in the past......

i have a tape, i used one of those dictation devices..........
it's a terrible recording, i'm thinking about trying to clean it up with the mastering toolkit program on my vs880ex........

at the end of the night, they were all signing autographs, and i just couldn't bring myself to go be one of the maddening crowd....

so i just hung out, and watched...

and after all the guitar heads and drum-heads (HA) came and went, he finally went to the bar to get himself a pint......

so at this time, i decided i would approach him, and offer to buy his beer... but someone shot in there, with albums in hand, and asked him to sign the album that he did inbetween igginbottom and tony williams (?), and he became so pissed, going off about how they had released the album without the bands permission, and they didn't get any cut of the money from it, and all this stuff, and basically just blew his mood!

so this guy tucks his tail and splits, i wait a while, then go up to him and say "i just want to tell you that you're quite an inspiration, please come back."

and he just totally chilled, smiled, and shook my hand...

it was like shaking hands with a baboon.
biggest hands i've ever seen.
scary big.
LOL.............

Here ya go, here's a testament.

I have my 83 year old mother-in-law here just now and she's a classical buff, I was playing this and she walks in the room and says, 'yeah, that's nice!'.

So that's another good review...

jonbouy
thanks for checking this one out....
yes, there was an earlier version, maybe the one with the original drum machine tracks?
can't remember now...

first heard holdsworth back in '77, i guess it was UK, then i went back and found his earlier stuff, and then followed him from there on out...
and it occurred to me, this dude is probably starving playing this kind of stuff!!
LOL

then i found out later, he practically was....
but, i was impressed with his courage to stick it out, even as producers were actively trying to change his thing (ted templeman comes to mind).


brent dacus, on drums.

he's a degreed player, does work with the dallas forth worth symphony, plays 'gig stew' all around the area there....
he did a wonderful job of interpreting what i really wanted.
i wouldn't change a beat.

i had some issues mixing the drums.
the capture (another engineer did the recording in DFW, and sent me the files) was not the best, and there were phase issues i had to work around.
kinda reminds me of the other thread that was going on in the techniques forum....


and i laughed, when i wrote that your mother in law was diggin' on it.
hehehe, that's great, tell her i said thanks!

hey batsbrew that was smokeing all good great medley and guitar chops great arrangement very well done always enjoy eric

I just got the CD so I'm going to listen on home system to start.  Woo Hoo!!

You don't have a recording of the piano version, do you?  I'd love to hear it. 

janet-
no, i never did a recording of that version.
i wished i had....
my piano chops aren't as good anymore, but i've really only got one keyboard now, it's not a weighted keyboard, it's hard to practice on it.
i really need a good keyboard.....
 
 
 
 
 
dub-
that cracked me up!
'allah's resolve'

that's a better title, can i steal it?!

thanks for checking it out, and commenting