Friends, I haven't been around much lately, but in my absence I continue to annoy the neighbors by practicing with the windows open. Those of you who know me know that I usually write fiction, but this one is based upon a true story. Steph and I had a spat, which is really rare, and made up quickly. While making up, I made a wry comment and she laughed: "There has to be a song there somewhere." My eyes lit up and within 48 hours I had the whole thing worked out in my head. Of course I had to learn the parts before I could record them, especially as I was moved to rely upon keyboards for half the rhythm section. For the first time ever, I did not do a rhythm guitar track, although there is a lead. Actually, I DID do one, but it clashed with the organ. Great idea if I were a good keys man, but I'm a rank novice. So here it is, I hope you like it, but if you don't, tell me why. How's the mix? Simplest mix I've done, it SHOULD be easy, right? I mean, drums, bass, organ, piano, vocal. How hard can that be to mix? But I'll rely upon the judgment of my peers, and betters. http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11865517 Thanks for the use of your ears. Mark

hey this is a cool blues joint bro. dig the classic 7th chords and cadences and overall feel of the tune. neat story on the genesis of lyrics as well.
one thing i am noticing in headphones is a lot of 'clicking' noise that seems to happen throughout duration of song...like hitting a mic or foot tapping the floor that is reverberating up a mic stand, or it is some type of digital clip going on.  see if you can hear what i'm hearing. i'm listening on a set of dt 770s. 

Mark, tonight has been an emotional night... Based on a number of other things.  I enjoyed your blues tune... I could make every part of it better? But I enjoyed every part of it :-) So there it is.

Nice smokey tune, Mark.
I also hear the clicks Virus mentioned, actually to the point of distraction.
It does sound like digital clipping, cumulative, not associated with a particular track.
Check your master levels.
Do you have Voxengo SPAN? It's great for pinpointing problems like this.
It sounds like all of the tracks may be a wee bit hot, and you may be piling up around 5K.
A little fine tuning with some EQ, and maybe dial the individual tracks down a bit, and you can slide this one home.

Mark, I love down home blues, and you really did some good, old fashioned home cooking on this.  As others have mentioned, I hear the clicking sound which I associated with the bass drum for some reason.  A clicky foot pedal?  I didn't hear the tracks as being too hot, necessarily.  In fact, I thought the overall sound was a bit thin.  A  nice, warm compressor or limiter might help with this on the lead guitar track and vocal.  Still, it's good home cooking and tasty, just needs a little zing.

 Thanks, Virus, I'm glad you like it. I had to retrack the bass, found some clicking and static going on there, but apparently it still exists. More on that later. Thanks for the feedback.

 Band, I too feel confident you could do it better. I'm no pro. And I just started learning keys in January. I'm merely a singing guitarist whose reach exceeds his grasp. But maybe you could be more specific.........thanks

 Robert, thanks for being specific. Actually, I kept the levels fairly low in mixing, and the master bus doesn't clip EXCEPT for the plosives and sibilants in the vocal track, specifically "t". I'll try retracking it and maybe dig up an onboard de-esser. Thanks for the advice. About the pileup around 5k: that's why I kept out the rhythm guitar track: a serious frequency clash. I suspect there's a little of that still going on between the piano and organ, might be able to EQ it out.

Lynn, thanks for listening. I don't I think it's the bass drum, as I use Jammer Pro to generating drums. But I think it's a good enough song to fix it. However, about the zing...well, a better keys player could provide that. My piano skills are very rudimentary. Iappreciate the comments, thanks. Mark

I hate it when things clash with my organ...