"Of An Age" (Acoustic Guitar Rock featuring AmpleSound guitars)

My usual go-to virtual guitars are MusicLab's Real Guitar series.  But I also have dozens of other acoustic and electric virtual guitars that I use to give variety to my songs.  Among my favorites are AmpleSound guitars. They have quite a diverse selection of acoustic and electric guitars and basses.  Their sampling and playability is at least equal to or better than MusicLab's.   And if you own any AmpleSound guitars, you probably know they recently added a new feature called "Riffer", which is superior to the strummer option in many ways.

So I built this song around the new Riffer feature and used two different acoustic guitars from AmpleSound, plus a third electric guitar (played freehand).   I wrote this song "Of An Age" about getting older and trying to make the best of it, trying to have fun despite all the aches and pains.   And I'll add my usual disclaimer:  I'm not a singer....although I've often been compared to Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Tom Petty, and other such "nasally singers".   
Hope you enjoy it!  And comments and feedback are always welcome.

http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=13595578

This is good LEE.  Your voice is just jaded enough to give the song gravitas.  :D  (I don't mean that as an insult ,.  We're all a little jaded by the time we get to 50.)  I like the melody and the chords.  It all works really well.  

Thanks for the comments, I really appreciate them.
I was pretty sure someone would say it's too repetitious (which I think it is, a little bit) and was thinking about reworking it to have one less chorus, and a proper bridge, to break up the repetition. 

But anyway, thanks for listening and for the feedback!  And thanks to Melodyne, without it, my vocals would really be unbearable.  Which is why I always jump to Auto-Tune's defense whenever non-musicians, (who don't understand the correct usage of pitch correction software) say that it's one of the main causes of modern music's downfall.

The virtual guitars are very well done, they certainly do not jump out at me like they were "faked." The electric lead is very effective.

I think the song works perfectly. As a RealGuitar person who's singing has been likened to an alley cat with laryngitis I think you have done a great job on the music and vocals. The guitars sound realistic and I know how difficult that is to achieve. And I love the lyrics. My only very small comments would be to perhaps be more aggressive with the bass line and let the drums shine through a bit more. But overall a great song.

dwardzala
Leee, great song and recording.  I think your vocals are just fine and fit the song well.  You could be compared to worse.  I am impressed that the guitars are not real, but sampled.  They were well done.

Thanks, I appreciate it.  I love it when former band members of mine (I play keys, and can barely play an actual guitar) send me a message asking, "When did you learn to play the guitar?"  I surprise them and reply "I never did"
I've always wanted to play guitar (I can play some leads but not many chords) and when the first sampled guitars (VSTi's) came out, including Real Guitars, I was astounded how playing notes on a MIDI keyboard sounded so much like the real thing.

lylemusic
My only very small comments would be to perhaps be more aggressive with the bass line and let the drums shine through a bit more. But overall a great song.

I usually tend to bring the drums and bass up in the mix, I love the sound of a perfectly blended bass line with a kick drum and snare, and I've gotten comments in the past saying that the drums and bass were too loud, so I probably held back on those in the mix a bit more than I should have.   I'm going to try and do another remix and bring the drums up a little in the mix.  But in this song, I also like the way the bass guitar blends in with the acoustic guitars.
So bringing the kick and bass up too much might make the acoustic guitars sound muddy.    It's a tough balancing act.
I guess that's why top engineers and producers get paid the big bucks!

LeeeLyle, this update is for you.   I added a completely new bass line, and used a new virtual bass (an Ample Sound Fender Bass), I also remixed the drums so they stand out a little more in the mix.   I hope you like the changes.

http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=13595578

Excellent. The changes add just that extra touch of drive, depth and sparkle. Love it.

bjornpdx
Lee
I like the song. Your voice has a distinct identity and it sounds good. I thought the bass line worked well and the solo gtr around 3:00 was great.  The drums (snare?) seemed a little bit off in spots but that's probably just me wanting it to sound different.

Always nice to hear from someone who has similar techniques and subject matter.
My vocals are passable thanks to Melodyne, I can play melody lines on the guitar but that's about it and I use Real Guitar pretty often.

Thanks Bjorn.  The lead guitar part was created using MusicLab's Real LPC with TH3 efx, along with a liberal usage of the Pitch/Bend controller.   As much as I like all the other virtual guitars I own, I always fall back on the MusicLab's Real Guitar series for both rhythm and lead parts.  While other virtual guitars have a much bigger variety of sounds and styles, the playability of Real Guitars are most consistent. especially when it comes to chord creation and the ability to strum with your left hand (two fingers) while playing the chords with your right hand.  Many virtual guitars have it the other way around which doesn't work for me, because it's much easier for me to play chords on a MIDI keyboard with my right hand.

cwestmont
Lee, this is solid on multiple levels.  First, it is a nicely written song, very anthemic (is that a word?)  Second, the guitars sound perfect -- wouldn't have guessed synth-based if you didn't say it.  I have sometimes noodled about writing acoustic guitar-based songs and I'll file the AmpleSound name away.

Thanks, virtual instruments just keep getting better and more authentic sounding.

The only gripe I have about the new Riffer feature in AmpleSound guitars, is even though it gives you about 100 different "riffs", (some of them bundled together into a 4 or 5 riff song set), there are probably only 2 or 3 sets of riffs that would go well with the kind of music YOU like to write.  So once you use those 2 or 3 sets of riffs in a song, then you're done with it.  Waiting and hoping that more will be released soon. 

It's the same with drum patterns in drum software, they give you hundreds of patterns, you end up finding a dozen or so you like.   Fortunately there are endless MIDI drum patterns available all over the Internet that you can use in practically any virtual drum plugin.  Riffers....not so much.