Portuguese Sun Instrumental(Soft drive Podfarm tones included)

[Sheppola]

Thought I'd post this

http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_2984015




and the tones.I think they use all the stock amps and FX so no add-ons needed.

http://www.box.net/shared/25oatgjed6

Includes the Lead,Rhythm and bass patches used in this,


The lead was mainly on the Neck position of a Strat with the volume down a couple of notches at points but later the Bridge which has a rails humbucker(single coil PUP size humbucker).D'Addario Ultra lites starting at 0.008"


Enjoy :)

[capthook]

Oh man... I really like most all your stuff...... but this one.....
frikin' gorgeous

The ambience is (insert here) - maybe -> ....enthralling....floating.....deep.....powerful

Your earlier dabbling in the background pads has paid off... really hit spot on here.
Love the drum toms... do tell. Jamstix? with what and how? yum
And the cymbals.. all of it.

And the guitar as always, stellar. But really, even more so... really.
Rich, smooth, love the delay, the suttle whammys.
I'm a fan of the neck pickup myself for most leads. And then the bridge to kick it in/bring it up.

Usually having a critical critique/suggesion... I'm at a loss.
Just sitting here listening to it over and over again.

Beautiful.

[Sheppola]

Oh man... I really like most all your stuff...... but this one.....
frikin' gorgeous

The ambience is (insert here) - maybe -> ....enthralling....floating.....deep.....powerful

Your earlier dabbling in the background pads has paid off... really hit spot on here.
Love the drum toms... do tell. Jamstix? with what and how? yum
And the cymbals.. all of it.

And the guitar as always, stellar. But really, even more so... really.
Rich, smooth, love the delay, the suttle whammys.
I'm a fan of the neck pickup myself for most leads. And then the bridge to kick it in/bring it up.

Usually having a critical critique/suggesion... I'm at a loss.
Just sitting here listening to it over and over again.

Beautiful.

Thanks for the kind words.

The drums are Jamstix but just in stereo out mode,no individual outs with a ReaEQ low pass around 75Hz and a little high end boost and Antress Modern Compressor as I didn't want a boomy kick drum as I send them out to a SubFX track which has the little known Antress,"Spacer" reverb on it.The guitars are then also sent to that Sub Track for a little,"Ambience" and to glue the whole sound so there's no reverb clashes.
The guitars are the patches through my GX/Podfarm and recorded,"Wet" and then a little ReaEQ/ReaComp.
The bass is my Yamamha RBX170 with ReaEQ/ReaComp and Lite-on Bass manager(Reaper vst)).
The synth is the free PQN Mopar with a hand rolled FX chain including a,"Classic Chorus" and freeverbtoo but made so no verb clashes.

D'addario 0.008" stings on the guitar.


Also as a discipline I'm rendering at 128/256/128 ABR.If I can get good quality at those rates I know I can increase the quality should I decide to render to .wav for release.

[capthook]

No other comments on this one?

You guys should listen(comment)to(on)this!


OK - listened to it about 20 more times.... :)

The stock $99 Jamstix set doesn't sound like that!
And what, let the brain do it's thing for starters, but then program in the good stuff by hand?
And so many different reverbs to choose from (free and good even)... makes my head hurt to the point of indecision.
Classic, Freeverb, Reverberate LE, EpicVerb etc..
Often use Classic as the knobs are easy to set....

Antress Compressor and Spacer - part of the Modern Plugins pack:
http://antress.er-webs.com
Redownloaded it... for some reason deleted all but a couple of the plugs.

Lite-on Bass manager: 100%

The low backing pad/synth almost sounds like a talk-box guitar at times, and makes me think Alan Parsons at other times.
PQN Mopar - looks cool and I don't have anything like it:
http://pquenin.free.fr/pqnaudio/mopar/
Thanks!

Dig the pong-delay @ the beginning.
And on lead the delay, tone, reverb, and clean crunch brings Gilmore to mind in places (nice!)
Seems crazy not to have a POD.
'Course the 'quipment's only 1/2 the magic.

And you have completely convinced me that a bass VSTi will *never* match the real thing. ('course I guess you convinced me awhile ago!)

Only new comment on the tune is the start of the ... 2nd verse? Kinda drops off/out...

This tune is a strong 2nd to Infierno :)

[Sheppola]

The kit is the Standard JS XL kit with ReaEQ and Antress compressor on it but of course the Master FX chain affects it as well as routing it out to an FX sub track with reverb on it.A bit of it is tweaking around with the tuning in JS and EQ and compression in Reaper.
Yes I start with a basic beat and then go in and change fills and accents until happy which once you understand JS is easy.Just loop the bar in JS and then keep clicking until happy and very rarely manually add or delete a drum sound.It's sometimes better to let JS do a complicated fill/accent and then subtract rather than build from nothing.
Also of course the stereo placement of things like toms/snare/kick helps keep the acoustic transparency of the mix.
I usually off-set the kick to slightly left of middle and the snare slightly to the right(Just like a real kit).This lets the bass sit in the middle better for me so the frequencies don't get swamped.

[dcuny]

I gave it a listen. Actually, a couple of listens - nice work. Good intro, very listenable guitar parts, subtle use of the whammy bar, nice change in sounds. For the most part, my critical listener shut up and let me enjoy the tune.

Just two small things. First, when the major 7th rolls around, you play a descending 7-5-3 over it. It sounds great the first time, but you keep repeating it, so it sort of sticks out.

Secondly, the bit at 2:36 also seems a bit out of place. Maybe because it's so vocal in quality, which contrasts with most of the rest of the song. It's not a bad thing, it's just... different than the other stuff.

Just a thought - it would be sort of cool if the song ended by returning to the opening guitar riff.

Anyway, those are just minor nits. I enjoyed listening to it! :)

[Sheppola]

I gave it a listen. Actually, a couple of listens - nice work. Good intro, very listenable guitar parts, subtle use of the whammy bar, nice change in sounds. For the most part, my critical listener shut up and let me enjoy the tune.
:)

I was just looking back through posts and this was one most important points about the song/track just like CaptainHook's comments about the ,"Ambience" I achieved.

It stopped the listener being too critical by the fact we all record on here but forget to actually enjoy the music and engross oneself and be selfish e.g I like this and if there are minor points they aren't important.

I hear so many tracks on this and other recording forums that are recorded well but lack any musical,"Ambience" e.g that sound that the great engineers get.I'm not talking about quality or professional,"Sheen" but that,"X" factor of a holistically good sound.

Here's my take on it.

1:Record everything without any noise going in or out on the mix.
2:Never stop learning how to EQ and compress.
3:Practice the mix.
4:Feel the reverb and echo like a good guitar riff.
5:NEVER mix in cans,just record in them if you,have to.
6:Never be shy of going back months later and re-doing a mix.
7,Don't over record the volumes.No need in digital:Can be raised on the master.
8:Have fun.You aren't,"On-The-Clock"

9:Never trust praise,unless accurate.It's a false ally.


There's a good chance I will never be a great sound engineer but I think have created some decent recordings with Reaper and on a very small budget :)

[pc999]

Nice to see a memory from Portugal transformed into such a nice piece :).
________
Park Royal 3 Condominium Prathumnak (http://pattayaluxurycondos.com)

[Sheppola]

Nice to see a memory from Portugal transformed into such a nice piece :).

Some of my fondest memories are of my time spent in Portugal(The Algarve).I found the people to be warm and friendly and stayed several months with a Portuguese family and was soon treated like one of them :)

[Sambo Rouge]

Gave another listen to one of my favourite of your tracks.

At around 22" or 23" there seems to be quite a drop in level as the drums and lead come in, this only became apparent to me after a few listens.


What do you think?

[Sheppola]

Can't say I've noticed it :/

[Tyrannocaster]

I can't get it to play in any browser at all. I hate pages like this! I wish you could put the file on a plain old box site...

[Sheppola]

I can't get it to play in any browser at all. I hate pages like this! I wish you could put the file on a plain old box site...

Just for you,

http://www.box.net/shared/vgv929fssb

:)

[thequietroom]

great stuff, all the sounds are great. Great melodies and performance. Very nice work with Jamstix.

[Sheppola]

great stuff, all the sounds are great. Great melodies and performance. Very nice work with Jamstix.


Jamstix is pretty flexible and with processing you can get more modern compressed drum sounds but it's on slower less cluttered tracks like this where it really shines IMHO.
The recording quality of the drum samples is exceptional and when you are laying down a track in the cans or just jamming along I swear you can feel the air pressure off the skins especially off some of the Tom Toms :O

It reminds me of when I played with good drummers who knew what skins to pick for their kit and style and how to tune and and damp them :O

[Tyrannocaster]

Thanks for doing that; I was able to grab it with no trouble. This would make great film music! It's really about mood more than melody per se, and film loves that kind of composition. I think it's well done, and any comments I have would be purely on matters of taste, which are different from person to person. To me, the song has a characteristic that I find in my own recordings sometimes, and I always wonder what to do about it if I think it's a problem (it is not, always), ie, to me the drums seem to be in a different song sonically than the rest of the instruments. Like I said, if you think this is a problem I haven't really got a clue what to do about it other than perhaps add more delay to them to try to make them approach the levels you've set up for the other instruments. However, today we accept all sorts of things and the sound of comparatively dry "real" drums in among all the effected tracks is just an effect itself - that's why I emphasize that this is a matter of taste and not a "problem".

Two thumbs up. :-)