Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
At The Back => Time Out => Topic started by: AndyR on July 01, 2012, 10:04:37 AM
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After listening to emaushenric's superb track, I realised I haven't been self-promoting myself on here recently!
I've got some new tracks done in the new "home studio" since we moved.
The first one was an original called Shine. This has got some BKPs all over and buried in it - teles with (old) BG Flat 50s making spikey noises throughout, a 50s Roadworn strat with Sultans doing the "rockier" guitars and harmonies nearer the end, and a 335 with Mules providing the "icing on the cake" guitars.
The second one was what I thought was a possibly risky cover of a cheesy old chestnut, but I needed a song to experiment with capturing a live "one voice, one acoustic guitar" performance in the broom cupboard that is my studio. And, er, this is the one I picked!
The third one came about after conquering the "doing an acoustic song" logistics. I was going to record an old trad thing called "Cabbage Head" (Or "4/5/6 Nights Drunk" depending on how many verses you know!), but the lyrics for this original fell out of the box. One voice, one resonator, one take, lots of p1ssing about with it afterwards...
The links to the songs' home pages on alonetone are:
Shine (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/shine-8)
A Whiter Shade of Pale (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/a-whiter-shade-of-pale-cover)
Someday (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/someday-3)
New Ones Since Original Post:
Anyway... (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/anyway-2) (added 08/07/2012)
Sleeping With The Ghost (Remixed) (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/sleeping-with-the-ghost-remix) (added 25/07/2012)
I Like This Girl (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/i-like-this-girl) (added 04/08/2012)
You Should Be Dancing (Cover) (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/you-should-be-dancing-cover) (added 04/08/2012)
Cobwebs (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/cobwebs) (added 24/08/2012)
If You Knew (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/if-you-knew) (added 23/09/2012)
Get The Lifeboat In The Water (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/get-the-lifeboat-in-the-water) (added 20/10/2012)
Tiffany's Estate (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/tiffanys-estate) (added 03/02/2013)
I Dream You (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/i-dream-you) (added 03/02/2013)
(Or you can get to all my published tracks using the link in my sig below)
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excellent stuff Andrew - fabulous musical performance...
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Thanks David :)
I've published the third one (Someday) now and added it to the original post above.
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Brilliant, all of them.
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Fantastic Andy- you have a great voice.
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Not listened to them all just yet but they do sound great so far!
Wish I had a voice that I would be happy to share with others. I sound worse than Chappers when I sing.
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I don't normally listen to clips much but seeing as it's you, you old git..... :P
Bloody hell man, those are excellent. To my (cloth) ears the recordings sound totally "professional". Great songs, great playing, great arrangements and your voice is terrific.
Without meaning to be in any way dismissive of your own songs, the more familiar territory of "Whiter Shade..." brought it home most - the sheer purity of the sound absolutely gave me chills.
Makes me realise I should probably stop spending all my money on this guitar rubbish and find something I'm good at, because I could never in a million years do what you do.
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Well, just listened to them all. Absolutely marvellous stuff!
The cover is really really great and IMO much better than the original. I never did like the organ on that and you have single handedly improved the song. There were a few moments on the vocal that gave me goosebumps. Possibly as its a Sunday and I'm in a bit of a melancholy mood, the song seemed to match my mood perfectly.
The new songs of yours are equally great.
I'll go back to strumming a few casual chords now!
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Thanks chaps. Working on (possibly mixing) another one right now.
The new "broom-cupboard" studio is starting to come into its own - I seem to be able to create a bit faster now. Struggling with a few things still, mainly the fact that I couldn't be arsed to do much in the way of "sound-treatment" before I moved all the stuff into it. And, if I'm going to do much more acoustic stuff, I really must get a stool that doesn't bluddy creak just before the last chord!!
Philly/Ian (or in fact anyone) - get a little recording thing/set-up and start experimenting with multi-tracking. You do not have to be able to play all the way through!! These acoustic ones, admittedly, I'm finding bloody difficult to do like this, and they are exposing my guitar playing to it's limit (gets easier with practice though). But the band stuff I record comes about from recording a few bits and then recording some other bits to go with it. I'd be hard pushed to sing and play Shine, for example.
Get a little recording beastie and start experimenting with ideas. Turn a "click" drum track on, strum a few chords along to it, then start writing some riffs along to it, noodling some solos. Do it for a laugh, not for anyone else to listen to. Steal other people's ideas, you don't have to write your own. You'll soon find that you're actually a lot more useful at playing than you realise.
It takes up a lot of your time though... I can imagine me getting frowned upon by Mrs Price if the bug bit Ian, for example. (My missus is downstairs doing her own thing, she writes, but she has probably started cooking the sunday dinner by now, wondering why she's having to do it again... :roll:)
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Get a little recording beastie and start experimenting with ideas. Turn a "click" drum track on, strum a few chords along to it, then start writing some riffs along to it, noodling some solos. Do it for a laugh, not for anyone else to listen to. Steal other people's ideas, you don't have to write your own. You'll soon find that you're actually a lot more useful at playing than you realise.
That actually does sound a little more achievable than trying to dive straight in and write an instant classic (in an attic...).
I can see your point, it shouldn't be a case of worrying about originality or other people listening to it, just mucking about trying stuff for fun. Doesn't matter if it's shiteee if no-one else hears it. :lol:
Makes me realise I always think of music as something I desperately want to be good at, so it becomes a source of frustration instead of enjoyment. I'm at base camp, looking at the summit, and it seems insurmountable so I don't even take the journey (actually that's me in a nutshell, so afraid of what might go wrong I'd rather not take the "risk" of doing anything). I should just enjoy it, and if it turns out OK, if I get any better (or if I don't) that's almost just a side-benefit.
Thanks for the advice. :)
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Im really enjoying listening to these.
The first track (Shine) has a really good groove and actually reminds me a lot of the feel of a part on final fantasy VII. I think it was sector 8. wall market
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Nicely done Andy. Skillfully performed and tastefully mixed.
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That's a sweet song! Well played and sung. You shine Andy.
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Not my kind of thing but very good. Brilliant performance and I really like the production :)
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Thanks folks, much appreciated :D
I did a new one yesterday, added to the OP, but I've put the link in this post as well.
I was gearing up to record one or two of my old ones. I'd just picked the one to do, and this popped out of nowhere. Started from one of those guitarist doodles we do in rehearsals (and have to learn not to do in gigs) between songs. You know, the ones where the rest of the band go "can't you be quiet? It's not even the song we're about to do..." :lol:
This one is slightly flawed performance-wise but still works ok enough for me. It was a live take for vox and the acoustic, and then I added a quick organ bassline/pad to smooth out the bottom. All a bit messy because the song was only an hour or so old and I didn't really know how to play or sing it!
Anyway... (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/anyway-2)
I might go back one day and do a different version with "Cropper/Dunn/etc"-type backing, but it's at the back of the queue now that the song's out there already...
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Another one posted today.
I'm meant to be working on two new ones, but I got stuck.
So I spent 2-3 days remixing this because it's my favourite song (of those I've made public) but I've always hated the original mix I did a couple of years ago.
Sleeping With The Ghost (Remixed) (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/sleeping-with-the-ghost-remix)
No BKPs on this one, alas. A couple of acoustic tracks (Godin 5th Avenue), a "double-bass" (Variax bass), and an inordinate number of voices.
And, er, no click track was hurt during the making of this recording :roll:
I wasn't expecting the original exploratory take to be used as the basis for the recording, but it felt "right", so it became the main guitar even though it was a pig to track against (and it ably demonstrates this in places :lol:).
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Another couple posted on alonetone a few days ago.
These are not the new ones I was stuck on (and there are three of those now).
Instead we've got a brand new lurv song about my lovely wife (who was away on holiday and is back now :D) called "I Like This Girl".
One acoustic, one double-bass, one internet conversation that was getting a bit out of hand, and an inordinant amount of Merlot and Golden Virginia. Just call me Willie Nelson...
And then while I was sorting this out, I found a crazy-assed swamp-blues version of You Should Be Dancing that was the last thing I did before we moved house. This was done sometime around Oct/Nov last year. I did it entirely for me as an "oh feck, I'd better do something" exercise. I had a laugh doing it but never meant to publish it. I found it the other day and thought it was worth a few giggles so I chucked it out into the big wide world while I was drunk. Apparently, I should do that sort of thing more often (rather than spend ages trying to get things right)
Two resos, a distorting double-bass, and some bloke grunting and randomly hitting things. Twas done from memory – so don't go checking the lyrics out, many apologies to Mr Gibb.
I Like This Girl (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/i-like-this-girl)
You Should Be Dancing (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/you-should-be-dancing-cover)
Now it's time to go and work on the rock stuff I'm so stuck with.
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Another new one just posted.
Cobwebs (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/cobwebs)
A bit of a rocker, and lots of BKPs on it.
It started off during my holiday when I was recording a bunch of acoustic stuff. I grabbed an electric guitar and wandered off to the broom-cupboard to "blow the cobwebs out".
I dialled up a drum pattern (not much like the one you can hear now) and just winged two guitar parts with my Mule-loaded ES335. They're still there, panned hard left and right, warts and all. Nothing has been removed from what I originally played.
After that I winged a bass-part on my SG bass and wrote the song over it.
Over the following weeks I added my IT-loaded 60s Roadworn strat. That does all the slide guitar and related work, It's mostly bridge pickup and some middle pickup.
I was fiddling with a wah a few days later, and broke a string. So I grabbed the Sultan-loaded 50s Roadworn and carried on. Middle pickup for the Hendrix quote at the end, bridge for most of the rest. Then I used it with the wah set wide open for Ritchie Blackmore type single bass-note rhythm chugging (you can't really hear it, but you'd miss it if it wasn't there).
I had AWFUL trouble mixing it! :lol:
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These are really really really brilliant, Andy.
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A new one. Entirely unrocking :lol:
If You Knew (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/if-you-knew)
Written in 1994 when I was listening to A Day At The Races a lot. It's less than two minutes long, but took more than two weeks to rehearse and record! (And I'm still not entirely happy with it :lol:)
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Nice one - for a moment I thought it was going to be a cover of the Nina Simone song!
Very good.
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Very good Andy, great voice you have. :D
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Cheers guys :)
Especially cos I'm not particularly fond of my voice on that last one :lol: - in the end I just went "f*** it, I ain't improving it in the near future" and posted it anyway.
I'm working on the next one - in a style more suited to the noises coming out of my throat at the moment...
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Here's a new one.
A whole bunch of resonators, piano, organ, etc... It went a bit over the top :lol:
Get The Lifeboat In The Water (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/get-the-lifeboat-in-the-water)
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Here's a new one.
A whole bunch of resonators, piano, organ, etc... It went a bit over the top :lol:
Get The Lifeboat In The Water (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/get-the-lifeboat-in-the-water)
Ahhh, I loved that. Nice work Sir.
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Just realised I'm not posting these buggers here...
New one today, Tiffany's Estate. A rocker with a whole bunch of Mississippi Queens (most rhythm parts), Irish Tours (slide work, including the slide harmony parts), and Apaches (small lead, some rhythm, anything with a wang-bar on it :lol:)
Tiffany's Estate (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/tiffanys-estate)
And one I forgot to post last October, I Dream You. An acoustic thing (Godin 5th Avenue) with an organ bass part giving it something of a sinister vibe not originally intended!
I Dream You (http://alonetone.com/andyr/tracks/i-dream-you)