Thanks guys :D
Yep, it's the preset drums in the BR!! - you've got a bunch of "styles" eg Rock1, Rock2, etc, etc, and within each style a set of patterns: Intro, Verse1, Fill 1, Verse 2, Fill 2, Ending. You mix and match these to create your song arrangement. There are a variety of drum kits, I tend to use only one, the "Room" kit, and then use EQ, compression and reverb to make them sound like I want.
Glad you like the guitar tones - I was a bit worried that they'd ended up "too mellow". The clean parts are a lot more vibrant and "pop", with quite a nice top end, than they appear here. But I ended up having to tame the whole mix at their expense. Possibly I recorded them too bright in the first place.
The only issue with recording something this complex on the BR is the amount of early "submix" bounces you have to do - you're making final mix decisions before you've recorded later parts. I've got all the early separate tracks (in earlier copies of the song project), with notes of all the mixes, so I could go back now and rework it - but it will take ages involving WAV export/import between songs. And to be honest, I'm not sure whether I'd end up with something noticably better using the basic tracks I've recorded.
As usual with the BR, I have learnt a hell of a lot about recording again. Because of the restrictions (it's like an old 4 track cassette recorder, with 8 virtual sets, but bouncing is digital so no loss on bounces) it really forces you to think about the arrangement and the final song all the time.
The most encouraging thing for me this time has been finally finding a process that enables me to get my vocals down consistently in such a way that I can actually concentrate on singing. This has been such a problem for me for years. And seeing as really I regard myself as a singer/songwriter rather than anything else, recording vocals in a relaxing and effective way is kinda the most important bit!
Basically I've managed to conquer a dbx compressor/gate unit I've owned for some time. Also my mic placement changed this time after watching film of Agnetha/Anifrid doing Abba vocals in the studio(!). Sadly, I need gating because of where I have to record - to cut out the neighbours, the street, the floorboards, and the missus in the next room; and I need the compressor because I have quite a powerful voice with a wide dynamic range. (By the way, I've found that the other technique instead of compression on vocals, ie "riding the fader" during playback/mixing, is not an option on the BR - first it's very fiddly for fast volume changes, doable but prone to mistakes, and second it puts digital clicks on smooth tones like vocal vowels :roll:)
The James Bond bit - that's quite amusing. It's done its job then :D - it only happens in the first four bars, the D-Eb-E-F note progression over a G is changed to D-Eb-E-Eb ("James Bond"). I did this to disguise a similarity to what I believe my original source chord sequence was 10 years ago :lol:. The minute I did it I thought "James Bond" as well, I actually even considered putting the signature guitar part there as well - the yardbird bridge is perfect for that danga-dang-dang, dang-dang part...
