Rock Instrumental - Ay Oh - sortof a guitar symphony

Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2009 10:08 pm

All, I haven't posted a new tune in a long long time. I'm finally starting to get back in a creative mood after burning out big-time many years ago.

This tune started as just a little riff where I was recording some song ideas and singing along. It just got stuck in my head so this weekend I hooked up my mixer and got a mic and started to flesh out more song ideas.

I broke out Ableton Live and just started overdubbng stuff to create the loops you hear, and I moved it all to Acid for mixing. Everything you hear is me with the exception of the drum loop. I gotta apologize for the janly sounding acoustic guitar part - it didn't mix too well. I didn't take the time I should've to record it right - I just put an SM57 in front of it and recorded while vaguely pointing myself at the mic. It's tough to record an acoustic guitar right and I should've know better - but I was in the groove and didn't want to take time to find the sweet spot.

It's called "Ay Oh" for the finesse and creativity given the lyrics... Very Happy

The chords are Em, D, C, Am7 if you want to play and sing along.

Anyhow click HERE for a link to the tune, or HERE for a download. Hope you enjoy it. Would love to hear comments.

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 2:13 am

as far as the song itself goes, i enjoyed it, and really liked the layering. there's a lot going on so it should all sound pretty sweet once you get it cleaned up.

as for the mix (and keeping in mind it's still rough), the track sounded choppy somehow, like the levels were doing something weird at a particular frequency. it's hard to explain. i kept listening for a pop in those same instances, because the effect was sort of like the absence of a frequency once it's peeked, drops out, then a little pop. yours just drops, giving it the aforementioned chop. otherwise i thought it was pretty nice for a rough mix and it had been a while since you had put something down.

i'll have to listen to it again to get a better comment for you. but, i think removing that bit of chop will be a good start. Very Happy

thanks for sharing!

ubw newbie Joined: Jun 09, 2009 Location: London Posts: 9

Yeah it's a good athmospheric tune. It's also very catchy and memorable, but a little repetitive. It reminds me of road movie soundtrack music. Smile

I like the layers, the way song seems to be split into the athmospheric part, and a "hard rock ballad" part.

I would prefer it if it were to take the listner somewhere else after about 2 minutes (perhaps a more rhythmical, more rocky part), and then to come back to the main theme toward the end. I think it has potential for that. Hope that makes sense. Smile

ubw rookie Joined: Sep 27, 2005 Posts: 147

Nice piece of music. I love the break best as it shows prowess in your guitar work and the arrangement becomes coherent there after. The main riff is very good but repeats a little too many times. An easy fix if you agree. Once the mix is refined and you add a little more low end as well..., you'll have an outstanding cut on your hands.

Keep up your good music. -Rich

Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 9:31 pm

Wow. Thanks for all the thoughtful reviews. They are appreciated and insightful. Very helpful.

gorgatron - I think I got something weird going on in mp3 conversion in a few places that is smeariness like you're talking about. It's not in the wav file, so not sure where it's coming from. It sounds something like a compressor pumping but again I didn't use much and don't hear it in the wav. Going to mess around with a bit once I better understand the software I'm using. I didn't record the acoustic guitar very well at all and wonder if it's contributing some to what you hear.

Ambassador - The mix I was going for took the rock part to a bit more intensity, but after listening to mp3 at work I agree the intensity didn't get quite as high as I hear from the source. Gotta do that. Also think it stays chill out a bit too long after listening. Need to bring it back up. There's another branch of the song that I think I need to add that builds on one of the guitar chord lines in the song - currently it's just a more background part mixed in (variation of the heavy power chord part). that'd be good to break things up and I'll work it in. I need to do a little bit with the drums. They don't change throughout the whole song.

lodato - I do agree on your comments after listening. I think I'm going to go for 1) build to a higher intensity faster and harder - the song is a bit more chill right now than I intended - I like, but not what I intended, and 2) not let the chill part last as long as it currently does. 3) plan is build it up higher, tear it down, build it back a bit quicker, and then end.

I got so many loops going it's hard to keep track of them, but I think there's plenty there to get the job done.

Thanks again for all the constructive comments. It's very cool of all of you for posting. THANK YOU!

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 11:08 pm

All,

Made some revisions to the song this weekend. Getting closer to final. I APPRECIATE YOUR COMMENTS - IT HELPS ME ADJUST THE MIX. Very Happy

- Added a couple brand new parts to hopefully better address the repetiveness comments. Let me know if you still feel it's too repetitive. It is loop based, but I don't want it to feel overly repetitive.
- Added what I think is a pretty cool section starting at about 3:40. Kindof a cool funk groove thing going for a while and then
- breaks into an Allman brothers inspired 4 guitar harmony thing after that. I was grinning ear-to-ear when I started hearing this part.
- rerecorded acoustic guitars and added some parts.
- changed mp3 converter to get much better conversion. I'm not real good with my software, but I just found out Acid would render to mp3 and it sound considerably better now imho.
- haven't messed with any variations on drums yet, but I'm hearing some hand claps that might be some of final touches.
- also hearing some harmonized vox and a vocal variation in one part, but I'm not a good singer so this will be harder for me.

Again - I appreciate feedback if you have time to listen and respond.

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 11:49 pm

sounds a lot better and the new bits you've added also sound really good!

you've managed to git rid of that sound i mentioned in my first response. it seems at times around the transitions, especially when several instruments were involved, that the persistent high hat would drown out some of the higher frequencies of the other voices in play. sorting it out will probably just by the byproduct of the final mix down, when you do the final eq job. i also noticed some added panning, which was nice.

as for the sameness, i think you've done well to knock that on the head, but it still might be good to spend some hours editing your percussion tracks to adjust the dynamics and edit patterns to give it a more human feel.

the 4-part harmony was pretty tight! i was waiting for it to grove a little and then it was gone. that might be a good thing, though. it builds up enough to have wanting more, and the change sounds good. i thought the guitar tracks for that part were mixed exceptionally well to give it a pretty warm, full sound.

thanks for sharing and keep it up! Cool

moderator Joined: Jun 30, 2007 Posts: 567

it just relax me from my mad electronic stuff i did all the night...peaceful song, old format of sound a bit, very musical.
Sad n weird emotion, monotonic feelings, i like the guitar when it's alone with beat, my favorite part of the song.
The song have many inspirations forms, this is subtile a bit, it's stay very instrumental kind of track.
The add of eeooo eeoooo' voices is very nice...
I enjoy the last second outro and your song pass perfectly on repeat.
You have a very deep style smili like streaming my mind a bit lol.
Well done Smile

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 7:57 pm

thanks all. I'm taking all comments into account and hope to finish this tune up by the weekend. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU Laughing

Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 10:35 pm

I just put up what may be a final version of the tune. Main changes include
- quite a bit of drum edits
- delay on harmonics
- cut out 16 bars early in the song
- maybe a tad of EQ.
- removed some acoustic guitar parts that just weren't working for me.
- thinned out the song in a place or two that had multiple layers of the same thing going on.

Time to move on to something else. I appreciate everybody's feedback in helping me work on this. I'll probably work some with the EQ at some point in the future on my really good speakers, but for now - this will have to do.

moderator Joined: Jun 30, 2007 Posts: 567

it's really cool stuff, emotions are here, very musical.

You seem to make music from another place that lay i never know where really.

Kind of groove for me.

Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 10:14 am

Hey PPB,

thanks for the comments. and I do sincerely appreciate the comments - it's odd but the comments are somewhat of a validation that there's something good there. Making music is unfortunately becoming kindof a solitary pursuit with all the technology available to us. We used to have our bands to bounce song ideas off of - now it's often just software and headphones.

I think all of us that make music feel like we're tapping into some unusual wisp out there - and sense something very worthwhile is going on - but the feedback certainly helps keep me in the right frame-of-mind.

Again - thank you!

ubw rookie Joined: Sep 27, 2005 Posts: 147

I can relate with the tech stuff making it too easy to be alone in the process of putting an entire piece together. For me, that's a good thing but not always and I have gotten so use to it now that I have to beg for assistance. I started recording the the late 1970's and things were very different then. Keep up the music no matter how it gets there. It's still the best healer. -rl

ubw newbie Joined: Jul 09, 2009 Location: Usa Posts: 9

Im really enjoying the theme your delivering here..The tone on your actual solo guitar is sweet..Another tone that I find quite solid is the cleaner like guitar but still having a nice bite..The harmonies and guitar layers are real good but I would maybe eq them slightly more different from each other or even try some filter envelopes to get some more individual placement..Specially on the 43 sec mark and on...This is a matter of personal taste so don't take my word for it...Nice work indeed!!!

Rock Instrumental - Ay Oh - sortof a guitar symphony

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