HXDA ReMix-ology.

[László]

Well, I don't mean remixing drinks, though, hey - I'd be down with that, too!

I've been working from time to time remixing the song that was based on an HXDA demo. The idea of the amp demo was that there would be no overdrives used, and nothing would change on the amp settings from track to track. All gain changes would come from the guitar's volume control, and that's the way it went down.

I started this on my McCarty, but during production traded it in on a 594, so I did the solo with the 594 and a wah (or more accurately, the wah on my Eventide H9 with an expression pedal), and a bit of delay.

My bandmate (lyricist/singer on this track) had some suggestions about guitar and vocal levels, and they were good ones. I felt I needed to play around with panning, imaging, etc., and finished this up today.

Several of you have heard it, but this version (mix No. 17!) sounds way nicer.

In any event, a guitar amp demo turned into a song, called Waves of Blue. Usually I'll make excuses for the playing, etc., but this time I think it's pretty good. I can even tolerate my bass and organ playing.

https://soundcloud.com/lschefman/waves-of-blue

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Dig!

 

[László]

Thanks, Dusty! My bandmate is a terrific lyricist, and as a result this is an actual song instead of an instrumental.

It’s a new thing for me, since I can’t write a lyric to save my life.

 

[11top]

Thanks, Dusty! My bandmate is a terrific lyricist, and as a result this is an actual song instead of an instrumental.

It’s a new thing for me, since I can’t write a lyric to save my life.

I’m not buying that, Lester. You’re a man of many words and a professional forum writer!

 

[Alnus Rubra]

Nice one Les!

 

[bodia]

Sounds great, Les! I like it!

I’m not buying that, Lester. You’re a man of many words and a professional forum writer!

Truth!

 

[shinksma]

Thanks, Dusty! My bandmate is a terrific lyricist, and as a result this is an actual song instead of an instrumental.

It’s a new thing for me, since I can’t write a lyric to save my life.

I’m not buying that, Lester. You’re a man of many words and a professional forum writer!

While I can't speak for Les's ability to wax lyrically for a song despite his ability to wax word-wise here on this forum, I can speak from my personal experience:

Despite being a verbose forumite on many other forums/mailing lists for many years (ever since this Internet thing caught on, really), and doing a lot of technical and "management" writing for my job, I couldn't write lyrics of any use until about 4 years ago.

I was content to be someone who could come up with interesting riffs and chord arrangements. Then one day I started to scribble down some stuff, based on some frustrations at work and some ideas filtering in from a movie I had seen. That particular effort is still gathering dust, not recorded or fully arranged. But it started something. I can't say any of my songs are brilliant, although my bandmates seem to like them a whole lot.

And now I have eight strong songs recorded across two CDs, and a good catalog of maybe another dozen songs that need to be revisited or maybe just glossed up a bit.

So you never know Les, maybe one day a verse or a chorus will leak out of your head and onto paper. And maybe it happens again. And again. And before you know it, you can't turn it off. You wake up one morning with a dream still fresh in your mind, you go straight to the computer, and do a brain dump.

 

[László]

I’m not buying that, Lester. You’re a man of many words and a professional forum writer!

Ha! My wife occasionally catches me online when I’m supposed to be doing something productive, and says, “This isn’t your job, you know.”

Good lyric writing is an art, and it takes passion and lots of practice to do well. My passion is the instrumental stuff and the recording.

Lyrics? The world has little enough interest in what I think I do best!

 

[andy474x]

I’m not buying that, Lester. You’re a man of many words and a professional forum writer!

I think we should put music to some of Les' forum posts!

I remember this tune. Listened on my monitors today and it's got so much detail and "air" in the instruments, very lively. I agree, v17 is fantastic!

 

[László]

And before you know it, you can't turn it off. You wake up one morning with a dream still fresh in your mind, you go straight to the computer, and do a brain dump.

But I already do that here!

 

[László]

I think we should put music to some of Les' forum posts!

I remember this tune. Listened on my monitors today and it's got so much detail and "air" in the instruments, very lively. I agree, v17 is fantastic!

Thanks!

One issue remains: We originally planned for the vocal to be just be a scratch track, and maybe bring in one of the vocalists he and I sometimes work with to cut the “real” track. So it was recorded at a studio in his town, and because it wasn’t intended to be final, not much attention was paid to the audio.

But as so often happens, he kinda nailed the first take, and we got demo love.

There are are a few mouth clicks in the track. There’s software that can reduce that, but I haven’t got it. It needs to be done. I’ll have to get the app and try it out.

 

[Tucson Thump]

Great song.

Lordy, Lordy, I do love the HXDA Chronicles

 

[shinksma]

@LSchefman , awesome track! Great job on organ and guitar! I'm listening at work with a "pretty good" system but still need to keep volume reasonable, and it lacks a subwoofer, so I can't pick out the bass too much, but what I hear sounds good.

I was listening for the "mouth clicks" you mentioned, and I hear what you mean. I don't usually hear that with other singers I work with - is that something that happens more with that particular vocalist due to how he sings, or just because of the particular microphone you used it became more prominent? Or does it happen all the time and I need to pay more attention?

 

[Rider1260]

Sweet stuff Les !!!!

 

[sergiodeblanc]

Right on!

Harmonica to me is like clavinet to you but, everything else sounds nice.

 

[bodia]

Right on!

Harmonica to me is like clavinet to you but, everything else sounds nice.

I got Paco signed up for some lessons, but he can't start until he's 3.

 

[László]

@LSchefman I was listening for the "mouth clicks" you mentioned, and I hear what you mean. I don't usually hear that with other singers I work with - is that something that happens more with that particular vocalist due to how he sings, or just because of the particular microphone you used it became more prominent? Or does it happen all the time and I need to pay more attention?

I can only guess, because I didn’t track the vocal. My bandmate cut the track at his buddy’s because he lives a long drive from here.

It’s very common to have mouth noises, especially in voice-overs and dialog; however in this case, it’s probably a function of the vocalist doing one quick-and-dirty take that he and the engineer figured wouldn’t be the final vocal. We only needed a guide track, and we were going to hire a different singer to do the final version.

I recorded the other stuff, and mixed everything.

I believe they used a vintage Neumann U47, so I doubt it was the mic. Nonetheless, the performance is everything, and so now we might have to fix the problems ex post facto.

 

[László]

Right on!

Harmonica to me is like clavinet to you but, everything else sounds nice.

Oh man, I like clavinet in the right hands! I just don’t like playing them myself, because I’m a “gotta have sustain” guy.

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Thanks, Dusty! My bandmate is a terrific lyricist, and as a result this is an actual song instead of an instrumental.

It’s a new thing for me, since I can’t write a lyric to save my life.

Oh, man, don't get me started. I love and enjoy abusing the English language, but for some reason, except for a brief several hour session of channeling (I wrote an entire song that I am very proud of, in the matter of a couple of hours) back in the 90s, I remain entirely instrumental. Lyrics are hard.

I love that glitchy intro.

 

[László]

Oh, man, don't get me started. I love and enjoy abusing the English language, but for some reason, except for a brief several hour session of channeling (I wrote an entire song that I am very proud of, in the matter of a couple of hours) back in the 90s, I remain entirely instrumental. Lyrics are hard.

You bet. Lyrics are poetry. If my brain ever had any poetry installed as standard equipment, it was removed somewhere along the way.

I love that glitchy intro.

Thanks! That’s the HXDA crunchy track, run through a lowpass filter with a resonance control and a step sequencer. I recorded it, and muted the track so there’d be a little space between it and the drums.

Initially, I wanted to use the step sequence along with the other tracks, but it only seemed to sound good in the intro. It works something like the first filter shown in this demo: