More Clips, Less Talk

One of two songs I finished up last week whilst on vacation. This is one I was trying to get done before I had hand surgery way back in January - didn't make it. Silver Sky on the 'rhythm' part, my PS on the melody. One of the things I like about this one is the texture the ElectroHarmonix B9 pedal adds to the melody and harmony lines. Just a hint of organ in there
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but it's just enough to give the lines an extra bit of flavor. This is a Hannah Wicklund & The Steppin Stones song, and I just fell in love with the chord progression when I heard it. Once I sorted it out, I was actually kind of content just playing that for a while.

https://soundcloud.com/alantig/shadowboxes

I still want to do an acoustic version of it - that may be one of the next things I do.

And I said two songs - I'll post the other in a day or two. Some of you have already heard a sneak preview of it... And the idea was suggested by someone here, so there's that.
 
Song number two that I finished on vacation. Inspired by someone's suggestion here, as I recall (although a quick search doesn't turn it up). It's a harder version of Frank Zappa's "Peaches En Regalia".

https://soundcloud.com/alantig/peaches-en-regalia

A little backstory - the tracks for this have been done for a long time. I started mixing it, and I just kind of got overwhelmed and didn't trust what I was hearing any more. So I left it. I don't remember for how long exactly, but it was MONTHS - long enough that there was a new version or three of Pro Tools released since I'd last worked on it. I'd been working almost exclusively in Logic since then. I was surprised at how quickly PT came back to me, and to my ears, how good this sounded. But that's spinning off into another thread someday. It took a lot less tweaking than I'd thought it would, and there were large chunks of things I didn't touch at all this time around. I did tweak the drums for how they sat in the mix, bouncing back and forth between too much and too little before finally just riding the fader through the track to address the parts I felt like I wasn't getting right. I ended up adding some processing to the solo at the end as well, and dropping the outro melody to let the solo stand out a little more. The part that probably gave me the most trouble during the mix was the first synth part - somehow, it felt like it died at the end, and I couldn't get that last note to have the oomph it needed. Finally I said, "Screw what the transcription says - change the frigging note and see how it works." So I bumped it up an octave from what was written, and voila! It worked much better. So that made the final version.

This track may be the happiest I've been with the final product. Not to say it's perfect, but there are times when I play it back and almost can't believe I did that. That doesn't happen too often for me.
 
Song number two that I finished on vacation. Inspired by someone's suggestion here, as I recall (although a quick search doesn't turn it up). It's a harder version of Frank Zappa's "Peaches En Regalia".

https://soundcloud.com/alantig/peaches-en-regalia

A little backstory - the tracks for this have been done for a long time. I started mixing it, and I just kind of got overwhelmed and didn't trust what I was hearing any more. So I left it. I don't remember for how long exactly, but it was MONTHS - long enough that there was a new version or three of Pro Tools released since I'd last worked on it. I'd been working almost exclusively in Logic since then. I was surprised at how quickly PT came back to me, and to my ears, how good this sounded. But that's spinning off into another thread someday. It took a lot less tweaking than I'd thought it would, and there were large chunks of things I didn't touch at all this time around. I did tweak the drums for how they sat in the mix, bouncing back and forth between too much and too little before finally just riding the fader through the track to address the parts I felt like I wasn't getting right. I ended up adding some processing to the solo at the end as well, and dropping the outro melody to let the solo stand out a little more. The part that probably gave me the most trouble during the mix was the first synth part - somehow, it felt like it died at the end, and I couldn't get that last note to have the oomph it needed. Finally I said, "Screw what the transcription says - change the frigging note and see how it works." So I bumped it up an octave from what was written, and voila! It worked much better. So that made the final version.

This track may be the happiest I've been with the final product. Not to say it's perfect, but there are times when I play it back and almost can't believe I did that. That doesn't happen too often for me.

Nicely done, Alan!
 
Here's some stuff I wrote, feat. my PRS Custom 24 with some Bare Knuckle Painkillers and Archon head.
I... I'm so sorry:

 
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