Opinions, Critiques, Constructive Criticism?
Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 12:51 pmHi folks, I'm pretty new to the site, and have been surfing through the forums for a few days trying to get a feel for the crew here, and maybe make a halfway intelligent comment now and then.
Finally managed to remember to get the LAME encoder and get Audacity to see it so I can convert a plain audio file to mp3 and upload it. Last night I uploaded a tune to my profile and would like to know what people think of it. If you have suggestions, constructive criticism, or just an opinion, I'd appreciate it.
This is an acoustic instrumental, one guitar and a bit of light delay, an EQ tweak or two and that's it. Nothing fancy...pretty laid back tune, that I wrote in 2005. I'm not a prolific writer, and gave up on lyrics long ago, it's just not there, but I do come up with music now and then and thought this one was pretty good. Took me till about 2 months ago to finally think up a name for it, I have even more trouble with lyrics...sheesh...
I'd like to get a couple more recorded but the house I'm in right now has paper thin walls and I can hear you talk if you walk down the street. (seriously, I hear people talk all the time out on the street 100 feet away.) The dog next door has been barking literally non-stop all night, and still is, (driving me absolutely NUTZ). I haven't been able to get to sleep before 3AM in weeks as a result, so recording here is impossible, even at 2AM. On the rare occasion the dogs stop for 5 minutes, (2 next door to that one that decide to go at it now and then too) I still have the idiots with their boom boxes driving by every few minutes. Why do they think I really have to hear heir extremely loud bass drum at 1AM??? [/end rant]
Anyway, this was recorded at a friend's place out in the sticks, quiet there but I'm not able to pack up all the gear and cruise over there any day of the week to record, plus that ties friends up for several hours while they'd probably much rather be doing a dozen other things.
Guitar is a Takamine EGS-330SC run straight into a Tascam 4 track cassette mixer then into my computer and edited with Audacity. Next chance I get I'd like to mic it and get a better take, and hopefully be able to warm up a bit more first. We didn't have a lot of time so I played for maybe 5 minutes to get warmed up and hit the record button.
It's not the best playing I've ever done by any means, nor the best recording quality, this I'm already aware of, and there is a very minor mistake or two but nothing bad enough to make me ditch it entirely. A finger slipped and muffled one of the notes that is supposed to ring and create dissonance, that kind of thing.
Sorry to be so long winded, one of my worst faults. Let me know what you think, I'm my own worst critic, so you probably won't spot much I haven't already noticed myself, but if you do see an improvement or mistake I missed I'd love to know about it. If you just want to berate people, I guess that's your prerogative, but I'll ignore it. My main thought is that it might be too long. I haven't decided yet.
This is just one of the styles I play, I'm into rock and blues mostly, but a lot of my acoustic doodles turn out to be more laid back such as this one.
And finally, if anyone within 2 hours or so of northeast louisiana is looking for a decent guitar player/singer, old bald fart hard to get along with, but able to play almost anything...
paleopete at usawide dot net
take out the spaces, add the symbols, you know the drill...
Thanks, now I get to go be a carpenter and sweat all day...
Finally managed to remember to get the LAME encoder and get Audacity to see it so I can convert a plain audio file to mp3 and upload it. Last night I uploaded a tune to my profile and would like to know what people think of it. If you have suggestions, constructive criticism, or just an opinion, I'd appreciate it.
This is an acoustic instrumental, one guitar and a bit of light delay, an EQ tweak or two and that's it. Nothing fancy...pretty laid back tune, that I wrote in 2005. I'm not a prolific writer, and gave up on lyrics long ago, it's just not there, but I do come up with music now and then and thought this one was pretty good. Took me till about 2 months ago to finally think up a name for it, I have even more trouble with lyrics...sheesh...
I'd like to get a couple more recorded but the house I'm in right now has paper thin walls and I can hear you talk if you walk down the street. (seriously, I hear people talk all the time out on the street 100 feet away.) The dog next door has been barking literally non-stop all night, and still is, (driving me absolutely NUTZ). I haven't been able to get to sleep before 3AM in weeks as a result, so recording here is impossible, even at 2AM. On the rare occasion the dogs stop for 5 minutes, (2 next door to that one that decide to go at it now and then too) I still have the idiots with their boom boxes driving by every few minutes. Why do they think I really have to hear heir extremely loud bass drum at 1AM??? [/end rant]
Anyway, this was recorded at a friend's place out in the sticks, quiet there but I'm not able to pack up all the gear and cruise over there any day of the week to record, plus that ties friends up for several hours while they'd probably much rather be doing a dozen other things.
Guitar is a Takamine EGS-330SC run straight into a Tascam 4 track cassette mixer then into my computer and edited with Audacity. Next chance I get I'd like to mic it and get a better take, and hopefully be able to warm up a bit more first. We didn't have a lot of time so I played for maybe 5 minutes to get warmed up and hit the record button.
It's not the best playing I've ever done by any means, nor the best recording quality, this I'm already aware of, and there is a very minor mistake or two but nothing bad enough to make me ditch it entirely. A finger slipped and muffled one of the notes that is supposed to ring and create dissonance, that kind of thing.
Sorry to be so long winded, one of my worst faults. Let me know what you think, I'm my own worst critic, so you probably won't spot much I haven't already noticed myself, but if you do see an improvement or mistake I missed I'd love to know about it. If you just want to berate people, I guess that's your prerogative, but I'll ignore it. My main thought is that it might be too long. I haven't decided yet.
This is just one of the styles I play, I'm into rock and blues mostly, but a lot of my acoustic doodles turn out to be more laid back such as this one.
And finally, if anyone within 2 hours or so of northeast louisiana is looking for a decent guitar player/singer, old bald fart hard to get along with, but able to play almost anything...
paleopete at usawide dot net
take out the spaces, add the symbols, you know the drill...
Thanks, now I get to go be a carpenter and sweat all day...
Youve kinda given me hope that I can maybe enter the 21st century...Enjoyed hearin about the reel to reel story..Takes me back when we used to do all kinds of enovative stuff with analog tape. Im like rip van winkle just wakin up after 20yrs, sayin what happened to MY world..