General Music Chat

But I'll settle for what you guys have to say LOL < just kidding.

In fact I have always valued the straight opinions I've received over the years from you guys. Anyway I have some new tunes up in my profile and I would love to get some feedback on them, especially ways I could improve the mix... or is it okay now.

Any suggestions or critiques good or bad are most welcome.

Thanks

Koolin, you make me feel like a hack on the bass. Never did that tapping stuff. I'm trusting that you ARE playing the bass, & that it isn't just a program.

Seasons - LOVE that energetic intro! LOVE the changes. LOVE the woman's voice...what's not to like? The human touch, I fear. Jazzy cool fun throughout, with a definite progressive feel. It's not living breathing musicians, though, & that really comes through to me. Cool jam, but it does sound reminiscent of garageband kinda stuff after a bit. Yeah, I like the mix just fine.


Kool Jazz No 1 - Throwback jazz. Cool smooth stuff. Great bass work. What are you playing? I can tell it's got active pups. Not as crazy about this one, esp at around 2:10...the guitar loses me for some reason. 'Nuther cool jam.

Ingeminant Passage - Have I heard this one before from you? (Perhaps I plooked around with the same garageband program!) The bizarre piano intro grabs me right off the bat. The drums sound like they're playing a different song at 1st, & I like how it comes together. Yeah, this stuff is for modern jazz fusion fans who don't mind the use of the pre-programmed garageband-type of format. What kinds of percussion are you using? It doesn't have a very "live" feel to it. It feels very contrived, perhaps because it's so complex, while being so changeable. It comes across like a player piano to me, & I've lost the feel for it.

You have a good ear, but I'm not getting any feel of the human in this stuff. It's well-mixed & all, but it has no real soul, to me.

I'm actually kinda disappointed, cuz I was looking forward to hearing some REAL from you, Koolin. I hate the pre-done stuff. Sorry.

Nice

Thanks Prevost

Thank you Phil for your detailed critique. I do indeed play all the bass on my Rickenbacker. Here's a run down on what is real and what is memorex LOL.

I play all the bass, I play all the heavy electric rhythm guitar and keyboards. My brother contributed the exotic, rather melancholy lead near the end of Seasons. He also contributed the lead to Kool Jazz No1. All the other leads are me sadly LOL.

All of the acoustic guitar came from a site where people upload loops for anybody to use.

All of the drums, percussion, the piano lead from Kool Jazz No 1 and the "la da da dadada" female singer are loops that came with various software. I do customize the drums quite a bit though.

My problem is I'm a pure bass player, it's all I ever wanted to play. But the bass is hard to compose on so I've had to teach myself guitar and keyboards and I will be the first to admit I'm not very good at either. I can play rhythm guitar at a level where I can live with it but when it comes to any kind of lead I pretty much suck, I know the notes I want but getting them out is tough. So I end up having to process them so much just to make them good enough to get by that they end up pretty sterile.

My ultimate hope is that someday some good players will say to themselves, "I like the tune but the guitar/piano/keyboards/drums/etc. could sure be a lot better, can I give it a try"?

Thanks again Phil, anybody else?

I know what you mean, about the inability to play everything, trust me.

I used my DSS-1 almost exclusively when I did some of my own 4-track stuff, but there weren't the loopy things available when I did them. I don't think I'd use them now, though, either, even though my tracks show a sloppy bit o' timing on some of the instruments.

I would use a DM, though, if I was doing it all on my own, to the chagrin of all the drummers in the world...

The music was good, Koolin, don't let my prejudices get in the way of that...& yeah...you're a really good bassist, man! (Not too bad on the guitar either!)

Wow, thanks for the kudos on my bass playing. It's the only instrument I consider myself competent on. I hope for it to some day again be the only one I'm responsible for playing LOL.

"But the bass is hard to compose on so I've had to teach myself guitar and keyboards and I will be the first to admit I'm not very good at either".


Funny but I compose the bass line first to just about everything.

It allows me to hear the whole rest of the tune before I write it. (shrugs)

A man should not apologize for being a pure bassist.
That ain't no " problem "
That's just freakin cool IMO.

I always loved the bass guitar. Was my first instrument and generally the bass line is a most important aspect of any music I like.

Why do I play guitar ... because Eric is a pure bassist.

I'll come back to hear your tunes when my psychosis is not on the verge of stimuli overload.

Today is one of those primal scream days.

Heh heh, I didn't really say that right. What I meant was in order to take the music beyond just bass and drums I needed to teach myself guitar and keyboards. Although I have been toying with the idea of composing a number with just bass parts. Of course making it interesting enough that anybody would want to listen to more than 30 seconds of it would be the challenge LOL. I do always start with the bass (and a drum track) but I always end up rerecording almost the entire bassline once I get the rest of the tracks down.

Perhaps a couple of brewskies would help Sans

Have a mellow Friday everybody.

Man, I never drink when I,m in one of my KTAALGSTO moods.

SEASONS
Up beat, pleasantly flowing piece.
I could envision this in the shuffle with other jazzy tunes playing in a high end bar or restaurant.

KOOL JAZZ NO 1
I have the same basic vision with this vibe. Seems a bit out front with piano at first with an awesome bass line. Enjoyed the guitar tone that began around 2:00.

INGEMINANT PASSAGE
The percussion emanating from the left was overbearing and detracted from the keys work.

Thanks for giving a listen Sans.

I've been thinking myself that that piano could be pulled back a touch. I'll look into the percussion levels too.

Thanks again.

No sir thank you.

Nice to have music on a music forum.