Balloon Drop

Nice tune. Great progress on the production, nice tone too!

One thing you want to work more on is groove timing. So right now you're rushing, it feels uptight and off kilter, you want to get in the pocket which will give it more of a relaxed feel while being crisper with the drums.

Sometimes that rushing effect can happen because you're listening to a part in the drums that might be pushed, so try following different parts of the drums till you find one that works, e.g. snare can be a difficult one to follow because it's a reaction instrument adding fills to the main beat, the real rhythm comes from the kick (and sometimes the hi-hat).

Other times it's about a thing as simple as posture and breathing. Really pay attention to your breathing while you're playing, your phrases should fit into those breaths. Music is really about body cycles and rhythm.

Try this exercise - find any midi loop with 16th hi-hats on it and just loop it out there on the track. Then play with the beat using up/down and a loose wrist just play chords at 16ths, start slow and then build up speed. Use a clean profile for this too. Once you're comfortably just playing a single chord with tight 16th notes (and let your pick hand sweep as wide as it needs to, the more space before the pick comes back into contact with the strings the crisper the effect) start muting the strings a little. Then try shifting chords while keeping that straight 16ths going. Finally keep the picking hand going but start lifting off and pushing back down, your aim is to get a funky but relaxed rhythm.

If you find yourself tightening up then slow down a little. You want to feel relaxed while you're playing.

Quote from BayouTexan

This is my experiment with "clean" tones". Rhythm tracks use the David G Burns Wht Marshall with guitar volume rolled way down. I'm really digging that profile BTW. Solo uses TAF Fender Deluxe. This is kind of a flip-flop since rhythm is crunch and the solo is clean. I never really played clean like this before and it was a challenge not to dig into the strings to hard, and balance my picking with the compressor.

Bass is way up but drums are a tad wet I think.

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Great job BayouTexan, another step up. I rally liked the chord progression section at the start. I agree with Per in terms of the timing and trying to get into the pocket with the drums, especially over the picked sections following the initial chord progression. You are not alone however as i am guilt of rushing the guitar over certain drums parts so it just takes time to get into it. Per's recommendation is definitely worth practicing.

One more tiny bit of advice, and this is just personal taste, when you resolve the chord progression with the sustained chord, try and make a big thing about the accent and also maybe even add a third guitar doing a chord picking progression over the sustained chord. There is quite allot of space as the drums just run on at that point but accenting it and filling with another part would help this. This isn't a criticism, this is just what i would do if i wrote a part like this.

Great cleans tones too

I like the song writing in this one Larry. Good thoughts how to develop the tune, well done

Drums could still benefit from much more variety. The Toontrack stuff usually gives you enough suitable options for good fills and variations which will make it sound more natural. Might be worth that you make yourself a bit more familiar with it.

Great progress Larry, I agree with most comments , I would just insist on the fact that you need to relax that right hand and add syncopes, breathing , accents , whatever will add more life to your play.

Once again funk, soul , blues all these styles require some laid back feel , I know it's easier to say than to do but it's such an important step on your musicianship. the relax feel only comes after tight practice, which is pretty counter intuitive TBH . keep on practicing the 16ths , I see the progress on each new track

Quote from BayouTexan

I have been using MT-Drumkit because they are already mixed for rock and I only need to add a little EQ. But the beats and fills are very limited. I need to spend some time on SD3 again and get the velocities and EQs similar to MT.

Even MT-D has some good fills and stuff. It is just harder to find than with Toontrack's drums as it is lacking the AI to match the snippets and pieces.

Nevertheless if you have the MIDI in SD3 you should be able to pull it on a MIDI track in your DAW and then assign MT-D as the output VST so you have that sound. If I remember correctly the mapping of the instruments is the same in both so that should work well...

Hey BT!

You some really good ideas for your tunes. But you suffer from the same thing I did when I started out. Rushed timing as Per also noticed.

I got better when recording when I started listening to the "essential groove elements" of the song I recorded. These are usually different for each song but for me I usually pull up the volume of the hihat and the bass drum. The bd because that sets the steadyness and the HH because that sets the inner groove of the tune. When I do this, I find it a lot easier to find the the timing for my guitar and bass tracks.

Cheers,

Mats N