Looping It

Here's a little video I just recorded:


I'm playing around with my Boss loop pedal and my new Fender Champ (thanx Mom!). It's a bit long but I hope there's enough going on to keep your interest. :)

Mice

Mice.mp3

I spent most of Friday afternoon recording this track. The song itself is something I've been playing around with for quite some time now. It's been recorded during rehearsal by Szegényanyámhalátna. At that time our drummer was away on a scholarship for 6 months, and we had a guy fill in for him who just got back from Canada and was trying out for orchestras and stuff, so he was pretty good. Anyway, I used the bassline that was on that recording as a basis for what I do here. I also recorded an acoustic version about two years ago but that was very uneven.

The bass became the lead instrument for the first two verses, so I reverted to playing chords on it so as not to overshadow the guitar solo at the end. I must say that I'm really happy with the way my bass guitar sounds. My playing is still a bit sloppy, so it's nice to have that compensated by a pleasing tone.

The drums are made up of a backing loop (dnb 156bpm) from Guitar Rig 2 and some added accents from the LiViD synth. Again the LiViD patterns were manually modified in the sequence.

I used my Telecaster for the comping right up to the solo. I made several attempts at recording the lead with that guitar but it always came out too clunky. The Les Paul's P-90 at the bridge was the answer. Since I had about 30 shots at recording it (no kidding), the solo came out more structured than usual. The section over the verse riff was fully mapped out by the time I recorded the final version, the rest was pretty much improvised on the spot. I feel I'm stuck in a rut with my lead playing. I have horrible difficulties coming up with stuff that sounds original and isn't too repetitive... Anyway, both guitar tracks use GR2's "Hall Warm FX" factory preset.

So Easy v2.0

Here's a new version of the song I did based on comments I got on various forums. There still might be some room for improvement...

So Easy v2.mp3

So Easy

Yeah, right! I spent the better part of three days putting this thing together and I'm still not entirely happy. But I guess this is as good as it'll get without starting over from scratch. Check it out:

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Tapedeck

This is a little something I recorded tonight using the tapedeck in GR2. I've been playing around with the software, creating new presets. I was aiming for some old school blues/rock overdriven sound and what you hear on this recording is what I came up with.

Tape Deck 2 Apr 01...

Pedalboard In Action

Since I recently posted about my pedalboard, it's only fair that I show you what it actually sounds like. This is an outtake from a 10 minute recording I made by mic'ing up my Park G10 practice amp (basically, a Korean made solid state Marshall). On this piece, you'll hear my Les Paul Double Cutaway guitar (check it out here) using the rythm (neck) pickup, playing through the Boss overdrive and delay units (set to a slight slapback). I'm kicking in the Phase 90 at about a third of the way through the track with an extreme, Leslie-speaker type setting, then roll it back for a slower phasing effect. Check out the crunch this latter setting adds to my tone, I just love it... Oh yeah, the backing track is played on the Boss RC-2 Loop Station (this loop came stock with the pedal). Enjoy!

Live Guitar 1.mp3

A 3rd One

Here's the last recording for this weekend. It's something I came up with Sunday morning. It seems I'm kind of stuck with slow minor progressions for now... This is just one acoustic track with some nice stereo reverb. I spent 2 hours trying to come up with a second guitar track, but in the end I just stuck with this. It sounds full enough to stand on its own, and everything I added seemed out of place. Anyway, have a listen:

B minor song.mp3

Another Acoustic Demo

Here's a new one I recorded 2nite with my acoustic. This is a song we've been working on for the last couple of weeks with the band. The main riff and chorus are from our keyboard player, to which we added stuff during rehearsals. The arrangement is (hopefully) the one we came up with last Tuesday. I recorded this demo on 3 tracks panned left, right and center. The guitar on the left has a capo at the 8th fret and plays the basic rythm part. In the center I put another rythm guitar, this time playing the chords at the lowest possible position (even adding the low 5th if the root falls on the A string) to add a bit of dimension. On the right, I'm playing the main synth riff with a slide (standard tuning) and adding some other elements just to keep it constant. Check it out:

Mark's Song.mp3

PS: I did screw up a bit towards the end, falling out of tempo on the last couple of chords. Being the lazy bastard that I am, I just faded the whole thing out before it got really nasty ;)...

New Song

Hey, I just came up with a new thing on my acoustic while I was noodling around. I recorded it using my Samson C01U condenser mic. I haven't got any lyrics yet, but it's the best thing I've come up with in some time. Check it out:

D minor song.mp3