I'd taken a long break from writing and mixing, but I dusted my guitars (literally) and added new strings hoping to get motivated. Seemed to have worked and I came up with this as my first song in Reaper 6. Since I'm a bit rusty (playing and mixing) I'm wondering how it turned out.
I play and sing everything. Ironically, I used all freeware plugins from Analog Obsession and Acustica except for DMG's Trackcomp.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/oa10qxr93umiqfs/Back Down.wav?dl=0

 

Nice, I like it. It´s hard to hear real instruments in these threads. Don´t let the dust gather again on your guitar.

 

Most excellent on all fronts! Welcome back to the guitfiddle fold.

It is truly amazing how much dust can settle on a guitar and as well as the case after a while. I have six acoustics and three electric so am forever wiping them down. Most dust in a house, unless living on a dirt road, is dead skin.

 

Yeah, I glanced over at my guitars one day, and the dust and grime on my acoustic was so thick I could write or draw pictures on it. So that motivated me to get off my butt and just clean and restring them all (just a bass, acoustic, and electric). So my self-psychology was that if they were clean, then they'd have to be used. It worked.
Thx man.

 

Right. I can't see letting them get that bad again. I think it effects my mood in a way, and that's prob why I wouldn't bother playing them or writing any songs. Hopefully, I'm cured. Thanks for listening.

 

Thanks Quake. I was sort of wary since this wasn't electronic, but looks like the tastes here are pretty versatile.

 

Since I haven't been mixing for a while, anyone hearing anything I may have missed by being too close?

 

Last edited: Dec 14, 2019

Absolutely brilliant track! I love that you've kept the production quite dry and simple with nice stereo separation (too easy to swamp the mix with hundreds of plug ins these days).
I think a simple vibraphone sequence on the chorus would sound good to lift it up from the verse (I've got a soft spot for glocks, xylo's etc)
Awesome work mate

 

bout mix..sounds great on shitty laptop speakers over here

 

Great music mate, keep it up

 

Welcome back friend, I'm always filled with positive emotions when I see posts like this. I'm not in a great monitoring environment but I really enjoyed the song regardless!

 

Very good track, well done I'd recommend giving the Pixies a listen, as they have a few compositional and performance tricks that can add interest to a song.

 

Last edited: Dec 14, 2019

Thx man. I'm so easily distracted, I almost have to keep things simple for myself. I'd go off on all kinds of non-essential tangents if not. All my tracks have the same 4 plugins: preamp, tape sim, eq, comp. across the board. I only switch out or add another plugin if I can't get what I want out of my so called standards. The exception is if I add delay or verb or just can't get the kick right (or similar). It's like my own personally-invented mixing board that I'm "forced" to use and get the best sound from. Self-restriction.

I saw we shared the less-is-more philosophy from your previous post. It was kinda nice to not feel alone.
If I passed the laptop speaker test, there might be hope! hah

 

I hope to. Thx for the encouragement.

 

Cool! If you listen in a better environment, let me know of any 'anomalies.'

 

Gyro you you stole my words, same here. I like "unpolished" work, later will test on Focal Alpha 50. Just it's hard to believe that there is one man behind instead of a complete band. Don't bother much with technical issues or it will suck energy for play and other important staff. You're doing great.
Well done.

 

not bad.
I like your bridge ( from 02:02 to 02:32 )
tell us a bit more about the recording process :
- did you play everything ?
- how did you record it ? ( it sounds quite "live", aside from the guitars, but see below )

your voice is ok, the harmonies are good, I'd love to know more about your vocal chain too
the guitars sound a bit too dry to me, but overall, good stuff

 

Thanks for the suggestion, Zen.