The Lone Arranger - Must've Been the Roses

[tcsned]

I am not really a studio player but I have acquired a few toys and use Logic (I do a lot of video and voiceover stuff for work). My wife sings with my band sometimes and wanted to do "It Must've Been the Roses" and wanted something to practice to in the car so I recorded a rough version without vocals.

http://www.vtcli.com/media/tom/roses%5B4%5D.mp3

I was having a slow day at work and was doing some soundtrack stuff for a video and slapped this together. The vocals are pretty rough as I did them in one take while our upstairs office tenant was out. I was missing my guitar synth cable so I drew the B3 part in a midi editor so it's pretty simple. The bass is my '73 P-Bass plugged into the DA converter and an amp plugin from Logic. I made a simple drum loop and threw in some hi hat and toms with a Roland SPD 20 - I couldn't get the midi out to work so I couldn't clean it up in the midi editor so it's drums played by a guitar player

I have always had problems mixing down so that it doesn't sound wimpy at lower volumes - any ideas? The acoustic guitars recorded pretty well but I'm always looking for ideas to get a better result. I used a AKG B3000 large diaphragm mic pointed at about the 14th fret. I used my Taylor 810 for the two guitar tracks during the verses and my Dell Arte Hommage for the solo. I used some reverb on the guitars and vocals, no compression, very little EQ. Let me know what you all think.

[Tennessee Jedi]

Yo man thats pretty good ...
Nice sound to guitars ...
well everything sounded nice ... you do it justice its a great tune ....
I give it
out of 5

[mttourpro]

Did you steal that rating system from American idol?

[Chuckles]

That was a real pleasure to listen to. Thanks for sharing it!

[tcsned]

Thanks all!

I'm trying to figure the acoustic instrument recording thing - I'm getting ready to record my bluegrass band and want to get the instruments right. I read that Tony Rice sets the mic at the 14th fret and that seems to work pretty well. Anyone with experience recording mandolins or banjos?

I'll keep tweaking and try to get my wife to do the lead vocal - I really liked the way Joan Osborne sang that tune. If it wasn't 6 minutes long it would make a great country tune

Nice rating system too TJ

[astroman99]

Very Nice

[Pete B.]

Nice job.
Hey, any chance you can post a version with no vocal or lead guit?
That would make a nice Rhythm Track for all to play around with.
Thx,
Pete B.

[Tennessee Jedi]

Brilliant !
Dude make backing tracks

[tcsned]

sure - It will probably be Monday before I get back to the office to do it. Have a few others too I can post if I can dig them out.

[JonnyBoy]

Nice man, Beautiful tune, I agree. You are modest about how it came out doing it so quickly, but i understand wanting everything to sound right!!! My band mates sometimes get sick of my constant, "No, no, no, somethings wrong..." routine. I guess we all do it, and people "searching for the sound" understand that. Good work, you are an asset to your group!! Would love to hear the Donna part when you get it together.

[tcsned]

Thanks Jonny! I'll try to get my wife to do some singing next week. I sometimes wonder about listening to stuff I played is that I hear all the little tweaks and fuck-ups but when I listen to other's recordings who say the same things about their playing and singing I don't hear it as much or at least it's not as annoying. It's all a matter of perspective.

I guess it's about finding that balance of being self critical that keeps you pushing to do better and not so much that you lean your guitar against the wall and throw rocks at it



Anyway, it's fun to do and that's what really matters

If anyone has their own home studio we should do a group project and just send tracks back and forth and see what turns out. I use Logic for my recording software. Does anyone out there have any multitrack recordings of any studio Dead stuff? I have a buddy was an engineer in some big studios in NYC and got a hold of a couple of old Marvin Gaye songs with all the separate tracks it was cool to mess with.http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?type=2&campid=5335901301&toolid=10001&customid=forum&ext=&item=

[tcsned]

I bounced a version of the tune w/o lead guitar & vocals for those that wanted the backing track.

http://www.vtcli.com/media/tom/backing_track.mp3

hopefully this will work out ok - I can't say that I put a lot of thought into the rhythm guitar part so I don't know how well it works on it's own but here it is