Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

Joy to the world

#21

I appreciate all the help, I’ll definitely need it. You’re welcome to send a personal e-mail or call, that sounds like the best way to get me recording Mike. Like I said earlier, if anyone else has a break, go for it. Don’t wait on me!

I don’t know if I’m halfway through or not Larry, seems like a long way to go yet. There’s one thing good about recording being so complicated: It makes the actual playing seem like the easy part. I guess if all this was simple we’d bored & looking for other challenges.

Thanks again

J.W.

#22

J.W., I sent an email with my phone number and such. I used the email from your forum profile. If you don’t get the email, let me know. As far as waiting on your break, I think we are already looking at adding verses. The point being, your break isn’t going to hold anything up. I look forward to hearing it. If we get 12 breaks, that’s great as far as I am concerned.

#23

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If we get 12 breaks, that’s great as far as I am concerned

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Yes! I want an 8 minute Joy To The World, complete with an improvised jingle bell solo in the middle. :wink:

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There’s one thing good about recording being so complicated: It makes the actual playing seem like the easy part.

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I think that, too, until I start trying to record myself playing and I hear all the flaws (like playing an untuned instrument). That’s one of the good things about doing these projects. I get to work on all the things that I overlook during a jam.

For instance, I played the mix for my wife last night and the grimace that a couple of my poorly intonated notes caused has got me thinking about recording my part for the third time. I don’t get feedback like that in a jam. (BTW, she did compliment your playing, Mike.)

#24

Tell your wife thanks for the compliments. Funny you say that, as my wife loved your dobro! I like your break as it sits, but feel free to record it again as many times as you like. I have been known to record something for hours and eventually stick with the one I recorded early on. I don’t notice any glaring intonation issues on your take, but it could just be that your tuning mastery has blinded my ears.

I noodled around for a bit with the mando and there are a ton of neat little snippets for a break that jumped out. I might record them as a counterpoint to my guitar break or something. Fun stuff! Also I think mando rhythm and chops will add a fair amount to the sound. I like the potential for this song.

By the way, a jingle bells breakdown in the middle of the 8 minute JTTW sounds pretty groovy to me.

#25

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I think that, too, until I start trying to record myself playing and I hear all the flaws

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Me too! When I first record something I am typically amazed at how different what I think I am playing is from what the recordings tell me. I guess the most common shocker for me is how bad my timing is on certain phrases. I suspect when I hear myself playing live, my impression is colored by what I “hear in my head.” Unfortunately, I don’t know of a way to get what I hear in my head directly recorded.

#26

I think that break sounds great Larry! Just goes to show how critical we are of our own playing, I know I’m never happy with anything I record.

Mike that guitar does sound like a beast! Nice pickin’!

As for my recording, spaghetti fingers, that’s what I’ve got when I hit record, spaghetti fingers, no control. :laughing: I have one recording in the bank, but I think I can do it better, so I’ll keep trying. I finally figured out how to edit with Audacity so I can just hit record and then cut out a break I like. That takes a lot of pressure off the “one try” recordings.

I’ll try some banjo rhythm Mike, I have never even attempted it so I might not be able to pull it off, but it will be a good learning experience either way.

#27

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Mike that guitar does sound like a beast!

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Thanks for the kind words. The exact word you used is pretty interesting. I may have already told the story, so you may well be aware of it (my apologies in advance if so). A few years ago, my Mom was terminally ill. On one trip to go see her, I purchased that guitar on the way to their home. She was on some medicine that caused to her to sleep pretty late, and on one of the days I was there, there was a basketball game she wanted to get up to watch. A little bit before the tipoff, I started playing (and singing). I started kind of low, but with each verse, I upped the volume. By about the third verse, I was full out whanging on the guitar and it was happy to be vibrating freely. Mom came out of the bedroom, and came over and gave me a hug. I said something like “Sorry to be playing so loud, but I wanted you to be up for the game.” She said something like, “Man, that guitar is a beast!” I wasn’t one for naming guitars, but the name stuck. Soon thereafter, Dad named another guitar (a 0000) “beauty.” Whenever I sent a recording to them, they would typically guess which guitar it was by name. Sorry for the long story, but what you said really struck a chord with me.

Billy at Gruhn’s (from whom I bought the guitar) sent a hat along. We weren’t sure if the treatments would have caused a loss of hair and I thought it was a wonderful gift from Billy. I took the picture below to send to Billy.
[attachment=0]MomGE.jpg[/attachment]

#28

Awesome story Mike! That is a great memory and picture to have! That would make that guitar priceless to me, same as it has for me with my grandfathers instruments. Pretty cool to know that they held the same instrument at some point.

#29

It certainly makes the instrument a keeper. If I knew of a way to prevent it from reacting to the guitar finish, it would be pretty neat to have that picture in the case for the GE. Maybe attached to the inside of the lid.

#30

Cool story. Sounds like the guitar has the right name.

Once you have a take in your pocket, all the pressure is off, Shawn.

#31

That would be a great idea to have that picture in the case with the guitar, Mike. Although, I would have that picture framed and put on my mantle or something as well. Just a great picture.

It certainly doesn’t hurt the status of that guitar that it sounds like it does. Makes it an easy “keeper”.

I agree Larry, one in the bank takes a lot of pressure off. Trying a few ideas to spice it up knowing I have that to fall back on.

#32

So far, I know of 5 probable breaks in the works (me, Larry, JW and Shawn have responded on here and Jesse indicated on Kompoz that he would be interested when he gets back in town). To reiterate, if someone is hanging out thinking about doing a break, come on in! The more the merrier. I am not concerned with duplicating instrument tracks (for example if Shawn and/or Larry want to do another guitar break, great). Due to the “magic” of computer editing, we can take all the breaks and move them around to different verses in many different ways. I might add a mando break, but at this point I am thinking I might just “noodle” with it.

We’ll need to expand the track to account for more verses. I could cut and paste to make it happen, but I am inclined to record the rhythm tracks start to finish when possible. I am thinking we can lock down (for the version to be completed the week of December 9) the number of verses by about the end of this month. That would give plenty of time to get all the rhythm stuff in order. Note that you can upload as many different versions of a given break, so don’t feel like you can’t go back and improve on what is sent even after we decide the length of the song.

Shawn, you were talking about doing rhythm as well as a break on banjo. It’s probably easier all around to submit those as separate tracks. Some of the various breaks will inevitably need to be moved around, so it’s no big deal if you record it for the 3rd verse and several others record a break in that same time frame. That’s not a problem, but if the rhythm bumps up right against the break in a single track it becomes more problematic to move things around. On the other hand, if you are a purist and desire to play front to back with rhythm and your break on one take, I don’t want to stop you. Go ahead and do it and we can move other things to suit.

Thanks for all the help so far. I am getting excited about it.

#33

Larry, you indicated you might record some more dobro. If you do and you don’t mind a request, please play around with doing something on the final A chord after the GLick! variant. It could be as simple as a slide into an A chord (subtle and sweet), or alternately, some cool slidey lick after the chord is hit. Obviously, once the song changes length it will move, but no problem, we have the technology, we can rebuild it, we can make it… (sorry. for a moment I kind of slid back to my childhood days of watching the 6 million dollar man).

I think at some point I am going to play with starting the song with the GLick! variant. I am not sure, but I think it might be an interesting way to start and finish. Any other thoughts on a start are welcome.

Thanks in advance!

#34

You want a tag ending on the entire piece, right? That shouldn’t be too much trouble.

#35

I just wanted the dobro included at the end of the song. It could be as simple as an A chord with the last chord played (currently at 1:22), or a tag after the final chord is hit or a tag phrase with the GLick! variant. I just thought the dobro would sound good at the end. I am sure whatever you come up with will be great.

#36

Got it. I’ll wait until the rest of the rhythm instruments are added so I can see how much space I need to fill up.

#37

Well, I went to kompoz to try to upload my break and no dice. The file is a wav file, says I need to upgrade I guess to a paid membership for those types of files. I tried to save the file to my comp in mp3 format, still no good. Any ideas?

Maybe upload to soundcloud and someone grab it over there. I would like to figure this out for future projects though, IF you guys will let me play again. :smiley:

#38

Nevermind, I figured out how to convert the file to MP3. It’s up on Kompoz.

It sounds kind of mono-tone to me. I don’t think I let the melody stand out, it’s all the same volume.

Hopefully the timing is right Mike. I forgot how to use the synch tone thing. :slight_smile:

One question about using the metronome. When I’m trying to record to an exact tempo (like 190 bpm), I go into tabledit and try to find a tune that I can set the metronome to what I want to play (can’t set every song to exactly 190 bpm). Is there a stand alone metronome on tabledit I can open without opening a song?

#39

I’m a free member at Kompoz, too, so I convert everything to mp3, but if all else fails we can upload wav files here.

Your track sounds good. I don’t know you captured it (standing on your head in a corner with your back to the mic?), but it sounds clean. Can’t wait to hear it dropped into the mix.

I don’t know of a way to use Tabledit as a stand alone metronome, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible.

#40

Thanks Larry. I went ahead and dowloaded a wav to mp3 converter, so I’m set for future projects.

Can ya tell I was laying under the bed in another room while I was recording so I didn’t disturb the whole neighborhood? :smiley: Man, this thing is loud! Not sure when the strings were last changed, they seem aweful bright, but they are not staying in tune very well.

I tried to throw a strum in there at the end, not sure how that will go with the mix, we’ll see.