Dudes and Dudettes

Ok... I need some feedback from some honest to goodness real guitar players about some of the stuff I've been recording recently. Like in your face opinions that'll get my head straightend out on where I need to take things.
For instance, should I continue doing songs like the ones below, or move more into more 'guitar' tunes that show off playing styles etc. Or is it ok to do continue doing 'concept' tunes and gradually show off the guitar playing over a larger number of songs?

So far I've completed these ones:

http://members.rogers.com/schmange/GoinHome.192.mp3
http://members.rogers.com/schmange2/ByePremix.mp3

... and on the other end of the scale..moogboog and scary

http://www.mp3.com.au/artist.asp?id=8258

I just need to get some feedback on what ya think of the first coupla tunes and whether my strengths would lie in continuing with that kinda stuff or just go the yngwie route and do instrumental guitar tunes.












[Edited by schmange on 12-22-2002 at 02:14 PM]

I dont have time to get them now but do whatever you want.

Production/Arrangement: Excellent!
Instrumentation: Excellent!
Communication: ???

Its easy for me to criticize from the safety of my home, with none of my stuff 'out there' for people to take pot-shots at. And i will freely admit that you can play circles around me.

While the music is playing, I'm blown away, but afterwards, I have no idea what you were trying to tell me. I'm reminded of a certain obscure singer/piano player named Reginald Dwight, who only came to prominence after he teamed up with a lyricist named Bernie Taupin.

You have some amazing talent, schmange. I fear that if you "go the Yngwie route", too many will be denied the joy of hearing you.

dude, you're f*cking awesome!@! whichever way you go is cool!

Yeah, I'll second that.
Either way you go you're gonna be really successful at it cause you definitely have tons of talent.
:cool:

Well thanks :p (major blush)
Actually you're dead right about lyrics. Man...they're a pain to write. It's like 5 minutes to write the music and then 5 months to get the stupid words to fit. I thought I did ok on Goin Home but Bye is just dumb nonsense lyrics I did on the scratch track.
blah...maybe it's time I start advertising for a lyricisist.

hm, i'm listening to "Goin Home" right now, im wondering, are you using Drag and Drop Drummer? I ask because i have that, and i recognize the drum pattern. What i like is that one part where i think you only play 4 notes with the distortion, but the timing was just great. Granted, i have a slow computer and right now i only have 60 percent of it done, but its good so far.

where can i post my stuff online, like you did, schmange?

argh... everybody keeps telling me it sounds like a drum machine.
I spent like a week doing all the drums live by hand one piece of the kit at a time,
then another couple of days splicing everything up so they'd be in perfect beat.
Then a whole day doing that drum corps snare thing with my fingertips on 32 tracks. blah...

As far as where to post it, I got 70MB of storage space with my Rogers Cable account,
so I just upload the stuff to them using Anarchie and use the rogers account link with the song info at the end.
http://members.rogers.com/schmange3/Forever(Premix).mp3

I'm totally outa space now tho so I'm looking for another place to store my stuff.

oh i see...i'm trying to find where i can get it for FREE, you know, not have to be a member and pay all this stuff, etc. I can do it on AOL Messenger, i just connect and send it to that person, and it works pretty good.

I really enjoyed going home the first time I've heard it a while back ago and I must say bye is really cool.

If I could write music like you man I would go with the concept album. I know how much you can shred, you're probably the top gun in this site but there's a lot of great shredder out there. Even at your skill level do you think you would be able to stand out of the crowd?

This is in no way a negative opinion of your skill but rather my vision of the music world. I think you have a talent of setting up a special mood in your songs, don't let this be clouded by an overflow of fast licks. Let us wait for those awesome tapping licks of yours.

For me it's all about building up dynamics, climax if you whish. I think that if you would see an album as a 60 minutes song, you could really make us believe in your world, in the story you whish to tell us.

I think your skills would be best appreciated if you didn't shred in every song. Slowly build up the dynamics over 2-3 songs, show us a great long solo in the 4th, take the dynamic down a bit in the 5th, raise it back up a bit in the 6th, keep it there in the 7th, bring the energy even higher in the 8 then it was in the 4th, slowly take it down in the 9th and 10th, bring it up in 11th for the grand finally (climax) in the 12th. If I recall correctly your concept was around this man who can back changed from the war. He will probably have some amazing ups and downs so the albums should reflect that. This is only some taughts I always had about concept albums. Hope this can help you in some way, if not well maybe this will be good for someone else, if not well I had fun writing it :)

I guess my conclusion would be stick with the concept thing, sounds really cool and different, which is good.

I'll be posting a first draft of song I did, could really use your input on it. I only have the guitar tracks down but it gives a basic idea of the song. I don't really konw how to attack the rest of the song to make it complete. There will be a post soon so if you could stop by it would really be appreciated.

Thanks

[Edited by Benoit on 12-25-2002 at 09:16 PM]

hey schmange and incidents, about finding a place to upload and store your tunes and what not. I just use commercial sites like geocities, there are others too. they're free, they hold enough free space and when you run out just set up a new account. the only downside of it is the broadband, which unless you have 50 people trying to dl your songs it's not even a problem. check into it, it might work for ya. latr

Absolutely. I appreciate the help & like to return the favour if I can.
..and I agree with ya:
I spent a coupla hours last night typing out my thoughts on this whole subject. (weird but it helps to put stuff down on paper even if you toss it afterwards)
The basics of it is that concept stuff is the way I gotta go if I'm gonna enjoy what I'm doing. The albums I've liked the best were always the ones that were well thought out, with multiple levels of meaning, hidden and thought provoking concepts.
If I do put shreddy type stuff in a song, I'd like there to at least be a reason why it's there.

With commercial sites, can you link directly to your songs though? ie, can you just put a link anywhere on the web, like

Press Here

.. and when it's pressed, the song plays straight away...
Or do you have to surf to another page first?

Dude,

My only suggest would be to bring your gutiar playing up a bit in the mix on Bye, the rock/blues stuff is awesome. Very nice, lots of feeling contrasts perfect with the melow feel of the two songs and adds a very nice touch to the songs. I don't get why anyone cares about the drums, they are fine. Nice mixing, i wish to know your secret. Nice job dude.

You're right schmange, take savatage's Dead winther dead for instance.

If you're not familiar with it, it tells a story about the war in sarajevo. Quite good. For one of the song they used the voice of the old singer (from the time of Hall of the mountain king) to contrast with the actual singer. The song was about the weapons dealers that never takes sides and sell to the highest bidder regardless of the death they would bring. It's a fast paced, rock song that really stand out off the album. They needed this because they had to reflect the emotion. This is what I like about concept album.

The all time best for me is still Operation MindCrime by Queensryche. A master piece.

Schmange,

Yeah man, as far as I know you can link directly to your songs. I have never had any problem with it, it should be just like linking to any other page. If it doesn't and you have to open a page from that host first. Here's a cool idea to make that work for you. Just have the link on your site open a small seperate window to the host site, and just do alittle explaining about the song, and a 'thank you for downloading "the name of the song"'. You know whatever you wanna put, and write a javascript code to make it automatically start downloading the song when the page is opened. Make sure you put an alternate "click here if downloading fails" link, because some browsers may have trouble. In the end, you may even make your webssite look more professional, and the thank you touch shows appreciation to the person who is dl'in the song. I hope this helps you out man, great job on the tunes. Latr

If you need help finding the source code for that just let me know.

Originally posted by schmange
With commercial sites, can you link directly to your songs though? ie, can you just put a link anywhere on the web, like

Press Here

.. and when it's pressed, the song plays straight away...
Or do you have to surf to another page first?

I know you're a Mac user... I wouldn't suppose paying $100 bucks a year for an iTools account is an option? The basic service gives you about a gig (I think) of web space.

I haven't quite figured out how to directly link songs, but since I can directly link photos, I don't see why it shouldn't work.