Tumbleweed

Hello Mr Tweed.

"first 1:40 or so is really influenced strongly by that darker pad sound I think"

Yes and no. The darker sound is the synth bass. There is a pad there (right from after the drum fill intro) but it's quite a light sound.

"guitar at 1:50 moves it into a bit brighter place"

I agree - a more beautiful place before it gets darker as the guitar goes Eastern (around 3:53). Arabic, maybe.

"you have played the spaces (rather than just the notes)"

Yes - I could play blues guitar all day over this sort of groove but I was trying to come up with something distinctive and different that wasn't exactly soloing, more something between hitting different arpeggiated chords and other fills and stuff. Better guitarists than me would no doubt come up with something better but, after lots of editing of the guitar parts, I'm fairly happy with what I've got.

"4:31...now we`re cooking the kind of blues I dig"

Yes - that's fun, bright, stomping stuff. But I played none of the guitar there over that groove. It's leftover playing from before, over the laidback shuffle groove. It just sounds quite different because of the change in drum groove. The bassline is pretty much the same so it just goes to show what a massive difference a (double time) drum groove can make.

I could have gone mad with that stomping blues section, adding loads of slide playing and funky, pumping bass guitar parts. Yet I resisted.

"the outro section kind of floats you to the end"

Yes, gently floating stuff and a chord change from the bass on 6:55. Out of the previous darkness and into the triumphant light. Uplifting guitar follows the filtered strings.

Oh sure - it could be way, way longer as I'd planned to bring the stomping blues section back and add all the slide playing and stuff. Maybe sometimes I should ignore my aim of making tracks under 10 mins and just go over if it feels right.

Thanks again.

Really pleased you enjoyed listening, as I love your music. I've never been a big fan of the usual canned radio stuff, so that is an extra compliment for me.

But I can't give enough credit to Denyjanuary who wrote the music in the first place, as without him, there would be no song.

Thanks for stopping by and leaving such a kind comment, much appreciated :)

Thank you Ed for listening at communicating here! Don't let the uplifting musical efforts fool you, this song has a very specific political agenda. Sometimes it is worth putting on a costume in order to slip in undetected. I do really appreciate your comments on the arrangement side of things! It was a pretty enjoyable one to work on. Thanks so much!

Thanks Ed! I'm working hard to perfect my sound!

Thank you Ed!
Yeah, some timing takes a while because in this one i use a few loops in different speeds and heavily cut. It gives great satisfaction as you hear them ok with headphones too, were not really reliant on it before...

Regards, traz

Thanks Ed. It was a delight working together with her.

Thanks Ed. Always encouraging when you comment.
Not as peaceful you say. Well that's why he's in denim.
A hippy in the mountains looking for enlightenment as opposed to a monk who already possesses it.

Hail me, master of...poor cello technique.

And hail you, master old fart across the water.

Yes, that early pumping piano part I hear as being very hip hop. That main first note was a kick drum part (hence the insistent precision) and then the note it changes to was the snare. I have some interesting ideas that I'll have to explore some time regarding taking drum fills and copying the MIDI data to a synth so that drums and synth are playing exactly the same thing. Could be very interesting, especially when I start to slowly vary things so that they're not quite playing the same thing.

Yes, I have been doing lots of creative stuff with the cello. That's partly because I'm still rubbish at bowing and can't consistently do the kind of things on it that I can do on my other stringed instruments. But I don't just sit there practising it as I try to learn it. I record and then edit my parts very carefully to get rid of all the many errors. I do that a hell of a lot anyway with my other instruments but that's more for creativity whereas this is initially just to get rid of the crap bowing tones that I often hit. Scrapey, whingey sounds.

"enjoyed this one till the last note (which was not the more usual lazy fade most of us do)"

My endings have not been too great in the last year and I've done too many abrupt sort of endings and only a few skilful ones. I think I'm almost getting worse at endings. Must make more effort as they're important. That's how you leave the listener so it has to be a good goodbye, so to speak.

Good to hear you enjoyed all of this.

Hey Ed, thanks for listening man. I like the way you describe the intro, it's to be modified but kept the same. :)

Hey Ed thanks man. I'm really getting into the acoustic tone of my bass at the moment, it's got heaps of sustain and fills out the bottom register nicely, pretty sure I'm going to build another one, a four stringer this time with an additional magnetic pickup for those crossover tones (and a slimmer neck for speeder playing! lol)...thanks for your kind words mate very much appreciated!....cheers Dave :)

Hi Ed,
good to hear from you. Yes it's a bit 40s. I remember when I was a kid of about 5, my mother would have the radio on, and it had this kind of warm harmonic sound.
Thanks for your great comment.

Thank I really appreciate espacially not being a fan of hip hop it means a lot to me, thanks again for taking the time to comment, peace.

Ed, you are far too kind! It was an important song for me to complete, and as is often the case, songs like that are difficult for me to share with anyone. Sometimes I wonder about being one of a kind, and all I need to do is think of my wife... we share too many feelings and ideas for that to be true. In reading about clovers, white clovers specifically, I learned that the world record for most leaflets on a clover is 86. I think that my upbringing regarding the rarity of a simple four leaf clover was simply overstated. Hopefully this is true, otherwise something odd is going on in our backyard the last few years! Thank you for your listen, and the discussion! Have a great day!

Thanks for listening and for the feedback, much appreciated :)

thanks a millie been working at it

Thank you Tumble. I might take it down and try for a little more depth and a little more stuff in there irt sounds a little long winded in places now but you know what it's like creating these things having to listen to the same bit over and over and over until your happy with it and then it gets tempting to repeat thaty bit a few to many times ... that's me at the moment.

Hey Ed! Thanks a lot man!

Hello again Ed! Thanks for taking to the new version, as it's definitely better... hence the earlier one doesn't matter much. I'm really looking forward to hearing more remixes of this as they roll in! "Damn find entertainment" is quite the compliment, I appreciate it!

Hi my friend

Yep still use Sony, so that is good news re magix...Things okies here my friend, waiting to get into a Hospital then hoping things will settle down health wise...Peace...Mosaic...

Hey Ed

Thank you mate for stopping by, and more so your kind words on the track, just listen to this again and fairly happy with it, glad you enjoyed the piece...Peace Ed...mosaic...

Thanks Ed, I always respect your view on things so I take your compliment on my vocals to heart, I appreciate it. It's tough to for me to like my own voice I guess, but I do like singing so I guess I just need to except it and just make music because its fun. As always I appreciate you taking the time to listen and comment. Thanks!!!

Kyle

Hi. Thx mat. I'm glad that your heart enjoy.

Hi Ed,

I thought I'd chime in and thank you personally for your kind words. I'm not exactly sure what I've 'got' except a decent speaking voice, but I can't really sing, but thanks anyway.

You don't really need a surround system, but it's nice when you can hear different instruments coming from different parts of the room. I mix on a stereo, though.

Cheers,
Scott

Thanks Ed :) Yes it is amazing considering I have never met or played with these guys in the same room...but we got a good system going for our recording process, and we are learning all the time. And to tell you the truth, I am basically flying in the dark with the mixing process, I pull on some levers and push some buttons, ask the guys what they think, do some adjustments and that's it. TG :)

sorry for the uber late response, thank you!