Tumbleweed

Ed,
TY my friend and mentor. Lyric writing for me is easy at times and other times can be a stressor. I really have to go to another place in my mind to get them to "come to me". I have been writing lyrics for over 37 years now and instead of settling in and just writing, my words are becoming more thoughtful towards the human element as I push myself.
Mark.

Hey Ed,

I agree...Patricia is a real talent and quite generous to allow us to use her tracks for our projects. Thanks for your kind words about our little group.

Ciao,
M.

My emotion is what carries me through most of my music. Im not the best singer, but ive got that emotion to convey. And I also agree that a mix of raw anger and singing makes a good mix. I do love the metal genre, but will throw my voice on to any haha. Its great to hear from you Tumbleweed. :) And I will check them out.

As usual Ed, your words are very appreciated (and you are very kind).
I have already some more key tracks from Pat: I hope to find some time soon to put together a new track. Unfortunately I am very busy, but his talent deserves the right amount of attention.
Thanks again!
Ciao, Domenico

Hey Ed,

Yeah, Kontakt is nice. I've only been using it a few weeks, but the VST instruments are more realistic than most. There are tons of instrument packs for it, and you can also use QLEW (Quantum Leap East West) with it. It really uses allot of memory, so if you do get it, make sure you have the memory for it.

Thanks for your kind word of my track. For my vocals I usually use Sonar's 'Boost11' unless it's really strong. Yes, Franco and I work on quite a few projects together, with my solo stuff and with Musicante. He has a nice feel for the music.

Cheers,
Scott

Thanks Tumbleweed :) Coming from you it means a lot!

Hey, Ed
Sorry it took me so long to answer, but I really appreciate your input, as always! I am glad you liked it, and I will try to work on the song again to improve it!
Thanks for listening and for commenting :)

Thanks for the comment tumbleweed, I talked about the ending a couple comments down and explained why it was a little sudden. Also, I am getting what I think are some good vocals on here. So I hope you like it!

Rico L.

Hi Ed,

Thanks so much for your kind words. I certainly wish we could tour, but the thousands of miles are a bit tough to overcome. Hell, I wish we could just be in the same room!

I agree about Aleck. When I heard the organ for the first time I was blown away. I hope he'll continue work with us.

Ciao,
M.

Greetings, Mr Weed.

Yes, fun swinging beginning. I'm totally with you on being happy to listen to just the swing throughout ie no metal. But you know what I'm like and I constantly feel compelled to do stuff that's different and hopefully something I haven't really heard before. So, the metal middle could be removed as its own separate track but then I wouldn't have jazz metal and I'm pleased that I've finally managed to pull that odd merger off.

It was really coming up with that evil synth horn sound around 2:55 that I decided it must go into proper badass metal.

It has to return to the smooth stuff around 6:00. Mostly because I just had more of it and didn't want to wait too long to get to the heavy shit. I could have done, say, smooth swinging for 6 mins and then a couple of minutes of heavy. But making them more integrated I find more fun.

You may be interested to know that all the clean guitar playing (ie everything other than the metal middle) was done in one single 11 min take, which I then extensively edited and moved around and layered where necessary. I simply found that I'd done everything I needed in that one take and didn't need to bother picking the guitar up again (except for the heavy shit). It's this type of approach that I've suggested many times for you to try though I doubt you will as you're probably too set in your ways.

So, you still get to do a single take but you then chop it up a lot more to come up with unusual stuff. If I find a cool riff in that long take, I might copy and repeat it a few times and then get other instruments to play the same/a similar thing. This really is how I compose! Just jamming with good riffs and fills over 8-16 bar loops and then seeing what good stuff comes out and building everything up.

"well programmed softer style drums with just the right amount of meat..."

I think you might be referring to the penultimate section starting around 7:30 where I bring back the emphasis on the tritone and metal but without any guitar or banging drums. That's an attempt to give a metal feel to jazz but without the distortion or smashing drums. Rhodes gets distorted again there (wah too). I also use a snare in that section from an EZ kit which is supposed to be for drum 'n' bass. Quite a distinctive sound and not heard anywhere else in the track.

"have to confess this flew by"

That has been said quite a few times on my lengthy tracks and pleases me. Probably something to do with the number of changes and constant new developments. Very important for me not to have a boring moment. If something's dragging I either shorten it or just add more elements (normally the latter, plus lengthening things when the new elements present even more options).

Thanks for your thoughts.

Thanks. I spent more time on the mix than on the song.

Hey Ed, thank you for your listen and the kind comment! I'm happy that you enjoyed the trip! Your words make me happy. I'm no expert, but I'm finally feeling some understanding of what goes on inside the circuits I build, and that feels good. I'm in the middle of updating this song, taking the reactions I received here into account. I have recorded the bass part with a new modular patch; better tuned and more bass. Weakened and killed the detune on the Korg DW synth. Building up some live instrument recordings and stuff. Got all the lyrics written. Haven't advanced a song after release like this for while. Thank you for listening my friend!

Thanks for the kind words Ed: I am kind of "ashamed" because my guitar playing is really minimalist compared to yours. And for this song I was using a "Smith'ish" approach to guitar (I know, he is not what we can define a guitar hero but I like his music a lot).
Take care, Domenico

Thank you so much for those kind words Ed! Glad to know you liked it! :)

Awh, thanks Tumbleweed! That meant a lot to me man. Don't drink too much ale! :P

"never even heard of it till I found Looperman"

- Hey Ed, im EXACTLY the same i didnt know about chillout till i heard a danke track on here haha.

"you`ve got something really good going here"

- Thanks man :), i set out to make something ive never done before and i think i done that haha

"the minimal approach really lets the individual instrument parts "

- YEAH, exactly! :)

"Go with what feels right" / "go with the flow"

- I always do, only way to do it haha

"your creativity will just keep growing along with your diversity"

- I hope thats true, only way to find out is to keep going I guess :)

There's some really good advice in there man,
thanks for taking the time.
Glad you enjoyed.

much love man much love...those are some kind words bro...i love my loopy community

a belated and sincere thanks to you Ed for your constant feedback, always appreciate it my friend. hope all is well!

Thank you again Ed. Actually I have to say that I adjusted very carefully the panning of each separated track in here, I always pay much attention to the placement of instruments in the mix. No difference this time, I decided to leave the vocals as they are though. For me they sound ok like this. Also my tracks are not mastered to the modern standards as I do not make commercial music at all. Therefore the only thing to care about is the clarity of the arrangement and final mix. But thanks for pointing all that anyway and some nice words. Basically this is only a sketch based on the short guitar idea sent to me by ferryterry but we want to make another version soon. So I won't be reworking this version here anymore.

Thanks again for reviewing my track - it is much appreciated. Best to you, Alex

Thanks Ed! Do not worry about that, I really appreciate your comment. Till next time, Alex

Thank you Ed for listening :)

Hi Tumbleweed. Thanks so much, you are really kind!