Post your covers! (2019-2022)

2827

Very nice @howard. Your singing is fine for this genre. I enjoyed listening to the entire song and all the instruments mixed together.

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2828

Thanks @PamPurrs! Glad you liked it!

My voice still has a long way to go - that track is leaning on Melodyne for some pitch correcting (though not as much as I expected!)

Vocals are terrifying :slight_smile:

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2829

very impressive @howard , I love your full-covers. it’s very well made.

special congrats for your vocals, that’s something I’ve always been afraid of !

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2830

Faarrrrrrrr
 Ooooouttt
 Maaaaaannn
 :grin: Dig It
!!!..

That Lava Lamp visual combined with the instruments and the tones in your vocals were not only mesmerizing, but kinda brought me back to a time of long hair, bell bottoms, sandals, Boones Farm, and Zig-Zag wrappers
 Still got the long hair, sandals, and Zig-Zags though


Your mixing abilities are impressive. I listened a few times in order to focus on each instrument and each seemed to help support the other in the mix. The vocals of course being the tie that binds each of the instruments, created a somewhat “mysterious” aura that the visual effects fed into


Great job @howard! Dig it!! Now where in the hell are them damn Zig-Zags??.. :rofl: :sunglasses:

Lanny

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2831

Lanny, Laurent, thanks for the kind words, I especially appreciate it coming from you two :slight_smile:

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2832

Thanks Pam!!

Thanks Lester, Connie is also a big fan and that is one of her favorites from Lady A. A fun song to play too.

Thanks Brian
 I’m getting more and more comfortable playing on the P, but will certainly use my Ibbby to do those really fast hitting’ rock songs


Thanks Joerg! Same advise my bass mentor gave
 “Play it like you OWN IT!!”

Thanks Laurent
 I knew for a fact that you would pick up on just that!! I wanted some “Dirt” in the tone for that song however, during the ‘Intro’ section, it was a bit too ‘Dirty’ but that’s where my controls were at when I began recording. I really meant to turn down the tone a bit and play the intro and first verse, and then during the short two beat (no bass) part just before the chorus kicked in, reach down and turn it back up
 As you can see, that never happened, and I didn’t want to do another recording
 I suppose THIS is where a pedal or two would come in handy


Thanks Howard
 I’m learning that in order to lock in and stay in the groove that I have to totally forget that I am recording both audio and video tracks at the same time. Once my mind if fully engulfed in the song, and focused fully on that kick, I don’t think of anything else.

Thanks Mac - One of those songs that a person just can’t help “Rockin’ Out” to when playing it
 Even though it’s only 4 notes - D, C, F, & G, I suppose it’s all in how they’re played - and as I mentioned, I musta played those 4 notes a hundred different ways and each time the song sounded different.

Thanks Joe!!

Couldn’t agree more Jerry
 I use to play a lot of Country when I played guitar, and it’s the genre that my wife enjoys listening to the most. She was really excited to hear this one
 Also, this song was a very good learning tool for me - not to mention it is one helluva song to play bass to!! :smile: :grin:

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2833

Cool as penguin p*ss @howard :sunglasses:
Took me back to that moment in time totally and on top of the instrumental bit having the stones to add vocals,hats off the you sir :+1::ok_hand:

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2834

Thanks Mac!

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2835

Sorry, been off the grid for most of yesterday


Very nicely played, mixed and produced, Howard - you almost don’t need your friend on lead there :grinning:

About those vocals: yeah, that takes some stones, so kudos alone for that! And, as someone already said, I think they work very well in the context of this type of music! I am curious as to how you recorded the vocals. Not so much the exact technical details, but more how you would gauge your “input level”? What I mean is how loudly did you sing when you sang? When I try stuff like this, and even though I know the neighbors can’t hear me, I am holding back a lot (instinctively? for fear of embarrassing myself!?). To the point where it becomes a Lou Reed type of whisper. For good vocals, I feel you’d need to dare sing at a fairly high level, like you really mean it, which makes the singing more “free”, while the opposite makes it feel restricted. At least, that is my own experience. I’d be curious to hear how you felt about that!?

Also, how did you “play” the drums? Was that with your fingers on pads?? I am always struggling how to get drums into my recordings that sound “real” and with the fills and ornaments that I would play. Sure, GarageBand has very sophisticated algorithms for the drums now, but they still do what the algorithm thinks and not necessarily what I would do.

So, if I had to nit-pick (and this is at a super nit-picky level), there is something not quite working (to my ears), when the drums enter for the first time just after the bass
 it is hard to pinpoint, but something rhythmically is clashing there ever so slightly
 but, as soon as the groove is established, this all goes away!

And nice visuals to go along with the song!

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2836

Great job Howard @howard, I have never heard the song before.
Your vocals IMO started like a conversation but progressed to blend and be more relaxed and really fitted in with the music.
Your bass,keys,rhythm and the lead really worked well.
The video you used/made really fitted nicely to the recording, I watched and listened 3 times to be sure I captured every component and I will be honest, I really liked what you have put up, it’s easy to listen to, mixed nicely and very smooth.
Can you let me know when you release your first album, very relaxing :+1::sunglasses:

Cheers Brian

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2837

Very Nice
! Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night
!

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2838

Very nice production and mixing of all the tracks. Vocals were just fine. I enjoyed it!
:+1:

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2839

Thanks Brian, Jerry, Jörg!

This was (and still is) a challenge. I was far too timid when starting and my friend’s feedback was to try not to be cautious, wait for the neighbors to be gone, and just “let it go.” While I didn’t quite get all the way there, what I ended up with there is much less cautious and restrained than the first few takes were. It’s hard.

One piece of advice I would have is: don’t skimp on the mic. Its sensitivity matters a lot. I tried starting with a Behringer and instantly regretted it, returned it immediately. I’m on a Shure PGA-58 now and it’s much better; even so, I regret not simply going straight to a SM-58, and probably will sooner or later. They aren’t that expensive and are great.

Also, I am not as good with pitch as the vocals imply. I wasn’t too far off, or at least as far as I thought I would be, but I definitely fixed the pitch up with Melodyne. I’ll be leaning on Melodyne for a while. The nice thing is I was close enough that it’s not obviously auto-tuned.

Sometimes I will use the pads and then quantize/fix it when I am figuring out a riff, but I’ve done so much MIDI tracking over the years that really usually I just enter the drums in a MIDI sequencer by drawing the beats, and then “humanize” the timing/impact velocity/etc. All MIDI sequencers will have a humanizing function that de-quantizes the notes a little to make them sound not robotic.

This is the last piece I am doing using my Zoom drum machine as the MIDI target though; I found a much better plugin. Already sold the thing.

GAH, you’re right. They are on 16th beats when they should be a triplet in the final beat instead. Must be the drummer in you :slight_smile:

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2840

Exactly - this is really tough! I don’t think I will venture into vocals and instead stick with instrumentals :smile:

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2841

@joergkutter

This has been my experience so far as well! No one can be in the house when I am attempting to sing. Even though I convince myself I sound OK through the headphones with the mix flowing through, I know the sound I am actually making in a quiet room is nothing short of cringeworthy!!! With everyone gone I can close my eyes, get loud and let loose. (And try to somehow stay in the right key/pitch at least part of the time) Even then, I’m fighting internal embarrassment!

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2842

Haha, yes that is a very good description of what I felt the few times I attempted anything in the singing direction!

How much “easier” it is to pluck a string :smile:

That said, you seem to have gotten really quite far with your (home) recording efforts!!

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2843

Here’s my last-minute Christmas cover of Clarence Carter’s “Back Door Santa.” I have the B.B. King version on my Christmas playlist, but that bassline is just root notes so went with the original.

Recorded on Fender MiM P Bass with flatwounds directly into DAI.

Pretty simple 12-bar blues song with some fills, but kind of challenging to get the timing down for the quick turn at the end of each measure. It’s another one of those old recordings with very prevalent bass, so it’s tough to cut that down enough without making the original sound like sh#t. So the bass may sound doubled up a bit.

Not my most polished effort but I wanted to get it done before Christmas. Now I just need to finish up Christmas shopping :sweat_smile:

Happy Holidays to everyone and thanks for being an awesome community!

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2844

Great cover and well played! Definitely better that just root notes.
Happy Holidays to you @bjams!

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2845

Very nice @bjams. Well done :clap:

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2846

that’s an excellent cover @bjams ! very cool bass line, played nicely with a very appropriate tone, it just sounds “right” to me :slight_smile:

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