Hi all,
Here’s a song I just finished called Awakening. The lyrics are on the bandcamp page.
I recorded the whole thing here at home in C7 with no guitar, then handed it off to Kim with no instruction.
He did his own thing and most of it wasn’t what I was expecting, yet the more I heard what he added,
the more I liked it - he brought the piece to another level. Thanks, my friend! 
Your comments welcome:
Lenny, your production really sounds good and professional. Really good performances also.
Very cool.
Sounds really good man. Reminds me a little bit of Dream Theater, very progressive. The guitar sounds badass too, great player.
Great song, as always. But, believe it or not, I’m not a fan of the mix of the guitars. I can’t put my finger on it, but if I had a gun put to my head, I’d say that I suspected that there is to much tone shaping (wah-wah?) especially during the solo. It’s to the point that I really have to struggle to follow what Kim is doing, which is so uncharacteristic for song that he contributes to.
Like iluvstrats said, this is such a professional production. The vocal performance is spot-on and the sound is so crisp and full. And that bass sounds killer!
Great job!
Wes
My dream is one day to produce one of my songs and make it sound as professional as this excellent track…Kevin
deep stuff, very nice,well done to both of you ,also lovin the rain song ,i was listening to houses of the holy the other night .
thanks, strats, for listening, and for your comment!
thanks, Andre. Yeah - Kim rocks, eh?!
Hey Larry,
I didn’t have anything to do with Kim’s guitar tone. there’s a fair amount of layering of guitars, so to simplify
things at my end and to allow Kim to present himself as he wished, he printed little submixes of his guitar
parts, though the solo he sent me on it’s own track - but the amp settings and fx were printed on the track.
I’m not sure I agree with you about the guitar parts as a whole - they sound good to me, but I know what you’re saying about the tone of the solo. It’s not simply more distorted than you typically hear Kim play, but it also sounds pretty heavily filtered. I wasn’t crazy about it at first, and asked if he’d send me the solo with a sweeter rock sound,
but he was pretty adamant about this being the sound he wanted for this solo - and I’ve gotten used to it and I’m cool with it now. Kim and I have given each other a lot of freedom of interpretation in our collabs, and it’s made it more rewarding for both of us. It’s my song, but I decided to let the player have this one. 
He’s done the same for me.
Thanks, Wes. Glad you like the bass tone - for years I was frustrated that I couldn’t get a bass tone that I was satisfied with, but after learning a lot on this forum, such as how to boost the lows using high pass filters to avoid the mud, and running through an SVT head before going into Cubase - plus rebuilding my old P bass and putting in Seymour Duncan Antiquities pickups - I’m finally happy with my sound. It was a hard fought battle - but I’ve finally won it!
Don’t sell yourself short, my friend. The song you just posted is sounding pretty sweet. 
thanks, firestamper. I was a big Zep fan back in the day, but then didn’t listen to them for years. I just sorta
rediscovered them after reading a few good books on the band and one about Jimmy Page. I then had a conversation with some old friends on Facebook, and we discussed the tuning Page used on the Rain Song, and what a beautiful song it was, so my friend Michael and I decided why not take a shot at recording it? It was a good opportunity for a couple of old friends to get together and record. Michael played 12 string guitar and keys. I did the rest.
FYI - The genesis of the song was George Harrison asking John Bonham why Zeppelin didn’t write any ballads.
Page’s response was The Rain Song - and the first two chords are the same two chords found in
Harrison’s (The Beatles) ‘Something’.
Perhaps the song just needs more time in my ears for me to get it. Thanks for the gracious response.
When have you ever known me to be ungracious?! 
Have your ears had enough time yet?
Man, this is really something. I’m impressed and really like this. I personally like the guitar tomes and the playing as well as bass and drum programming. What drums were used for this. Seems to me this could use a big synth part also.
Anyway very nice . Pop rock isn’t my first choice of music either. You and Kim should get a drummer and go on the Artie Lang show. Not a big fan of this show but they are aligned with Guitar Center (and Direct TV) and feature a lot of NYC pop rock bands on a national broadcast.
Hey Ron,
I’m glad you like it. The drums were Superior Drummer. the bass wasn’t programmed - it was me playing my
Fender P-bass.
Thanks for the heads up on the Lange show.
My post was written incorrectly ; I knew the bass was you playing. It was really good and the tone is perfect to me.
Sorry for replying so late.
It is a great song Lenny, and I had lots of fun playing on it.
The bass and vocals (drum programming too) are TOP of the line 
Also: thank you for letting me do it my way Lenny.
The principle of just sending me bass, drums, vocals and some synths allowing me to figure out my own guitars worked great on this song IMO.
About the distorsion/filtering/delay on my guitars.
There might be tad more dist than I usually use and some wah wah pedal too.
But everything was sent dry (just wahwah+amp, no delay/reverb) exept an extra test take of the main lead with delay/reverb printed so that Lenny should have a feel for what I had in mind.
I am not sure, just speculating here, but I think Lenny listened to that and made his own version of it on my dry take of the lead.
To my ears this resulted in a little too much swirling delay from time to time on my lead, making it harder to follow what I play than what I personally had in mind.
Still love it tough, and it is IMO a great track in every respect.
Looking forward to doing more songs Lenny!
All the best, Kim
Lenny, great composition and arrangement as usual. You come up with such interesting stuff! And you’re both such excellent players. Can’t suggest anything here. The mix sounds a little dull to me. Things are not coming out clearly. I did an A/B comparison with “Into The Fire” to make sure I wasn’t just having a bad listening night. There’s some brightness and clarity missing, evident from the A/B comparison. Not as easy to make out the lyrics. I don’t know what to suggest, since it already sounds better than what I can do, but if you try the A/B comparison, you’ll see what I mean.