Doing Good

This is a track that was written for an “original band” (as opposed to “cover band”) project in the early 90’s. It started with the guitar melody that may remind a discerning listener of “a certain age” of Cream’s “Dance the Night Away” from Disraeli Gears. We are what we eat, or have eaten. I’m also a huge Todd Rundgren fan, and I think you might hear something of him in this too.
My re-visit found me writing a new bridge because I’d totally forgotten the one from the 90’s and was too lazy to fire up the port-a-studio to hear what it might’ve once been. I’d also recorded a few songs around the time of doing this that relied heavily on drum loops and programs, so I tried to actually “write” this drum track more than simply letting a loop go. That might explain the not perfectly quantized bass drum in a spot or too. Having cut my musical teeth in the less perfection oriented world of the 60’s and 70’s, I didn’t care about that too much.
This has analog guitars and bass, but any keys and the drums are from either Halion or Groove Agent. Thanks for listening, and hope it’s enjoyable.

Hey John,
The guitar solo in the middle of the track is pretty good. The big thing to me is the voice. Fits very well in the tone AND the text is great too!

Thanks for the listen, Stephco, et les douce mots pour ma chanson. Particular thanks for kind words about the vocal. Glad that the words struck a chord too.

Hey Swetch, this one doesn’t hang together as well as the last one you posted. I think it would be worth the effort to rebuild it from the bottom up without the portastudio tracks, because it’s probably a better composition than the recording here, not to say there isn’t a lot to admire; as Stephco says, the voice and the guitars. I don’t want to admit how old I am, but, you are never ever never ever going to hear my portastudio recordings, and I mean never ever.

OK, Early. Thanks for the listen along with the positive and not so positive impressions. Taste always comes into it when we hear or see things, and no one is guaranteed to like or “get” what we tried to do or actually did.
I just wanted to clarify the portastudio reference. If we’ve been writing and recording back into the last century, we were all bound to use some sort of portastudio in our home. I think we all probably came up with things that stuck with us over time as decent ideas that we wished we could’ve done more with than that format allowed us to do.
Now in the DAW age we might get the urge to re-visit and try to update some of those older tunes (4 or 8 tracks in the 80’s or 90’s vs. what we can do with a modern DAW?). Why not, if you had the time or impulse and thought that material had enough merit to begin with.
That’s what I did here, and occasionally do when I sit down to record things. Sometimes the song is hot off the presses writing wise (as my tracks To the Field of Reeds and The Mind Observes, recently shared here, both are). Sometimes the song might have been written years ago, as this one was. Even though Doing Good is an older composition, this recording was totally done in Cubase 9.5 and the guitars and bass utilized the Line 6 Helix Native plug in. Nothing from the portastudio tracks is here to hear. My p-studio reference was a way of saying I’d just written a new and different bridge for the song that didn’t appear 'back in the day".
That being said, if the recording or song didn’t do it for you (or anyone else who listens), oh well…maybe something else of mine will at another time. As I said to begin with, thanks for listening and commenting in the first place.

Hey Swetch, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s a bad composition, I just think it isn’t hanging together so well, and I assumed it was because you had imported tracks from your old portastudio. And I don’t think it’s the harmonies, or the playing, or the singing (good singing, by the way), I think it’s the timing. It sounds like the instruments are struggling to find each other at the same beat. So I’m saying if you can work to tighten it up, it will make a much better presentation.

I know about the “rhythm section” issue. Time to fire the drummer!! As I said above, the drums here was the result of me trying to think and execute like a drummer, rather than rely on drum programs or loops strung together. I tried “playing” the part as I thought a drummer might, and that’s what I was getting at with the reference to things being less than perfectly quantized in spots. I agree that a more accurate drum part is in order, and I’ll probably give that another try at some point.