[music] Diamonds and Hearts (vocals by Jet)

Steinberg Lounge
1

Hi All,

I’ve been pretty quiet in the forum lately as I’ve been working on this, hope to catch up with things very soon.

This is the outcome of my original thread…

Taking onboard all the help and advice that I was given, I now have a song I would like to share with you.

Over Xmas I wrote and started to record the backing track, then I got to the stage where I wasn’t sure if the song would work as I had no idea how the vocals would go or who would be kind enough to do the vocals.

So, I took a deep breath and emailed Jet. To my surprise he agreed to work on it, he told me his sister, Maree, sent him some lyrics a couple of days before I sent him the demo asking if he could put some music to them. Reading the lyrics he was thinking of a waltz tempo and when my demo arrived he thought the 2 went well together (as I did when I heard the vocal demo idea he sent me)

I don’t want to end up writing an epic thread like my original one, so all I would like to say is, a big thank you to all that helped, advised and inspired me.
A special big thanks goes to Jet, Maree and Taylor (Jet’s son who kindly provided some awesome bass parts) without their help this wouldn’t have been possible.
The result, something special to all involved in more ways than one.

So here it is, I hope you like it, any and all comments welcome.
I still have lots to learn and master, but feel this is a really good level to build upon.

(This is my first time setting up a Bandcamp page, so I hope ive done it right! Sucks that everything has to play back as mp3!)

Regards
Sav.

Ps, for any interested,

Guitars- Ibanez elec/Taylor acoustic (Big baby) and Jet’s Ibanez Lap steel
Bass- By Taylor (not sure what make)/ second half I used Trilian for the 1st time.
Drums- bits and bobs from HalionOne and Groove agent one.

Cubase and T-racks 3 plug-ins
(and due to it getting more difficult to mix at the weekends, most of this was mixed late in the evenings with a pair of £20 headphones! :blush: )

Final mix was passed through some of Jet’s very nice studio gear (Otari 2-track, love the warmth this gives!)

2

Sounds great here Sav. Better yet, gives you a direction to take in your future compositions. You’re better equipped to deal with the challenges they bring. He’s like that our Jet :sunglasses:
Cheers
Phil

3

Nice track…really enjoy it through the MBP speakers will have a listen again through the system later…

4

Cheers Phil. It was a real pleasure to work with Jet, and it added an enjoyment to the whole process which i’ve lacked in any of my previous work.
I don’t think I said it above, but im really proud with how it turned out, true, I still doubt some of the things I do but im getting better, and I guess the more I do the more these mixing doubts will fade :slight_smile:

Cheers
sav

5

thanks rudiarii,
Nice to hear its translating well through different speakers :smiley:

Cheers
Sav.

6

Sav,

missions accomplished! :wink:

Jet

7

really a catchy chorus with cool harmonies. excellent mix I’m hearing, nice sound on the guitar break.
good song, well done guys

8

Hi

You’ve all done a good job on this. Sounds pretty good. :sunglasses:

Cheers

9

I agree! :smiley:
Massive thanks again ,Jet.

Cheers Bob, thanks for the listen, happy to hear you like it :wink:

Thanks Dave :smiley:

10

Yeah! This is really good. :smiley: I reckon you had just the right team assembled for the job! And I just can’t imagine another voice other than Jet’s on this… fits perfectly.

Congrats to all… very much enjoyed! :sunglasses:

11

This is a beautiful song, everyone did a great job!
The harmonies in the chorus are very nice. :sunglasses:

Cheers,
Wim

12

Thank you Sherz and Wim, a great team indeed! :smiley: and I felt honoured to work with them.

13

Very nice. All sounds well balanced to me, Sav.
The performances of all involved gel quite nicely. Great the way Maree’s lyrics and Jet and Taylors
involvement all fell into place for you.

Good work, all!

Lenny

14

It’s a nice song, and a nice recording. The problem I’m hearing is that it’s fairly dodgy rhythmically in places… seems like the rhythm electric guitar(s) are not tight with the hat. I’m surprised I’m the only one noting this.

15

Cheers Lenny,
I still remember your reply to my post on your thread ‘Bread and Roses’, you asked me if I had any music posted, well (several months later)…heres something I worked on :smiley:

16

Cheers twilight,

Yeah, I think you could be right about the rhythm gtrs, i’ll need to go back to the mix and only listen to the gtrs and hat on their own to hear whats going on.

To be honest, the guitars were a nightmare for me. When it came to doing the proper guitar takes I replaced the strings…afterwards I wished I hadnt. For me, the tone was all wrong with the new strings, to bright and metalic sounding. This (for some strange reason) made it even harder to play the basic ryhthm I was going for.
For the strumming effect in the verses I used a very light pick and was trying to strum the strings like I was using a feather. Getting it right without catching the odd string ‘hard’ was a mission! So it could be that my attention was much more on ‘not’ hitting a string to hard than the rhythm.
But thanks for bringing it up, no one had noticed till now! :imp: hehe, just kidding, I will keep a closer ear on it next time! :slight_smile:

Sav

17

Nice tune, good work all around. No nits here. :sunglasses:

I always change strings the day before recording.

18

Thank you, Nate :smiley:

19

That anecdote the strings makes perfect sense, and I know what you mean. I rarely change strings – after they’ve been worked in, they don’t change all that much (at least not with the frequency I play). New, brite strings can be hard to tame, especially with very active rhythmic parts.