[Redster]

Hey, its Red here, I may have slightly assisted the man Boydie on this track. Good lord that man can write songs (and sing - and play guitar - the B@stard)!

As for the guitar solo, its worth noting that we have not made an EQ pass on any of this track yet, which is encouraging But yes it could do with being a bit more pronounced.

The only thing I have done tonally so far is ducked the bass guitar under the kick using a side chain compressor and trimmed the rest of the tracks to make space using hi and low pass filters. The rest of the "depth" uses various degrees of reverb send.

The drums need a bit of work, the song in general lacks dynamics between the verse and chorus - maybe I made it pound too much from the start. plus the crash cymbals towards the end of the song are all messed up.

That said, overall I think we are both pretty pleased with where it is at the moment. I have a drummer friend who has insinuated that he will come and play on this to get rid of the drum computer, so this is not the last you have heard of Breakdown....

Frankly both our ears are bleeding from working on this, so its time to go to something a little more chilled...

"Songs are never complete, only abandoned."

[Boydie]

Thanks for the comments guys, much appreciated

This is certainly not my usual type of music but it was great fun!

I certainly understand the comments about the phone ringing - regardless of how many times I heard it I still automatically look for a phone during the intro - and I don't even have any phones that ring like that!!!!

@estreet - sorry about the tweeters  (the ringing did make me jump out of my skin once when I left the volume up and my headphones on!!!)

@JamesNighthawk - I hear what you are saying here and I agree. The answerphone concept only came up at the last minute. I suggested a "telephone" type effect for the first few lines, RED then took the idea and ran with it putting the answerphone message in, MRS BOYDIE then recorded this message and came up with the idea of putting a return message over the other breaks. I think it all came together nicely but agree it could all have been a bit "tighter" had we originally had the concept and written the song to fit - an idea for another day...

@(Revovle)around

Very professional, rockin tune. It makes me jealous the level of production

It has been a bit of a humbling experience for me too - I thought I had the production pretty good but RED completely transformed the track. All recording was done in SONAR, with Guitar Rig providing all guitar tones. RED mixed and tweaked everything in REASON so it is all "home" stuff

This experience has been such a learning curve for me and it has hammered home to me that it is all about learning the skills (and training your ears) to mix and get a good production

I feel that I am on the foot hills of a very steep learning curve but one I definitely want to conquer (and if JAMES NIGHTHAWK and RED can give me a push along that way that would be great!!)

This song has been “abandoned” for now and I am looking forward to working on a few more chilled out numbers I have in the pipeline…

[andy5544]

Sounds great ,drums are brilliant ,wish i could program drums 
guitar solo is on fire , all in all great   

[Redster]

Thanks!

wish i could program drums

I used Reasons drum computer for this. I just programmed a basic pattern first that followed the bass guitar. Pasted the pattern to a midi track then edited it as the song went along.

Make sure you keep in mind that drummers only have two arms - i.e. you cant hit a hat, snare and cymbal at the same time. As for fills, just take it as it comes, program the fills as you see fit then apply the above rule to humanise them. Use reference tracks for inspiration.

The most important thing is velocity. Vary it - a lot - in particular on the hats, the kick and the snares. I have not done this enough yet on this track that's why the dynamics are a bit shot, but I didn't want to spend too much time on it after luring my drummer mate to come and actually play on it (more to follow)...

After the basic pattern and fills were programmed and the velocities tweaked I went back in and replaced all the drum samples with one-shot samples that sounded about right to fit with the tone of the song, pitched the individual drums so they sounded like a tuned kit and made another couple of passes to make sure the two-arm rule was obeyed.

Finally I added the crashes and a few little hi-hat inflections.

They still sound like a drum computer to me though...

[jim morrison]

Got me looking around the house for a phone then lol, smashing rock song, i can't tell weather it's recorded in a studio or not ??

Ah yeah read the previous post now, thats well impressive production.

[mihkay]

Damn Boydie. Had me reaching for the phone.  Caught! 

Lovely production. Great tune. Had me nodding the head, though I don't have the hair any more.
The Mrs Boydie part really mixed in well.

A great rocker. 

[ABeautifulVirus]

this is a gem. like Mudhoney meets Sonic Youth meets Garbage/Shirley Manson. friggin' great track. something i would buy and listen to.

[Redster]

Thanks ABeautifulVirus the Garbage shout is quite a compliment as this was essentially programmed and mixed electronically Cheers.

[faero]

Ah - really refreshing to hear this.  Love the verse guitar riff/pick and transition to chorus - the contrast works really well.  I think the phone works well too although potentially you could loose one of them as it doesnt take much to get the message (nice pun eh?)
Guitar solo is stunningly well played but does get a bit lost in potentially too many notes and a little hard to hear what's going on (might be a touch quiet too but I'm on not great headphones just now).  The bits of the solo where you pick up a melody are really nice and they shine through.
Drums fit perfectly - sharp and full of energy.

[GuitarArt1980]

Very well done! Especially the guitars and Hannah. Though I haven't listened to this type of music much since the 90s, this is definitely pro level stuff.

[tone]

A classic bit of rock n roll, this is! Love the dirty slightly industrial guitar riff. Great choice of guitar tones and fantastic drum programming (welcome aboard Red)

Agree that Hannah could do with a bit of roughing up

My only criticism of this track is that the vocal melody doesn't sound like it belongs to the guitar riff (verse only). That guitar riff is infectious and quite alt-rock (sort of Alice in Chains?) but the vocal melody is very ZZ top/ classic rock. Nowt wrong with classic rock - just seems to go against the grain a little?

Of course, only my opinion. And if you don't upset someone you're doing it wrong as far as I'm concerned.

And that guitar solo is ON FIRE!

Go Boydie!

Great track. Fantastic sound. Brilliant performance. Regards to Mrs Boydie

[Kafla]

Another style from boydie and another winner

Love the change into the chorus

Love your wife's voice , solo, drums - maybe the bass could come up more

Brilliant mate

[domstone86]

Love this. The chords in the verse are great, and the solo is insane.

Only problem I have with this track is it's 2:30 in the morning, and ringing phones confuse me at this time of day.

[Paul]

Great track with lots of energy.  Interesting contrast from the verse patterns to the uplifting 'yeah what do you make of me now' part and then the spoke word section.  Cool, I enjoyed this!

Thanks for sharing

Paul