Always

Nice work on the guitar melodies, most of the biggest hits ever are repeated notes from beginning to end, so you're spot on there.

Do you record with a metronome? Just my opinion but I'd tighten up the bass more, like instead of following the guitar riff follow the drum beat more? Hope that makes sense? And maybe double the rhythm track and pan them 50% left/right?

Well done!

Your next challenge should be to work in your vibrato and fretting micro-pitch adjustments.

Right now because you’re using straight notes with a lot of chorus the tone will always sound out of tune. Vibrato has two purposes, the first is to intensify and extend a note, the second is to mask pitchyness - because you’re deviating to both sides of the true note.

Fretting micro pitch adjustments are what the name suggests, when you fret how hard you push and any slight pull will allow you to make small adjustments on the fly. If you pay/attention to e.g. Hendrix you’ll notice he pulls a little bit on his hammer licks to just adjust the note coming out both to emphasize and bring it into pitch, but sometimes it can happen without you paying attention and that’s when things get to sound out of tune too, e.g. a common mistake people make early on that’s really well demonstrated in that terrible band in the film Boogie Nights is fretting too hard, this results in a sharp note and slight transient bend, it’s important to relax your hands while playing so you don’t injure yourself in the long run.

Nothing embarrassing or humiliating about playing guitar brother, thanks for sharing that, takes balls that does, I have yet to share a video of myself like this. Thanks for the explanation above too, I always love hearing how other players do their thing. You made great melodies there

Working with drum tracks greatly improves your time keeping. Chewing gum does too.

Think of bass as it's not what you play it's what you leave out.

Try to avoid playing on the snare drum unless it's a doubled riff, it's not always easy.

Stay with it Larry.

Good & fast progress overall , I suggest playing over a groovy drumbeat. Set the bpm with a tap button to force the DAW adapt to your inner rhythm instead of the opposite.

Groove is the most inspiring thing for me , and I often play my basses last. I can also start from drum & bass sometimes.

I double track everything even clean lines & chords , so I keep practicing tight rhythm everyday and is also gives a very good natural tracking.

I sing after the basse once the track is complete. same thing for leads.

Listening to Jimi and try to copy some of his Rhythm licks is the best school for me , he's a god of a guitar player as most of us are more experienced than him ( 30 years of practice for me , Jimi died at 27 ). keeps me humble but with a real goal

Quote from BayouTexan

On your DT, is the 2nd guitar setup the same, or do you flip to another pickup or EQ setting, or just depends on the song?

I keep the same setup for both most of the time , as natural dbl tracking sounds huge on it's own , but I"ll experiment with pickups or dist/gain from time to time like on my last track (cloud of war) : this was my SC PRS both on neck then bridge. the purpose it to have a clean mix.

Quote from BayouTexan

"Franjoe30[/user] could probably do some freakin killer rhythm chugs in this"

Great job and great melody. I always find it harder to create a rhythm track for a melody i've written as i usually always come up with rhythm parts then the melodies come out of jamming over them. You could easily rock out a killer rhythm track of your own over this.

Your playing, writing and recording techniques have all come on leaps and bounds, you should be very proud of what you are achieving. All the hints and tips the guys have said above are great advice, this really is an incredibly supportive group of guitar players and song writers, i've learned so much from listening to all your advice and music.

Keep rocking out those great tunes my friend

Quote from BayouTexan

I am going to embarrass and humiliate myself here, but this was me creating this riff 10 months after learning guitar. I had to chew gum to keep from biting my tongue from being so nervous and frigid about playing. And I actually thought I was pretty good back then since I could at least write some songs. I guess I will look back at my new mixes in a few years and be like...

At least my hair is 5 times longer now.

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I couldn't play like this 10 months after picking up the guitar for the first time.

Funnily enough, i have 5 times less hair than i did when i started playing guitar and that was not my choice 😂