Per collection thread

I’m not a fan of AI for vocals either waraba , takes away more than it gives. With regards that concept on guitar though you may like the old Roland VG system (and the Line6 Variax), as that was sort of the idea behind them.

Thanks spottydog10 good advice. I already spend probably the lions share of time on tracking the vocals and it feels like a rabbit hole you can go down very quickly, I definitely end up fighting fatigue. My primary goal is decent sounding tracks. So just to shift to more professional sounding recording results first, making it intentional and not amateur or annoying voice sounding. Beyond that to technically good feels like a distant horizon goal of greater proficiencies after the basics.

Unless it’s a good sound that’s successful then I’m pretty sure it’s not a great thing Mats_Nermark , when people tell me that I take it as a good sign that I am in a comfort zone, a.k.a. being lazy and not pushing myself or taking risks, and I think it’s worth reading between the lines and realizing that as an audience they’re maybe letting me know in as gentle way as they can that that they’re bored of hearing that sound.

IMO it’s reading the mood that’s the much more valuable advice you’ll get from others indirectly than people’s direct opinion of what to do, which could be bunk and completely irrelevant to you and your goals (mostly because it’s what they want to do themselves and are telling you vicariously whether they realize it or not).

Everyone has the capability of being versatile. You can’t not sound like yourself, because you are you. But you can break habits and slowly chip away at the firmament to reveal or realize your full self, it’s only through doing that you’ll get to know how to leverage what you’ve got best. What your best angle is.

It takes being willing to fail and hearing what you don’t want to. Because you might think you’ve got a neat trick and stop before you find out what your actual best asset is. So you have to be brutal with yourself, to push on into purposefully doing things that you think you’re rubbish at, which you might be, but you also might be less rubbish at them than the thing you’re doing right now, and may not realize that you are.

Thanks BayouTexan It’s a combination of several layers of patches of the new Polytone synth and the dual arp in Reason 13.

Trying some (for me) minimal processing approach. The vocal processing is just the UAD 76 pre amp on recording and c-suite noise reduction (my room has a few hums that I can't get rid of easily any other way or isolate myself from), a single la2a to just roll off the super peaks, and a tinge of spring verb so it's not 100% dry. Background (guitar, drums and bass) have the vitalizer on them to spread them out and adjust the bass balance slightly, and there's a hitsville eq on the master bus. Nothing else.

Weakest links remain the playing/vocals, but I wanted to keep it minimal with not much place to hide. Less EQ and compression does seem to work to bring up some 3dimensionality on the vocals, which is ok on a more minimalist backing. I realize it might not work so well on a more full backing.

Because speaking as a person who lacks skill and talent I can honestly say it takes longer to record properly than to fudge in post to sound good with sufficient FX.

Also don't forget that "purity" can be a rabbit hole that doesn't result in better songs. There's a balance to what serves the song.

Happy 4th of July

Acoustic guitars are great BayouTexan , just be sure you're willing to spend more than you hope as they're not cheap instruments.

Also most critically, if it doesn't inspire you to play it then don't bother getting it. I wasted years mangling my fingers on an uninspiring dirt cheap instrument that only set my technique back, hurt my hands and made me resent it.

Good steel strung acoustics shouldn't feel markedly more difficult to play than e.g. a telecaster with 10's. It should feel slinky, light and reasonably fast. Then the sound is something you'll need a friend for, have them listen don't give your own opinions of the instruments, let them say what they like. If it doesn't concur with what you like then also walk away, there are plenty of acoustic instruments in the world, plenty of shops.

Just remember that a luthier will be able to raise or lower the bridge and re-cut the nut, but wont be able to improve the tone, neck profile, resonance or scale length, and the only way to adjust thow tense the strings feel would be to change the gauge which could have undesirable side effects.

So you have to be a little more certain with the instrument you like than you would with an electric which can be much more tolerant.

Brands that tend to be consistently good to play are iMO Yamaha and Taylor, they've spent a lot of money on R&D and it's paid off. Even their cheaper guitars are consistently much better than alternatives in the same or even considerably high price bracket. Having said that the consistency also means unless you're willing to really spend the big bucks they're not going to match that one special Martin, Larrivee or Collings, at which point get a Martin, Larrivee or Collings.