Ha, that’s like Nietzsche saying “how far should I push the boundary between the modern and post-modern”
However you want to do it, I’ll help if I can. If you need me to sing or play, no problem. I think it’s two bridges that would happen after choruses, but you know your song. I’d love to be the background voices to your snarly lead vocal, that’s what I originally heard, but what you want is all that’s important. I’m happy when you are.
Sounds like Bill Clinton. We used to say it would “expand your lungs” … that’s probably bullshit, but it made us feel good. I smoked that shit for a long time and enjoyed it. Not done it for awhile, but I don’t think it’s that bad. The plant probably has healing properties, but then corporations get involved and it likely goes to shit. There are a lot of things worse, including alcohol (not that I don’t like that
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Alcohol gets harder to take as you get older, no doubt. Beer can cause gout (due to purines/uric acid) so it’s the first to go. Wine and liquor are less implicated in that, so may be good choices. I like red wine and sake (Japanese). Liquor isn’t as problematic in that scenario, but is “quicker” as Ozzy says. These are minimal compared to “hard drugs”, but have their effects just the same over time. However, “tea totallers” don’t seem to live longer lives. So have fun, or no? I say have fun.
As Led Zeppelin said: “Swan Song”,
Like I said, I’ll give it a try. You are certainly on to something. I understand committing to an idea, and that it’s not easy, but the more the commitment the more the collaboration, in a sense.
I quite enjoyed playing alone, as an only child. It’s the essence of all creativity, IMO. YMMV. In terms of “Free Bird”, I look to these guys, who seem to have mastered it:
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Happy to help, take some time and piece it together.
Paul, I know you’re not finished with the track, but I decided to take a stab at a lead solo. It steps on your radio voice segment a bit, I didn’t have much choice. This was just for fun, I played around with it and this is what I came up with. I could be way off. After a number of takes this one seemed to resonate. I think the solo starts about 2:04, let me know what you think.
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The arrangement is getting a lot better. I think one more half bridge after the last chorus and Stan’s lead would make a great ending. You should take my main voice out and sing the part just like you are during the bridge. If the BPM stays at 90, I can send you the background vocals as individual tracks to cut and paste where you need them. It’s getting good.
Ha, thanks! I try to be musically coherent, but it’s the noodling and hot-dogging that I have fun with. I liked the radio voice part, and I did mix the solo just barely loud enough to hear the solo and also the radio voice as well.
Here is the isolated solo track posted below. It is the same length as your track so you should be able to just drop it in place. Of course, you can slide it around if needed. The sound starts around 2:04, it’s silent prior to that. Listening to it isolated, there’s some noisiness and choppiness of my playing; as I said I was just giving it a shot to see what I could come up with. If you need that cleaned up, or need more gain I can try to do that. I don’t think you can hear those things with it mixed in though, at least the level I had it at.
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I enjoy playing intuitively and spontaneously, and if I did 100 takes they would all be different, and some would be better than others. I can be more organized and construct solos if I put my mind to it though. If this solo doesn’t work that well when you dig into it, I can record some more takes when you have your song structure more finalized.
When I heard your song ideas, especially with the addiction theme, I thought my somewhat wild soloing would be a nice counterpoint to your melodic soloing breaks, and also fit with the addiction theme of the lyrics - kind of ‘off the rails on a crazy train’ as it were.
Use what you can, where it fits. I think it fits pretty good, though if I were playing it over I’d play a bit differently to mesh with your parts better in that section. Hopefully my notes are fitting into your scheme, though I didn’t analyze the chord structure and such, just played. It’s something I can work with more, if you want.
When you have Bob’s parts in there, it sounds like there’s some dissonance happening when the riff starts each time (i.e. 2:16, 2:21), though that might be on purpose. It’s different, but does have a cool effect. And it’s definitely fun having a 3-way collab going on. And having Bob’s vocals in those places does change the song up a bit. It’s that Three Dog Night vibe as mentioned earlier. You’re over 3 minutes now, so the song structure is getting pretty cohesive IMO.
I listened to the two most recent mixes. I can’t help but wonder how it would sound if some or all of the guitars were panned slightly toward the center. I’m wearing headphones. It’s a cool song.
I think you pulled it together very well. I didn’t want to take over your song, you filled in the bridge just like I was hearing it, other than maybe a couple of background voices to set your voice off.
Glad you finished it, great job, Stan’s part sits in there well.
I agree with Bob, Paul - You did a great job with this - & I love Bob and Stan’s contributions - they add a lot and give it really cool vibe.
On my small work cruddy speakers, the main vocal is a little bit harsh and biting. I don’t think it would take much to just tame that and make it work a little bit better on midrange-focused systems, though.
Top job, Sirs!
Whoever said ‘flashbacks’ were a bad thing?
And that’s pretty much literally what it was. Have played a bit more since. Great job on the song Paul, and yes you dragged me out of ‘musical retirement’ I think.