Reminds me of the type of music you hear at Starbucks or bookstores, nice and relaxing. Mastering has it's limits in Garageband. For that you probably should think about switching to Logic Pro. Good luck!

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Nice laid-back enjoyable bit of music, sounds quite well-played, but I'll let knowledgeable guitarists critique that :-) Recording sounds pretty good... the guitar "tone" is OK, but sounds like a little less midrange, and a little boost of bass/treble might help fatten the sound a teeny bit... also adding a teeny bit of reverb* on the guitar might help it melt in a little bit. Drums sound like a standard single loop, so they get stale quickly, need to add a little variety in there.

*There's simple reverb (GB slider), and then there's complex (better sounding) reverb (AUMatrixReverb) with lots of knobs and stuff, which takes more fiddling, but eventually sounds better.

Hope this helps! Sounds like you are quite "at-home" with that guitar, nice.

ttfn,
Drakonis

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...I'm going to try the guitar tone edit you suggested tonite. We'll see how it goes.

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cool guitar playin ..I dont have anything to say
but I do realy enjoy this .clean sound .thnx for
shain !!!

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Brian, great post. If thats your first attempt, I can't wait to hear whats next. Nice pace, vibe, and tone. It all gelled nicely. I'm with Drak on the tweak for the midrange. Pro sounding

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.....Logic pro. I 'spose I should figure out the basics in garageband before i jump up to that tho, huh?

Thanks for all the good comments by the way. I can see this MJ group is going to be addictive. Thankfully I can take a lot of days off from work this winter. Especially next week since it's so cold. Yay! : D

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this is a great try at GB... first off, which version are you using? we run GB4 for our Monty Cali tunes.....
tone wise, try this;
on your rhythm tracks, first off, use two different tones, and do two tracks. you can copy and paste the same track and effect and eq it differently, or you can play two different tracks. up to you. keep one track exactly the same as you have it. take the second rhythm track, add a touch more high end, and maybe a little dirt to the tone, like a subtle distortion. keep them both panned center, but feather the volumes to compliment the tones of each track to taste. on the solo, some reverb, and a little more crispness. now, me, i add the reverb and such to the track itself, not to the master. effecting everything with the same reverb tends to muddy the mix. also, you have alot of low end boom on your kick drum. dont know if this is fixable, or not, but if it is, use the track eq, set it to 10-band, and play around with that. you lost your bass guitar in your mix due to the battle between the bass and the rhythm guitar for the same frequency. the virtual eq is good for that kind of fix. try an 'increase bass pluck,' or a 'control bass boom,'.....
and hey, this is a good mix on it's own..... i am not baggin on your tune at all, just some ideas to throw around. another thing is how you are recording you guitars... if direct, record flat and effect and eq in GB... if recording via amp, sm57 is the best way to go. it has proven year after year to get the best guitar respone of any mic setup out there. for bass, try recording direct, and using the bass tone settings in GB. me, i play one bassline all the way through, copy it onto another track, then use a different bass setting for both tracks. for instance, on one bass track, i might use hip-hop bass, and then for the other use rock bass. then like the guitar tracks, i feather in the volumes to give it a nice crisp tone. it can really make your bass come alive.
check out some of our motgomery california tunes, as well as smooth riffin on the Allen Dean page. welcome to MJ, and hope your experience here is a good one!
MC

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I read about people doubling their tracks on MJ this week. I'm going to try that too. I'm using Garageband '08. Also, I didn't use my bass on this track, I wasn't sure if it needed it so I didn't bother. The kick drum i think is because I'm addicted to heavy thumping bass, I'll dial it back in my new mix with all the suggestions and see how it sounds

Thanks again for all the constructive criticism, this is exactly what I was hoping to get out if MJ.

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I would like more depth in the kick, the bass would do well to have it resonate with more contrast to the lead, in that it should be boomier with added depth. This piece as a very nice groove. I am not sure what is getting the buzz but that is paramount in getting higher scores here on a constant basis.

I thinking your pluging right into the computer, but make sure your cords are ok, It almost sounds like an amplifier buzz. But I noticed that really quickly. I really got chastised for having too much white noise with my acoustic guitar and that was because I used a cheap mixing board. I think it took me quite a while before I got it in my thick head to go out and buy a tascam 122 interface and that really helped cause it had halfway decent pre amps. But I don't think you have that problem it is a different type of buzz, but it is very apparent at the start.

But the main thing is when you get noise and it isn't on any instrument sound track, like a beginning of a tune before any musical sound. In your master channel of GB, take down the volume completely ! You can do that on each individual tracks as well. But primarily do it if you get sounds that you don't want on your recording!

A terrific first post! Lots of electric guitar style. A very nice melodic thang going!

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...that the buzz is because I was playing thru a single coil and I had my TV going in the background. Real professional huh? We'll I'll start turning my tv off in the future.

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You could look at it like I do when I listen to Stevie Ray Vaughans version of "Little Wing" if you turn it up on some good speakers you can hear amplifier buzz. It makes you feel like he's in the room with you. Sends chills down my spine every time.....

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This reminds me of the time right between sleep and waking up in the morning. The part where dreams and reality collide and create their own little universe. Nice and mellow, I dig it! I think the bass drum is a little busy though and should be complimented with a snare drum. Basically I would like to hear a full kit with brushes but I'm always picking on people's percussion!

Great first post. Looking forward to more!

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... now here is the advice from the non-musician type (I know nothing about drums and guitars etc. ... but I can comment on what my ears hear while listening) ... my only nit is the drum chosen ... it has that "tippy tappy tippy tappy" sound which I hear in some of the drum loops .. and I find that it detracts my ear away from the meat of the song cause I get distracted by the tippy tappy ... does that make sense? I know comments above gave you some direction about the drums ... so I will shut up now ... I just felt compelled to mention that ratta tat tat tippy tappy thing ... hahahaha looking forward to hearing more from you ....

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I liked it. Nice and relaxing and very subtle, but there are some nice tips here for you to follow from others. Great first post, regards M

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Hey, this is nice stuff. A pleasure to listen to. You're grooving really nicely on that strat.

I have just a few comments. Try to have a real bass part. GB has plenty of basses, so taht shouldn't be a problem. That bass drum is now a bit in empty space: it wants a buddy in the low frequencies.

Your low strings boom. Cut some low/mid frequencies.

You're using two guitars, but the sounds are not different enough. Try to distinguish them a bit by playing with EQ, echo, whatever. Maybe pan it a bit to the side?

But on the whole this is very nice stuff.

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...but what to play on the bass line without getting too busy, i'm afraid of losing the chill factor, i'll try it, but i'm not sure if you'll hear it here unless it sounds stupendous : D ......

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From my experience, the reason you have gotten so many comments and so many tips from the folks here at MacJams is because they think your stuff has a lot of merit and potential. This song has good "bones", it just needs some "fleshing out". I, for one, forward to hearing more from you!

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This could really turn into something when you get more mastery of GarageBand. I agree with Monty Cali about the doubling, it will give you so much more control of the sound, and it will fatten up the guitar. You mentioned Stevie Ray in one of your replies, and he did a similar thing by using multiple amps/heads running at the same time to create one monster tone. You can do the same thing with virtual amps, and it's a lot easier. Also, unedited GaragBand drum loops can get really boring. There are many ways to get really good drum sounds - sample CDs, Drums on Demand, real drums, of course (if possible) or even editing the loops you have in GarageBand.
It sounds like you can play, and this is a good start, and with more understanding of the recording process you'll be able to sound great.

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....again for all your comments. They are not going to waste. I tried to apply them to a new song, but it still doesn't sound as good. I also know I need to master playing with the drum loops a little bit more. We'll see as time goes on.

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Sweet tune...nice lookin' Strat, too. I love Strats.

I like the use of chords in your soloing. And you listen to the rhythm guit, too, playing off of it. Not just chops. Nice stuff...

Welcome to MacJams...

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thanks man...

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