Short Solo Guitar Pieces—Your Comments Appreciated

Rick Cornish · Post by **Rick Cornish** » Wed Dec 20, 2017 5:38 pm

I’ve been writing solo guitar music since I was in music school in the 70s. Think modern classical guitar meets Joe Pass or Kenny Burrell. Anyhow, 40 years later, I finally got around to recording some of it.

This is a little suite of seven such pieces, most under a minute in length. All composed, performed, and recorded in DP by me. It’s not your everyday stuff, but if you have 8 minutes or so to check it out, I’d appreciate any feedback you’d care to share on the compositions, performance, or recording.

The tracks I’m linking to have not been mastered yet. When I master, I’m currently thinking of using someone at Abbey Road, but would entertain any suggestions you might have of a proven mastering engineer who might be comfortable working in this genrè (probably someone who has done some classical and jazz work).

Thanks in advance for your time and thoughts.

UPDATE
I appreciate all the kind and constructive comments I’ve received. Since this is still a work in progress, I’m pulling the link down—for now. My sincere thanks to all those who weighed in.

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Wed Dec 20, 2017 5:51 pm

Nice stuff, man. My composer brain is hearing another part, maybe a different instrument 'in conversation' with the guitar. The shortness and 'questioning' nature of your pieces do sound like a conversation, and I really want to hear the other d=side of the argument. Flute or clarinet might be nice as a compliment. I could see all 8 pieces melded into one with the addition of the second instrument. Maybe bass?

But very nice. interesting harmonies and not locked to a beat. I like that. Thanks!

Rick Cornish · Post by **Rick Cornish** » Wed Dec 20, 2017 6:19 pm

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:Nice stuff, man. My composer brain is hearing another part, maybe a different instrument 'in conversation' with the guitar. The shortness and 'questioning' nature of your pieces do sound like a conversation, and I really want to hear the other d=side of the argument. Flute or clarinet might be nice as a compliment. I could see all 8 pieces melded into one with the addition of the second instrument. Maybe bass?

But very nice. interesting harmonies and not locked to a beat. I like that. Thanks!

THey, MLC—thanks for checking it out and taking time to send me your thoughts. Much appreciated!

stubbsonic · Post by **stubbsonic** » Wed Dec 20, 2017 10:35 pm

Gorgeous compositions & playing, Rick. Really beautiful!

In the Chorale (and maybe in a couple other places) there were times with the guitar sound got bright and sparkly, then it went back to being warm and more like I think of a jazz guitar. I wonder what that was. I don't think it's a problem, I just noticed it in a couple places.

wylie1 · Post by **wylie1** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 7:23 am

Nice recordings Bits & Pieces is my favorite.
I would think about about what your hoping to accomplish by mastering and try it yourself it should be fairly straight forward on those tracks.

Rick Cornish · Post by **Rick Cornish** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 7:32 am

stubbsonic wrote:Gorgeous compositions & playing, Rick. Really beautiful!

In the Chorale (and maybe in a couple other places) there were times with the guitar sound got bright and sparkly, then it went back to being warm and more like I think of a jazz guitar. I wonder what that was. I don't think it's a problem, I just noticed it in a couple places.

Thanks, Stubbsonic!

Since I no longer own a big arch top—which would have been the ideal way to record these—I came up with a somewhat complicated way to record my semi-hollow Howard Roberts Fusion III that mimics that sound. Long story short, I recorded three feeds into DP: a direct feed from the guitar (neck pickup) through a BBE pedal, a Fulltone 2B, and a MOTU Z-Box (for warmth), a stereo out from my old GP100 (for a little character), and a mic on the lower f-hole (for acoustic presence). My holy grail for jazz guitar tone has always been a thick sound on the unwound strings, but clean enough to play a solo down to the 6th string without sounding muddy, so I put in a lot of volume automation between the tracks to try to achieve that. There were a lot of tone shifts to balance, so this was the most complicated part of creating the mix.

Thanks to your input, I’ll take another pass at the balance on “Chorale.”

Thanks again!

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Rick Cornish · Post by **Rick Cornish** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 7:37 am

wylie1 wrote:Nice recordings Bits & Pieces is my favorite.
I would think about about what your hoping to accomplish by mastering and try it yourself it should be fairly straight forward on those tracks.

Thanks, Wylie! “Bits” is actually the newest piece of the bunch. Wish I could’ve executed a few of those runs a bit quicker, but it is what it is.

For mastering, I’d value someone else’s perspective... someone who knows way more than I do. I’m hoping to gain presence, volume and tonal balance between the pieces, and just a sense of bringing everything together. I could take a crack, but I’ve put so much into this, it’d be worth it to get a real mastering engineer’s take on how it should sound.

Thanks for your time and thoughts!

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Phil O · Post by **Phil O** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 8:07 am

MLC beat me to it. I was having some of the same thoughts. Kind of like listening to one side of a telephone conversation. Actually kinda cool if that was the intent - or even if it wasn't! I also got kind of a movie soundtrack kinda vibe from it. Good stuff, Rick!!

Phil

Phil O · Post by **Phil O** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 8:21 am

Rick Cornish wrote:For mastering, I’d value someone else’s perspective... someone who knows way more than I do.

My first reaction would be to find someone within driving distance that you like. Being at the mastering session is a plus as far as I'm concerned. If that's not possible, I use this guy:

http://peerlessmastering.com/engineers2.html

Most of my clients are on a tight budget, so I do a lot of the mastering myself, but when their budget allows I send them to Jeff. He's got a great facility with great gear, but most importantly, he's got a great ear.

Phil

Rick Cornish · Post by **Rick Cornish** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 10:14 am

Phil O wrote:
Rick Cornish wrote:For mastering, I’d value someone else’s perspective... someone who knows way more than I do.
My first reaction would be to find someone within driving distance that you like. Being at the mastering session is a plus as far as I'm concerned. If that's not possible, I use this guy:

http://peerlessmastering.com/engineers2.html

Most of my clients are on a tight budget, so I do a lot of the mastering myself, but when their budget allows I send them to Jeff. He's got a great facility with great gear, but most importantly, he's got a great ear.

Phil

Thanks for the referral, Phil. These guys look very good.

Rick Cornish · Post by **Rick Cornish** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 5:29 pm

MIDI Life Crisis—You have disabled private message reception. When you enable, I’ll respond to your PM.

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MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 6:15 pm

Hmmmm... Don't know how that happened but it's fixed.

Rick Cornish · Post by **Rick Cornish** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 6:44 pm

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:Hmmmm... Don't know how that happened but it's fixed.

Weird ...says it’s not.

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Thu Dec 21, 2017 7:29 pm

One more time with feeling. Lol. Or mm@MIDILifeCrisis.com

Weird that the board changed that.

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