My Album Demo (raw)!

thomasross20

OK so given our situation with Sheena's cancer, the album I was working on has been pushed back a little.

However, I've been doing little bits in the background.

I know this isn't perfect but it'll be ten tracks and here is a snippet of each. Lemme know what you think..

thomasross20

FYI it's @fretmeister on bass for half the tracks!!

-> constructive criticism welcome. Worst thing would be views but no comments..!

Vibetronic

I'll give it a proper listen tomorrow mate. What I've heard so far has been awesome though

Vibetronic

This sounds really good @thomasross20 , very interesting stuff. I really like the way in the shreddier stuff that you have lots of interesting layers of guitar going on, and your clean guitar tone with bends/slides in the 4th/5th snippets is very nice indeed. Also a really good range of styles/songs here, from some pretty bonkers shred (with melody) to clean fingerpicking. The last one sounds particularly good, really strong melody and love the clean bit it goes into just before it fades out. Overall, I'm a massive fan of clean technical playing with tunes, and very much looking forward to hearing the whole thing

Cirrus

Sounds like there's going to be a lot of variety! If I could offer any advice it would be based on stuff I've heard from you in the past - I can't really tell from these snippets obviously, but try not to have too many things going on at once - make sure listeners know where to focus at any one time.

merlin

Sounds really great @thomasross20 ! Let us know when you get it all finished, I'd really love to hear the finished recording in it's entirety. 

thomasross20

Right, men... a grand thank you not only for taking the time to listen but also taking the time to actually comment..! Nothing worse than 100 plays and one comment

@Vibetronic, when I started all this I decided... I'm not going to gig this, so as a substitute for vocals, I'll build up some layers for that extra bit of texture. So instead of some bland fusion backing track, it's all "bespoke" and I think I could use a sampler pedal to pull it off live if ever needed. @fretmeister did some cracking bass and rhythm guitars for a bunch of tunes, too. I did try to mix it up a bit with lots of themes and clean & electric sounds to make it a bit more "alive" so I'm glad you picked up on the more acoustic-y bits...! 

@Cirrus that's good input and I remember you saying similar before. It was initially 14 tracks and it's now 10... and I've been brutal in cutting out bits that aren't catchy or when it drones on too long.. I get your point about too much going on - because of the layers, there always will be, but there are quieter tracks with less going on as "breather" material - point taken, though (in fact, point taken way back when you mentioned this...). The length has also been cut from 72 minutes to 40 minutes as really, how much instrumental can a normal person take... short, poppy, to the point - that's what I'm going for. 

Thanks, @merlin! Need to do drums on two tracks, sort some bass out on three, and maybe add vox to one track (though I don't want to ruin things with sub-standard vox) so after that... it'll be ready for mixing/mastering and all that jazz. It'll be such an achievement for me - this has been a lot of work, whether it sounds it or not..! Then it's just how to get it "out there"

Cheers!

stratman3142

Sounds interesting. Lots of ideas and variety.

Modulus_Amps

well thats better than anything I could do, so bloody well done, hope the polishing off goes well

TTony

I'm really enjoying listening to this, impressive playing across a range of styles.

My only doubt is whether it would work as an album, given the range of styles covered in those snippets.  You get used to listening to one style and then - bang - next track takes you off somewhere else.  I'd probably want to rip them into 2 or 3 separate playlists and then listen to whichever playlist best suited my mood at the time.

But, worth repeating, damned impressive playing Mr Ross.  Top work.

thomasross20

Aaaww yeah, more than 3 replies!  

Thanks, guys! 

@TTony - thank you - I take your point... I'm hoping it's just a case of choosing the correct track order. I've been wondering whether to have the slower / acoustic-y ones all in a bunch, or to spread it out because the more electric songs can be full-on. I'll keep your point in mind so it doesn't sound like a completely disparate set of tracks. The good thing is that nobody has said this is absolute guff!!

RedRabbit

All sounds really promising.  It does sound a bit busy at times but such things are hard to judge out of context of the rest of the song.  Personally, I wouldn't worry about covering too many styles.  It all falls under the general umbrella of instrumental guitar rock and fans of that genre are probably used to it. 

I'm at a loss as to how you manage to find the time for this given everything you've got going on.  Guess it's all down to motivation and drive which I clearly haven't got - could go some way to explaining why your playing and composition is leap and bounds ahead of mine.

Bezzer

Can't listen on this wifi connection ... will have a listen tonight at home.  Looking forward to it, I remember you starting this when you were 4!

equalsql

Hey!, You're a bit handy on that guitar you know. You should join a forum and share your skills

Bezzer

Ok had a listen now, some great stuff there mate ... you’re not bad at this lark are you :-)

some of it sounds a little busy for my tastes buuuuuut they’re only snippets so in context that may not be the case.

sounding good though, will be great when we can hear the whole thing! 

thomasross20

Thanks, guys - hopefully the full thing won't disappoint !

horse

I've got no real appetite for instrumental rock, but the lead playing does sound great. I think these clips do sound more coherent than the clips you've shared in the past, and where things get a bit busy I think you can probably deal with this by mixing

thomasross20

I don't know if this is a p!sstake or not but a "talent scout" e-mailed me asking to get back to them for better media exposure after I posted my demo online. Hmmm... I'll mail back but I'm guessing there will be a fee here, and I'm some ways to finishing this.. and tbh I'm going to keep this as close to me as possible without involving others and taking a cut off all the hard work. 

Could this be my route to playing the Budokan?
-> nice to be asked anyway  

camf

Impressive!

DLM

thomasross20 said:

Aaaww yeah, more than 3 replies!  

Sorry Tiggs, I didn't spot this thread.  I mean, we talked off-board about your clips, but I'd still have posted here if this thread hadn't been buried by all the other goings-on.

Anyway. I have a monster earworm from that fuzz bass solo in the one tune – which I think is actually you on that shortscale and not @fretmeister. Am I right? It sounds like Dream Theater would sound if I still liked how Dream Theater sounded.  

Moe_Zambeek

Very impressive playing T. Very impressive.

I dont want to be critical really but as you requested constructive input, and as I'd like to help you make this album be as good as it possibly can be...if I was to say anything, it'd be that based on these snippets the mix needs some work to make it sound cohesive. It sounds like a lot of tracks on top of one another at the moment. The drums are too low and seem too 'narrow', and maybe they need a bit more inventiveness to match the energy of the guitars;  the bass is too loud and seems to sit badly in the mix, there are some oddities of timing with it too but hard to tell in the context of a short clip, and overall there's not much sonic width or space. Both drums and bass lack cut and presence. I'd agree with some other posters that there is a lot going on but without hearing the full song it's hard to be sure of the context.

All of this can be fixed in the mix though.