Pre-1960 Challenge - Haitian Fight Song (ft. Lt. Bob)

[Tadpui]

Doing the same as the others and cross-posting here as well as in the original thread. I think I'll just delete the attachment there and link to this thread instead, to conserve space for hosting the file.

The original album cut of this song is over 12 minutes long. I'm not a jazzer, so I knew that I couldn't fill 12+ minutes with anything interesting to say. So I took the original MP3, chopped it up and arranged my favorite 5 minutes of it. Then I just started playing along with that, and eventually got rid of the original and tried to negotiate the tempo changes among my own tracks.

That...was a real bitch. I fought many battles with the nearly constant tempo changes in this song, and I lost most of them LOL. The 2nd verse came together much better, but that first verse is still pretty rough in spots.

I made a last-second decision to add a couple more dBs to the sax solo, and I may have pushed it too far. But I just love Lt. Bob's playing so much here that I might leave it like that, I don't know. That's also Lt. Bob on the string quartet and violin solo on the following march part (or is it a tango?). I can't thank Steve enough for recording those parts! And I'd love to know more about how they were recorded.

As for the parts that I recorded:

The left guitar is the Jazzmaster on the rhythm circuit through the JCM800 on the low input, with an MD-421 on the grille. I can't say that I just love it on "tape". Sounds amazing in the room, but it didn't translate all that well on the recording.

The right guitar is the ES-330T through the Deluxe Reverb with an i5 on the grille. I like the way this one came out. It sounds so perfectly "vintage" to me. That P-90 pickup has a very satisfying "snarl" to it, it sounds aggressive when I play hard, and cleans up when I play softly.

The fuzz guitar is the Les Paul through a JHS Smiley, into the Mesa Lone Star Special, with a Cascade Fathead a few inches from the grille. That ribbon mic does a pretty good job of filtering out the most annoying upper mid frequencies from a fuzzed out tone.

The bass is the same ol MIM P-Bass through an Ampeg practice amp, with a U87 18" off the grille, through a Distressor at 4:1 then into the interface. I like the clarity of it, but I had to fiddle with the low end in the mix to give it a little more bottom. I can't say that I love the bottom end, maybe a bit more fiddling with specific boosts/cuts will shape it just right.

Drums are in my living room, mostly driven by a pair of LDCs in the room and the spot mics on the kit pieces. Overheads are just "there" enough that I could hear them add some high end. The ART TransY remains a favorite on the drum bus, so I continued to use it here with about 2 dB of gain reduction at its peak.

Oh and a first for me: I wanted to put Steve's saxophone in the same room with my drums. So I created a reverb impulse of my living room, using the same microphones that pick up the room sound on the drums. So that reverb impulse is on pretty much everything here, to varying degrees. I love the way it sounds on the sax, but it didn't work quite as well on the guitars.

I might still go back and try to tighten up some of the 1st verse tempo changes. But honestly, I'm exhausted with this song right now. I've been trying to get it right for 2 months now!

Haitian Fight Song.mp3

[Greg_L]

Holy fucking goddamn that was amazing. Very well done!

[Tadpui]

Holy fucking goddamn that was amazing. Very well done!

Hey thanks a lot Greg! As I said in the other thread, Steve is definitely the best member of this band. His contributions really iced the cake!

This was a big challenge. And a lot of fun. And deeply frustrating. All at the same time. So glad that you enjoyed it!

[Greg_L]

Hey thanks a lot Greg! As I said in the other thread, Steve is definitely the best member of this band. His contributions really iced the cake!

I asked him to do some sexy sax on mine too. I just haven't gotten to it yet.

[rayc]

EXCELLENT.
Listening to the tempo changes is doing my head in so tracking them must've been hilarious.
Very authoritative bass intro. Lt Bob does, as usual, amazing work.
There're a heap of covers out there in the world but this one is digestible...fab work.

[Tadpui]

EXCELLENT.
Listening to the tempo changes is doing my head in so tracking them must've been hilarious.
Very authoritative bass intro. Lt Bob does, as usual, amazing work.
There're a heap of covers out there in the world but this one is digestible...fab work.

Thanks a lot Ray, I appreciate that! Yeah, my struggles with tempo have been well documented already, so you can probably imagine the difficulties I've been having with this project

[liv_rong]

This is fucking excellent!!! Nice work all around! I love it.

[Tadpui]

This is fucking excellent!!! Nice work all around! I love it.

Thanks a bunch Liv, I appreciate it!

[Lt. Bob]

Dude!!

You really brought it together ...... I wouldn't have thought it could get as tight as you have it but you did it.

And I have to say, before I even read your post I was gonna complement you on the mix of the sax and the sound of it.
Very first thing popped into my mind with the first couple of notes was, "damn ... he has the sax right!" ... because no one ever does.
But this sounds great and the mix is great. And I love the verb

I'm floored actually because, as you know, I had to choose to follow the bass specifically because everything else was kind of a whirling dervish of time phasing around each other like an out of control Tardis .......... lol
But it's fine ..... you did amazing man!



Oh, and the recording ....... I just used a dynamic mic into the Focusrite for the sax .... EV N/D 767a

The strings are My Aerophone AE-30 plugged straight into the Focusrite

[Tadpui]

Dude!!

You really brought it together ...... I wouldn't have thought it could get as tight as you have it but you did it.

And I have to say, before I even read your post I was gonna complement you on the mix of the sax and the sound of it.
Very first thing popped into my mind with the first couple of notes was, "damn ... he has the sax right!" ... because no one ever does.
But this sounds great and the mix is great. And I love the verb

I'm floored actually because, as you know, I had to choose to follow the bass specifically because everything else was kind of a whirling dervish of time phasing around each other like an out of control Tardis .......... lol
But it's fine ..... you did amazing man!



Oh, and the recording ....... I just used a dynamic mic into the Focusrite for the sax .... EV N/D 767a

The strings are My Aerophone AE-30 plugged straight into the Focusrite

Oh man, thanks so much! You definitely got to hear it in a pretty dire state of affairs. And your ability to just split all the differences and play right through as if you had a crack band behind you. When I re-tracked, I basically just tried my best to follow you!

I really didn't do anything to the sax other than send it out to an Empirical Labs Distressor at 4:1. As soon as it hit the first few notes I knew that was a match made in heaven. After tweaking around with it a bit, I ended up driving it so hard that it's up in the range of 10-12 dB of gain reduction at times. That plus the room reverb just brought your sax right into my living room next to my drum kit, I just love it. I've been obsessively listening to the sax solo this evening

I can't thank you enough for the sax and string parts, the song wouldn't have been nearly as much fun without them!

[SweetDan]

Wow! That is really cool!

[JD01]

Tad! You're in the lead so far on this challenge by a fucking mile. This is brilliant. Great playing all around.
I agree that Bob's solo is a tiny bit loud but it also sounds great. I really like your guitar solo too. Great stuff, mate.

You gonna put a breakdown of this mix on your channel?

Just listening to this with a Wayne's World "Not Worthy" feeling while one of my own mixes renders. Its gonna be horrible to listen to it after this.

[Greg_L]

Tad! You're in the lead so far on this challenge by a fucking mile.

Yeah I'm not even gonna bother now.

[JD01]

Tad! You're in the lead so far on this challenge by a fucking mile.

Yeah I'm not even gonna bother now.

Haha, get your arse in gear. I've been looking forward to yours.

[Greg_L]

Haha, get your arse in gear. I've been looking forward to yours.

I'm not thrilled with how it's going. I love the song but the very first part of it is very hard to sing.

[JD01]

Haha, get your arse in gear. I've been looking forward to yours.

I'm not thrilled with how it's going. I love the song but the very first part of it is very hard to sing.

Little Richard?

[Greg_L]

Little Richard?

I love Little Richard but no.

[Tadpui]

Wow! That is really cool!

Thanks Dan!

Tad! You're in the lead so far on this challenge by a fucking mile. This is brilliant. Great playing all around.
I agree that Bob's solo is a tiny bit loud but it also sounds great. I really like your guitar solo too. Great stuff, mate.

You gonna put a breakdown of this mix on your channel?

Just listening to this with a Wayne's World "Not Worthy" feeling while one of my own mixes renders. Its gonna be horrible to listen to it after this.

Ha, thanks a bunch JD. I have faith in your abilities, I'm sure it'll come out great.

Good question about a mix breakdown. I'll think about it!

[vomitHatSteve]

Nice!
Your tones are very cool here. There's a lot of time signature changes, but you seem to have handled them pretty smoothly.

So is recording challenge #10 gonna be "Everybody have ltbob guest on their song"?

That was 5 minutes? It really flew by!

[Tadpui]

Nice!
Your tones are very cool here. There's a lot of time signature changes, but you seem to have handled them pretty smoothly.

So is recording challenge #10 gonna be "Everybody have ltbob guest on their song"?

That was 5 minutes? It really flew by!

Awesome, thanks Steve! LOL I like your suggestion about the next challenge. Although I think we're going to have to wait until gig season slows down for him That'd be a full time job!