Alter-Irving Band - Tightrope - GuitarTalk Community

Alter-Irving Band - Tightrope

Arno-West

We recorded this in my Garage. Song was written by Cindy Alter and arranged/produced/mixed and mastered by myself.
I used a Sm57Beta, Sennheiser Cardoid and Prodipe TT1 on the Acoustic Guitars. All 3 Mics were mixed onto 1 track when we did the tracking. Leon played Roland V-drums which triggered EZdrummer. I exported each midi track for the drums as an audio track afterwards and then mixed it as normal drums. I played the bass through a Trace Elliot 600mx head and used a Line 6 Pod (old rack mounted unit ) for all the guitars.

The song is about Cindy's battle against the big "C" a few years ago and you can hear the emotion in her voice. Vocals were recorded using a CAD mic with a Focusrite Channelstrip as pre-amp.

I used Cubase for the recording and Wavelab for the mastering.

This song will probably be the 1st single off our next album.

Follow the link to download it for free or just give it a listen.

http://www.archive.org/download/http://www.archive.org/details/Tightrope-AlterIrvingBand

Squonk

couldn't get it to work with your link

I went to the www.archive.org site and did a Search for Tightrope and downloaded.

Good stuff Arno.

WEM

I also had trouble getting the song from the link you posted but I managed.

I like the feel of the song, quite refreshing.

AlanRatcliffe

Just fixed your link.

I like. Great song. Good solid performances, tight timing, great production. LOVE your bass tone and the bassist's playing. Tasty guitar solo that fits the song perfectly.

You're a bit too heavy handed on the compressors for my liking - particularly on the acoustic guitars and the main vocal. The vocal performance is great with some nice dynamics, and the production builds nicely, but it's all being squished into a more pop-like homogeneous solid wall.

Backing vocals are a bit loud towards the end too.

BTW - EZDrummer lets you assign up to eight outputs, so there is no need to bounce down to individual drum tracks. I also missed that for quite a while until someone told me. ?

shaundtsl

Sounds really cool, very professional. 8)

costafonix

aaarghhh,,, my work internet connection doesnt show any pics, nor can I download any tunes >☹
looking forward to listening to it this evening.
Cindy is one of the artists I have so much respect for and its so good to see she's still gigging.

Arno-West

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: Just fixed your link.

I like. Great song. Good solid performances, tight timing, great production. LOVE your bass tone and the bassist's playing. Tasty guitar solo that fits the song perfectly.

You're a bit too heavy handed on the compressors for my liking - particularly on the acoustic guitars and the main vocal. The vocal performance is great with some nice dynamics, and the production builds nicely, but it's all being squished into a more pop-like homogeneous solid wall.

Backing vocals are a bit loud towards the end too.

BTW - EZDrummer lets you assign up to eight outputs, so there is no need to bounce down to individual drum tracks. I also missed that for quite a while until someone told me. ?

Thx for the feedback Alan. I used to use the 8 outputs for EZdrummer but I always had a problem with the overhead mic. If you wanted to add a bit of sizzle to the crashes or boost the ride, it changed the dynamics of the rest of the kit. So I figured if I export every piece of the kit seperately (incl crashes and ride) plus the overhead and ambient mics, it gives me more control when mixing. You end up with 12 drum tracks instead of 8. Thanks for fixing the link. I agree, I am a bit heavy handed with compressors, will have to rectify that. BTW that's me playing the bass, our bassist couldn't make the session so I had to do his part...