Good Stuff guys

@Alan - very good lead tone, and also not overdoing the rhythm thing but rather combining the rhythm and the lead on one track. Love your playing as well, it has a haunting, beautiful tone all at the same time. What guitar did you use, etc etc?

@ Don - Excellent! Love the radio effect at the beginning. You using a cocked wah for the lead tones? Your entire stereo soundstage is off kilter to the right though.

@ Riaan - Also excellent. Very loose and mellow and has a strong melody. Liked the autowah/envelope filter on the rhythm guitar. Drums are great, but the bass doesn't have the right feel for reggae.

@Giggsy - congrats, I think you're a shoo-in for the beginners category this week! ? Your timing is very loose, but I can hear the off-beat "skanking" thing is new to you (I remember struggling with it at first), so that's alright. Maybe download some midi files to practice and play along with.

Squonk wrote: What guitar did you use, etc etc?

Strat. Kinman Blues. All three pickups on, which has a nice balanced tone, albeit a bit more natural compression than one or two pickups - not a problem as I was compressing the heck out of the guitar anyway. Monte Allums modded CS-3 Compressor to even out the volume differences between rhythm and lead. Amp is Guitar Rig 3 - Twin into Vox speaker cab.

To be honest, I spent the vast majority of my time working on the drums (Toontrack Superior Drummer), Organ (Native Instruments B4) and bass (Edirol Super Quartet Jazz Bass through an IK Ampeg SVX plug) parts and only left myself a half hour for the guitar and 20 minutes for mixdown. :-[ That's OK though, reggae is more about rhythm section and the guitar is usually part of that.

I went for a traditional reggae drum rhythm - a slight shuffle feel and the accent all on on the three, rather than a more pop kind of reggae with four onhe floor and snare on three. I don't have a suitable snare sound (tuned high, sounding almost like a timbale), so I used a sidestick instead. Fleshed out the drums with a guiro, triangle and a woodblock.

Bass was a cow - I still don't know what makes a reggae bass part right, but I know it when I hear it. I went for a huge sound, mostly lows - almost a dub reggae bass. I have a tiny bit of an envelope filter on it to give it some life and give it an almost fretless tone.

On the bright side, I think I'm finally getting the hang of the Hammond, which is an idiosyncratic beast. I especially worked hard to balance the left and right hand sounds (lower and upper manuals respectively) because the sustained chords on the right hand tended to overpower the stabbed triads played by the left (no touch sensitivity and the two sounds had to blend without masking each other or anything else). I'm especially proud of how I got the stabs to counterpoint the guitar rhythm.

With more than four tracks, I would have done the left hand organ stabs on a clavinet and had a seperate rhythm and lead guitar.

@ Don

Also enjoyed your track. What guitars were you using etc?

Fantastic stuff. Had to go with Alan's trip straight back to 1977. But nice work all round. Particularly liked the mysterious ending of Don's piece.

It just becomes very clear how crucial the bass is in this music.

Yep Alan, Half-cocked wah. I see what you mean about the panning. It's easy to fix but is a lack of concentration there. That's unforgivable...

Squonk wrote: @ Don

Also enjoyed your track. What guitars were you using etc?

The BR600 didn't have a decent beat for reggae so I had to program this one myself. what a mission.
I've played bass in a reggae environment before so I had a fair idea of what to do here. I used my fretless bass for this track.

The only guitar I used was my Squier strat. I've been favouring it lately.

I took a bit of sublime influence for mine.

Nice entries everyone and formidable competition! Alan has nailed it IMO - one of the many tunes that after hearing it, I'd say "wish I did that". Alongside with all David Gilmour's stuff.... ?

Thanks for the feedback also Alan. I wasn't happy with my lead guitar at all, I also left it for last and should've spent more time on that, it could be a lot better. I had no idea what to do with the bass...so I decided to go full on with a melody carried by the bass. Will have to go and listen to more reggae to find out how the bass is done. One thing I tried this time was to use lower levels in individual tracks, after getting hold of an electronic copy of the "Recording Engineer Handbook". Didn't read it yet, but the very first paragraph said that rule no. 1 is to keep individual track levels lower than the master level. I didn't know that...and always used a compressor on the master track to prevent clipping... :-[

Riaan wrote: rule no. 1 is to keep individual track levels lower than the master level. I didn't know that...and always used a compressor on the master track to prevent clipping... :-[

Yup. The problem being that the summing amp comes before the master bus (NB: not master "track" - Track implies a single instrument channel) inserts. The summing amp is usually designed with tons of headroom, but if you've got 24 tracks all peaking around 0dB (or over on an analog desk), it can add up quickly and start clipping the summing amp. Although it should be said that modern DAWs often take this all into account and output much lower levels from each track than the fader would have you believe.

Digital has brought a different way of working. The super low noise floor means that you don't have to get the maximum signal possible recorded to each track and each can also have a wider dynamic range. So the levels coming out of each track are usually 3-6dB (or more) lower than they would be with an old analog desk and tape machine. On the downside, 0dB is the absolute maximum possible before clipping (and nasty clipping too - unlike some of the older analog desks, which often sounded very nice when pushed hard).

You should also get into the habit of using your sub busses. Don't just assign every track direct to the output buss, but create group busses (one for each: drums, guitars, bass, vocals, and keys) with their outputs going to the output bus. This not only makes mixing easier, but lets you do things like peak limit the drum bus without affecting the whole mix. In recording, a few stages of subtle compression are always far better than squeezing the hell out of everything at the masters.

</waffle>

Hm, Donovan, that was really good. I mean, I REALLY liked that. IMO it could have done without the middle bit, sorry, but the rest had the X- factor for me.

Allan, reminded me of that show, Tropical Heat, pure 90's to me. Also a lovely tune.

Riaan, dug the "kwaak" sounds with the guitar. Perhaps you could have been a bit more flexible with your approach to the timing in the melody and bass.

Giggsy- completely unrelated, but I have to say that's my nick name at home- interesting timing, very flexible, really the driving part of the song. Perhaps you could have played around with a melody. Reminded me of minimalist music.

Viccy wrote: Hm, Donovan, that was really good. I mean, I REALLY liked that. IMO it could have done without the middle bit, sorry, but the rest had the X- factor for me.

That's what SHE said... 8)

Sorry, couldn't resist.

BTW, I fixed the pan problem. It turns out that I had a stereo widening plugin running twice so it messed it up a bit. I also upped the bass a little. I uploaded it to my Myspace page if anyone's curious.

now for my synopsis....
Alan, very Island-y. Shades of Kung Fu fighting in the intro. ? I Smaak what you did with the organ. I had organ stabs on the 3 and 3 1/2, yours was a triplet? at times. I feel like drinking something out of a coconut and staring at blonde women on the beach in the 80's ala that scene from Cocktail.

Riaan, while the bass line isn't 100% reggae, I love that tone. It is so blissfully deep. What did you use there? Also what did you use for drums? There are a lot of guitar effects going on there it's like an orchestra, very well planned. Great use of Stereo as well.

Giggsy, what guitars etc did you use? I am particularly interested in the bass from 0:14, and the chord at 0:50

Alan - Mark Knoffler does reggae? I like that sharp short shock on your skank - brilliant tone
Don - What can I say you from Durban where they grow the good stuff. Your skank really got my head bobbing and my vision blurring
Riaan - Nice to hear how you are progressing every time you enter the challenge - keep it up
Giggsy - Well that was different You were the only beginner brave enough to attempt reggae so kudos to you.

DonovanB wrote: Shades of Kung Fu fighting in the intro. ?

LOL! I would never have thought that in a million years! But OK...

I had organ stabs on the 3 and 3 1/2, yours was a triplet?

In a perfect world, mine would be triplets, yes. ? But back to the music - organ is on the "ands" while the guitar is on two and four.

Renesongs wrote: Alan - Mark Knoffler does reggae? I like that sharp short shock on your skank - brilliant tone

High praise indeed - thanks. Tonally maybe (Strat, compressor and Fender amp), but unlike me, that boy can sho' play.

DonovanB wrote: Giggsy, what guitars etc did you use? I am particularly interested in the bass from 0:14, and the chord at 0:50

Just used my Grant LP with various Guitar Rig 3 presets that I customised - a cleanish one for the rhythm, a slap bass and a heavy distortion. Next time I just need to remember to use GR's metronome system to get the timing right!

Viccy wrote:
Giggsy- completely unrelated, but I have to say that's my nick name at home

Interesting... been called that for years too - how'd you end up being called that?

how'd you end up being called that?

It's a combination of my other nickname Giggles and Viccy, with other derivatives like Pickles, Pixie and Stickle Pick. I could go on, but I think you get the point. My family is a little crazy.

Mines more straight forward - Manchester United have a left winger named Ryan Giggs and in my younger days I had flowing curly locks like him and was a semi decent footballer!

Riaan, while the bass line isn't 100% reggae, I love that tone. It is so blissfully deep. What did you use there? Also what did you use for drums? There are a lot of guitar effects going on there it's like an orchestra, very well planned. Great use of Stereo as well.

Thanks Don I used Dimension Pro for bass, "fingered bass" played on a MIDI keyboard which I then ran through a GR4 bass guitar preset, I think it was called "deep bass" or something like that. Tweaked that a bit also. For the rythm, I used two tracks, one a cleanish Strat sound panned to one side, and another GR4 track panned to the other side - this one had autowah. The lead ended up with too much distortion - not the sound I really wanted. For drums I used Session Drummer and a preset called "Bob Marley Reggae" which I modified a bit.

Giggsy wins in the B category and Alan wins the A category. Alan you have the most votes overall so you get to PM me the next topic.
(please have mercy on us lessor mortals and try and avoid words like poly-rhythms)

I'll give it a little thought tonight.

"us lesser mortals" indeed! You have the decided advantage over me of being able to operate the instrument properly and knowing how this music stuff works. I'm more a ...how did you put it? "Tosser with a bunch of effects pedals" type.