[Dana Nielsen]

Jesse!! Boy, you really riled up those birds at the end with your stunning performance! 😂

Soooo beautiful, man. I love it!! Giving me some Pat Metheny Charlie Haden “beyond the missouri sky” vibes, which I’m a huge fan of.

As Jeremy mentioned, the guitar squeaks caught my ear. Personally I’d keep the top end the way you have it and would use izotope RX to reduce the volume of the fret noise. I typically do this manually using the attenuate or replace tabs within the “spectral repair” tool – however, there is also a “guitar de-noise” module which does a pretty good job automatically.

And dude … the low end on the guitar is massive!! I love it mucho!!

[Dana Nielsen]

oh, and I love the long fade at the end! Really lets me enjoy the space you were in and confirms that your environment was intentional and is of equal importance to the record.

I did, however, find myself wishing there was a bit more “nature sound action” on the right speaker. Seems like most of the bird and creature activity occurred on the left side of the image. And hey – that’s probably exactly how it was when you recorded it! If that’s the case, no need to adjust nature! lol. I only bring it up in case that panning was accidental or something. Otherwise, disregard.

[Dana Nielsen]

Yeah Paul!! So great to hear this, and as others have mentioned, really sorry for your loss.

I totally “ditto” Jesse’s great ideas, and Jeremy’s too – they’ve really brought up all the same big picture thoughts that came to my mind too.

On the technical side (even tho it wasn’t asked for haha), I would bail the flanger on the distorted guitars and also try a more vintage amp sim with some nice spacious reverb decay. The solo guitar, you could try keeping the original tone and even keeping it dry if u like, to contrast the big wide non-flangy vintage verbed electric guitars.

Also for the acoustics, I’d love to hear more body on ’em. If I were mixing this song, I’d start by muting everything except the vocal, acoustics and bgvs, and make the best sounding record I could using just those elements. Like … I would mix as if those were the only 3 things in the song. Then once I love that version, I’d one-by-one add in the other elements to see how they fit in the the record as “support”

I do also – like jesse – feel the midi stuff is a bit jarring and I might experiment with different sounds or textures in those b-sections. Like, the marimba feels out of place for the vibe of the song for example. But the part is cool. Know what I mean?

Love the song and performance!! And am looking fwd to hearing how this progresses, man!

[Dana Nielsen]

Ooh, sick – thanks, Jesse!! I can’t wait to hear what new sounds and shredding synth lines you come up with using this new technology!

Dropping a link here as well if anyone wants to dive deeper:

https://www.jamorigin.com/

[Dana Nielsen]

I will definitely defer to @-PT on this one, but from my experience:

• FOH should absolutely give you both L/R channels of your laptop (NOT just arbitrarily pick one). If FOH is running your monitor via console Aux Send 1 for example, they would send equal amounts of Left and Right to Aux 1 so that you’re getting both sides summed to mono in your wedge.
• You could always touch base w the FOH engineer and say something respectful like, “I’m sure you’re already doing this, but is it possible to get both sides of my laptop into this mono wedge? You rule – thank you!”
• Or, as part of your baller rider, you could require 2 stage wedges for stereo monitoring 🤑

[Dana Nielsen]

Love these new piano pieces, Patrick! Thanks so much for sharing. I’m traveling this week so am only listening on my laptop. I can weigh in once I’m back in the studio next week with any specific sonic ideas. Meantime it’s sounding cool! Such a fun vibe that piano has. And, as Paul mentioned, you have a great spirit in your playing and writing!

[Dana Nielsen]

YEAH JESSE!!!! This turned out amazing. And love that this video production was a family affair!

Keep ’em comin’, brother!! ⚡️

[Dana Nielsen]

Awesome! Can’t wait to see the video!

If you want, send me your raw consolidated stems (the tracks that are getting routed to your guitar buss). I’ll see if I can make a vid showing my method for multi-track RX’ing and guitar de-squeaking.

https://www.dropbox.com/request/IANIcxUN2UmfPJ5PtNBt

(I’ll text u a password – that way this link won’t be accessible by someone reading this post a year from now lol)

[Dana Nielsen]

Ooh, good idea for a video! Hearing and identifying mid-side issues is one of those tricky things to wrap your ears around, much like “hearing” compression or identifying phase anomalies.

I’ll add that to my video list!

[Dana Nielsen]

Hahahah – brilliant post and excellent insights, Paul!

[Dana Nielsen]

Ooh, this sounds nice, Paul! Thanks for the screenshot too. And for the use of the word “slovenly.” 🏆👏

[Dana Nielsen]

Paul! Thanks for the great comments and ideas!

Would you mind re-uploading your EQ image when you have a chance? Looks like for some reason it’s not showing on my end. 🎛️

[Dana Nielsen]

Hahaha

[Dana Nielsen]

wow, incredible pix, Paul!

[Dana Nielsen]

Dall-E (via ChatGPT) wasn’t understanding my “sandworm from Dune” descriptions (nor example images I uploaded) even after many revision attempts, haha. But here’s as close as I could get it with my limited image prompt experience – makes me laugh.