 Good to have you here if you're in the live chat say hi I'm using a completely new system new to me anyway for the broadcast today So excuse me if I'm all fingers and thumbs and get things in the wrong place You'll probably see that later on but it is good to have you if here if you're in the live chat Do say hi. Let us know where you're from and do make sure as well I was just talking with my guest backstage about this Do make sure to take part in the show give us your thoughts on the music that you're hearing today I want to say thank you to the artists who have been submitting their music It's it's kind of big thing to kind of put your music out there for the first time and have it critiqued We could be saying positive things. We could be saying negative things so I just want to thank them for having the courage to do that with their music and Everybody that we've had on the show has taken it really really well when there has been a little bit of less positive Critic going on so I'm really impressed by that I want to say thanks to my sponsor distro kid will be talking about them here and there in the show Don't forget if you use that link which is down in the description You will get a further 7% off an already great price for their product And if you do want to enter some music by the way for this show and and have it critiqued by a wonderful Wonderful guests on the show you can follow the link in the description for that as well as a little form you can fill out now I know some people have asked me. Hey, Mike I submitted mine a few weeks ago or even sometimes a few months ago Is it gonna be on the show? The answer is I don't know I I go through a few each week and when I think I've found three go on the show There's no particular order or anything order or anything like that It's kind of a little bit random the way I choose them, but I don't want you to feel kind of offended if If you don't get on the show, there's just I'm just looking for certain things certain weeks And obviously I can't play everyone, but thank you so much for submitting and please do keep sending them in and Somebody has already mentioned and a really poor and a really important topic. That is a Doug I should mention Doug kidder. He's easy in the chat here. He's mentioned a really important topic for the show One of the reasons I've changed the system is is we've moved on I Think from the 1960s all the way into the 1970s now We've gone from mono to stereo in the show. You it's taken me 12 weeks And I do believe Doug. Yes, we I do believe that we do have everything in in stereo tonight We'll soon find out Two things are very important on this show apart from the left and the right speakers are the two guests that I've got on here Just absolutely wonderful guys have to say they're my favorite two guests that I have on and and I know I say that to everyone But for these two it happens But anyway So anyway, I'll bring up the first of them and the prettiest of the two actually in actual fact Let's bring up mr. Ricky For those of you who don't know so I'll let you talk in a moment Ricky I promise for those of you who don't know Ricky team round is the founder of the best Facebook group there is for home studio recording even better than my own Facebook group in fact And and his t-shirts does it all really and I'm really glad it does because I have a little bit dyslexic With the acronym for your group. It's a home recording studio zone or as your t-shirt says HRS How's it going over there Ricky HRS said? Yeah, we've had a bit of fun this week The end result is all good. I should say I Notice I notice a little bit of news for your group probably not of any interest to anyone outside of your group But let's go there anyway. Is that you've got a new moderator called Ricky. This is gonna get confused and Ricky Yeah, it's Ricky. You watch the Tavares. Yeah, what was he from? I don't know him. Tell me about him He's from Tucson in Arizona. I didn't mean where's he from a geographic? You asked me Where's he from like what's his background and how's it how is he known to you? Well, um I first became aware of Ricky. I think it was it was like a couple of years ago now I mean it being a member from almost a start that's um, we had a post post your tracks kind of thing and you know he put up his one and I'm telling you I was just completely bowled over by the Musicians, you know production mixing Quality of what he did, you know, I was a fan from day one Also kind of thing It's good to have someone who knows about music and stuff. Yeah Yeah, that's helpful Well, I'll tell you what I mean look as you know I've been doing this a long time and So when it comes to would I trust anyone with my stuff? He's one of the few people actually that that I would I you know because he's just good So it's a it's a real bonus having him on board as a moderator now. So yeah, Ricky is awesome Top guy just want to say hi to some people in the check. We've got Gary Owens here He's he's a very special person. We'll find out about him later on in the show and we've also got I Read this is smart ass, but it's actually smart arts ink. So yeah, yes, of course, I would read it as smart ass wouldn't I because you know That's me and we've also got mr. Pete John's there You're also wonderful. You're all it's also wonderful Pete put me on to the service I'm using today, which is restream as I say hopefully in stereo We haven't had a chance to find out properly yet from the audience now I believe as well that we are going out to Facebook. This is another new thing Which is happening on this show. So if I don't know Pete, I don't know Maybe you can tell me about this Pete. How do people? How do I see comments from Facebook? Can I see comments from Facebook? It's all new to me. Let's get our next guest on the show though before I ramble on too much. He is Absolutely the king the the the master of home Room treatment DIY room treatment. He's did well known for but he also happens to be a really awesome guitarist Who's played on on some of my videos as well? So it's very good to see him here. Of course I'm talking none about none other than Dan also known as the Lonely Rocker. There he is in the middle I might I say that I am the third prettiest in the company of YouTube studs Is it nice to be sandwiched in between us This is a family show Okay, well, it's good to see you here Dan Tell us about let's just go straight there Tell us about the latest video on your YouTube channel this week By the way, people follow the link in the description. Oh, that was a guitar EQ video Yes, I I'm trying to do more and more guitar and he said I've kind of known for my acoustic panels I got them on the wall here. That was like the first video. I did and it's just been I don't know It's done. Well, but I'm a guitar player and I'm trying to do more and more guitar content so I talk about EQing heavy guitars because Heavy guitars take up more room than an elephant in a clubhouse, right? So, you know, how do you squeeze them in make it still sound big and nice yet fit them in context of your whole mix Awesome. Just a quick question because we were discussing and and I've just got this come up and and Nick Ellis in there is asking this Completely off topic. Sorry Dan to interrupt you but he's asking this question, which I think is interesting Why do some people have their microphones downside up? What a wonderful expression downside up Do you guys know the answer to that? I mean Ricky's got his upside down. Well, if it was the other way, we wouldn't be able to read his t-shirt Do I think you're one of you guys want to take that white white? Well that kind of came from I mean I used to do that when I was tracking vocalists and I found that Suspending the mic that way encouraged their position to be one where they would sing better basically because it's We're up, you know, so There was a benefit from doing that from a performance point of view, but Scientifically, I don't know that there's there's actually any difference really One orientation to the other I think I think you're correct that it does for some reason encourage just the little lift up From the singer, but unless Dan wants to jump in and give the actual answer Dan Well, we've talked about the transfer of heat is that what you're trying to do? That's right. No, I don't I don't know maybe it's an urban myth But what I heard was and and I'm going to try this out because I've just come into the possession of a microphone Which is a tube or a valve you you call we call them valves in Australia You call tubes Dan in Canada do you or So you should join the rest of the part of the we are part of the commonwealth So Nick I do I have heard it said and and someone can correct me if I'm wrong that the real there is a reason to do it with With valve microphones something to do with heat transference when it's upside down Apparently improves the sound in some way or improves efficiency. I don't know I've never really noticed a difference in sound to be honest with you, but there you go One of those things there may be a reason for it, but it also Makes you look more professional in your music videos as well as the main reason why most people do it Oh, yeah, when you see them singing into the end of a side address condenser mic, that's anyway Anyway, I haven't checked all the videos for our featured artists tonight Maybe one of them is doing that for all I know Let's move on with the show. Let's move on with the show and get on We've got a great show lined up tonight as well I'm so sort of excited about the the three songs that we've got on tonight And the first one I'm going to let one of you fine men introduce this song I'm going to go through before I play it, but you can say the name Dan I'll give this one to you. It's on the screen now Is that oh there's a thing in the way here. I can't even see it This this this new system the overlay is blocking the screen. Oh, oh, oh, yeah. Okay. I'll take Gary Owens. That's correct Shine that is correct. So Gary is from Liverpool in the UK And he he in his own quotation mark says he works as a glorified shelf stacker during the day for a large supermarket Shine is a tribute to his work colleagues who suffered in different ways during lockdowns There's a lot of lockdown music, isn't there? It's it's like the blues of our time The lockdown so originally composed on a baritone ukulele. I don't think that's in the final recording He starts off with a scratch track And I don't know if you guys do this, but just a rough track of the song I find that particularly useful to get a net natural Tempo for the song otherwise You could miss that and you you listen to it the next day and think why why did I do that so fast? Or so you play more naturally, you know So he starts off like that and then he puts down an addictive drums rough drum track And that's I find that useful I'm sorry to keep sidetracking here But I find it much easier to play along with the rough drum track than I do an actual click And also you can take it out of certain parts of the songs where you don't really want to have a click Like the ending of the just after the last chord, etc Anyway, very useful to do He likes to use the synthesizers which came along with cakewalk originally They don't anymore that but rapture and dimension pro with older versions of cakewalk He uses some of the plugins native instruments acoustic stroma dan and electric sunburst tune tracks easy keys and easy bass mainly uses waves and cakewalk native plugins for compression eq Masters using isotope ozone Lots of people do that. I've used it myself wonderful system for mastering And interestingly, I want you to remember this last comment. He doesn't like the sound of his own voice He normally works with another singer And because of this because of um, you know, sort of lockdown and thing He wasn't able to do it at the time this recording. So he sung it himself. Let's have a listen to this in stereo Gary Owens Energy strong without someone to believe in without someone to lend a helping hand forever after with to show you foreign land I will shine Want to relax with without someone To share your common all that's hidden We'll find well first things first. I gotta say it was a bit short Yeah, I could have had a little bit more of that But anyway, not this is not about my opinion. I want to start off and I want to hear from dan first dan So the first impression I got listening to this was it sounds like it might be very personal. I mean I and The reason I'm coming at it this way is that you know, I know we were into home recording We're thinking about the production and everything like that But I found myself listening to the song and I think that's a testament to the song itself Um, maybe this is personal experience or personal reflection or something So I found myself thinking about that while I was listening to the song So I I think it was very effective in that sense From a production standpoint Lovely a texture the texture is in there There was a little thing happening on the bass guitar in the verses because I'm very simple But going off the root notes a little bit. Yeah Like it just added to the emotion of the texture of the song There's one extra little bass note that kept and it really grabbed me. I like that a lot and uh, yeah just just Lots of beautiful texture and very reflective overall. I mean the fact that I found myself Get kind of getting sucked into the song and sort of not even thinking about all the production stuff I think really says a lot about the track. So well done. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Wow It sounds like you've just given like a 10 points there if we were giving points dance. That's just nice I had breakfast before the show So Ricky how about you? Ah, I absolutely loved it. Um, I'm a sucker for sweet melodies and stuff and I think um He he really nailed that. Um And it really can conveyed the Atmosphere of what he was singing about, you know, I found that he was very reflective And uh, yeah, he picked the right chords to take you there, you know, um, But it's just so well done. What stage did you say this was at? Um, what stage as I think you mentioned that it was um, did he describe it as a scratch track or something? No, no, he was talking about he starts off with a scratch strap and I see. I see. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. Um, yeah, it's a beautiful song. Um And I think you know if the whole covid thing we can all relate to that Um, yeah in our individual ways and there's something for everyone in that song. So well done. Um Yeah, I've got nothing to say It's hard, isn't it? Because you know, the better a song is in some ways the less there is to say about it. Yeah but um I would say um In terms of I don't know Critique if you like, um to gary. Um Sometimes it needs someone else to tell you because Most of us don't like the sound of our own voice. Um, your voice is good Yeah, you know, you should I I know you probably will never like the sound of your own voice but I'm glad you sung on this because um It was the first thing that I noticed when I first listened to the song Um a week or two back and it was almost I don't want to use the word jarring, but it was striking The the nature of the voice the character of the voice was striking right off the bat, right? Something about the way gary pronounces Things and what have you and that's very important Lots of people can have good voices, but they're boring as hell. They're not distinct. They're not unique in any way Yours is the kind of voice where once people know you they can go Oh sounds like gary. Oh and singing right that they'll they'll get to know that voice got a great character to it so um like dad I picked up on the bass guitar parts, which were a little bit um offbeat here in there in a good way And that was wonderful and I also loved the strings when the strings came in The whole thing just went in Yeah, all lifted in a really really nice way. So um In terms of the balance like this It it was a well balanced track for me, you know all in all We are I mean generally when I'm involved we often get into the discussions about samples and digital Instruments, but this is an example where he used them As a part of the palette to create a song and not as a An easy way to create a song like he didn't like I mean I don't I'm not privy to the production But at least listening to it It didn't sound like he assembled a bunch of samples and just sang over it where he everything was placed nicely He used the tools To their fullest right and and made it his song And that's a great use of digital tools and and I I'm fine with that like, you know me lonely rocker I make music by myself. So I need that assistance. So I like how Everything seemed to have a place and it it felt composed and you know, um Yeah, a beautiful song Um, I strongly encourage um that he should definitely go ahead and release that to the world If he hasn't and if he was gonna release it to the world, what service would he use to do that? Well, I think Ricky's in a good position to suggest a link that he could click on if he should want to wish Should want to release his music to the world definitely go ahead use this stroke kid and release it Well, it's ever so easy. Um, I think it cost 1990 90 a year for an unlimited number of original songs Okay, we'll talk about covers a little bit later But an unlimited number of original songs very easy to do if if you're not into that kind of technical stuff Here I am. I've got this song. I prepared a little bit of an artwork from an old photo I had chucked the words on there then went through just filled out this one form Which takes a few minutes or so like we can see here And that's it when you get through to the end and you actually upload your song and your artwork Um district it does all the rest for you. So we're talking about, you know, getting it off to You know, like Spotify and iTunes and Google play and amazon and all of the other Awesome places as Pete Johns often talks about that you can release your music to so definitely after the show not right away After the show if you have not distributed any of your music to the world yet Um, and you want to do it the easy way then follow the link for distro kid So we've got something up really something really special up next And I've got to do a little bit of navigation here of on the technical side of things So you excuse me if I explain this a little bit badly. I'm just having to Off-camera do all kinds of things here. Actually, you just wouldn't believe how technical all is anyway So the next song up is from in fact, let's have Ricky introduce this one Ricky there you are it's up on the screen. Okay. Yeah This next song is by uh chrome star and dreams are not waiting for Dreams are not worth waiting for is is is what I had to correct you there, Ricky It's okay. I'll get the name of your facebook group wrong all the time You're entitled to get a song title, but it was one of the things I'm sorry chrome star. Um, yeah What a great title though dreams are not worth waiting for that struck me right away. Good title Let me say it Chrome star dreams are not worth waiting for Yeah, I like it's worth waiting for Ricky to get it right Okay, so just a little bit of a serious moment on this guys for a moment I've been speaking with scott from chrome star and he's told me a little bit of a story behind this song Um, chrome star were part the way through recording their debut album last year When their bass player frank codrington Unfortunately passed away due to pancreatic cancer and then kovid. I have prepared a photo of frank here for us So we can sort of um honor his part in this project Unfortunately, he was only able to record a couple of tracks with them. Um, and This is one of them though. So we get to hear some of frank's final work in this So just I'm sure me and the guys will collectively like to Definitely join together and you know offer our condolences to anybody who knows frank is watching and and certainly the band members as well That's a tough situation to be Going ahead and you know releasing an album and they're In this sort of situation. So um thoughts are with you guys there So the song itself was mixed and mastered using cakewalk Um, it it does have live all live instruments on it. You'll be glad to hear dan Um, the drums were recorded at friend studio and then they took them back to scott's place for production Um, he sort of mentioned that it was a little bit of struggle with the drums Had to use you know to align the drums as it were in the door Use the plugging from waves called in phase And then went ahead and used slate trigger to add some drum samples as well Even some of my great drummer friends do add Extra drum samples to their music a great practice to do to beef up some of the drums certainly The interface use was a universal audio apollo duo rack Going into a carillion audio pc. I'm not sure what that is to be honest with you It may be well known, but I don't know about it. Um, the guitars were recorded live through a fender hot rod deluxe Into a senheiser e 609 dynamic mic and also an akg c 214 condenser Which I've reviewed on the channel and is an awesome microphone. Absolutely love that And the bass which frank was playing was recorded directly into a universal audio la 610 with a little bit of gentle compression I have to find this with bass guitar. You don't always have to amp up bass guitar It can handle being it can work on lots of music just directly in um, and then Strings were added using the free Spitfire discovery I don't know if you guys have noticed but this is a free library from spitfire and lots of Acts on the show have actually used it as their string section Just a little sidetrack. I was working on something the other day I wasn't happy with the strings and I've got some pretty expensive string libraries So I was doing the old swap around and I thought hey, maybe I'll try that free bbc one And that was the one I sailed on. Yeah, it was really It's just such a great library incredible stuff. If you haven't already got it, definitely go ahead and get it And the vocals were recorded. I say this. I'm hesitating to say this the vocals were recorded using an Neumann u 87 Okay, the reason I say I'm I'm hesitant to say this This is a renowned and most very expensive microphone. It's there for a reason They do sound wonderful under the under the right circumstances I just never want people to think that they have to have a u 87 before they release music. Okay, that's that's my main thing about it And that's why I'm a little hesitant. So let's go ahead and listen to This song which is as I say called. I hope I've teed it up. Actually. I hope I've teed it up It's called dreams and not worth waiting for from chrome star I think we're going to start off with the one and only ricky here. Just let us know your thoughts buddy Hello What was saying on there? I can't hear you now Hello, you can't hear me Can you hear me? I can hear you. I can hear you. Okay. Okay. Okay. Uh, yeah, this one um Corn what a track Yeah, you've upped your game this week, Mike Wow, um, you know the first one was was great. Um Yet another great track um, I don't want to Repeat myself for anything, you know So i've got to be ultra harsh now since you've put Why not just go into delve into what made it? great for you. I mean I loved I loved this track. I mean the the the arrangement Um, it was so well thought out and there was space Um for everything that was going on in there. Um, it did have a little bit of a later is um vibe I think it was more the keyboards that um gave me that feeling of yeah, it's from Some of the ideas from the era the one and only I don't wouldn't even call it a criticism. Um, but Um, the last guitar break He I felt he was just being a little bit too conservative because that's when you want it to soar Yeah, it should be doing that Yeah, that there was space for it at that moment But that is the only thing that I that I would say positively, you know it you know If there's anything negative to say about it I think they missed a trick there because the space was there to do it And it would have been so fitting with everything else that that had gone on on the track. So A massive well done to um, I'm sorry. Uh, what's his name again? Yeah, well the the band are called chrome star. Well, we were speaking. Yeah. Yeah Listen, you guys are quality Trust me your quality. Yeah, that was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant Good glad to hear you enjoyed it rookie. Um, Dan There was a lot in there for you, wasn't there? There was a lot of yeah Real thing a lot a lot to unpack here Well, I wanted to sort of add on to what Ricky said about the ending That definitely there was a lot of room for a solo and what like I was almost hearing like I mean that melody the harmony that he added he was building it and I almost started here It should have started to transpose and then like Ricky said take flight at the end There was time and space for that that I agree. I don't even want to call it a criticism It just like live. I'm sure he's gonna do with that. I think like you definitely have fun in that part Um, well the first thing I do want to say is just the sort of the back story and the loss of the bass player I mean both you and I have experienced loss recently and I'm sure many years have and I know what that feels like and I think Just the way this whole video was presented I don't know if they had to stand in for the bass player So they couldn't show his face and I love how if that's well, that was him Oh, okay, so they in the video. Yeah. Okay. Okay, so but the fact that it almost looked like It was done anonymously where you barely saw anyone's face is just a little bit of the singer that everyone was sort of in the same boat That's how I I absorbed that anyways But I I mean it seems like these guys are of a similar vintage to us So maybe that's why we may share some some ideals But we talked about this especially, you know, when I'm here I talk about it a lot Is that I appreciate the effort that goes into making music and that something like this Is the culmination of years of practice and experience, you know And I don't begrudge anyone in this world making music, but not if it's going to stunt your growth as as an artist These guys Can play their instruments. They can write songs. They can arrange. They understand harmony You know melody and dynamics and structure, you know, these are things that don't come in a box These come with with experience and it's so refreshing to hear. I mean, I was listening to it I much like Ricky said early 80s. I heard I heard sticks in there I heard ario speed wagon in there and you know the the pop element of rock was definitely there Which is maybe not in flavor in this time But it's a shame that it's not because it has all of those elements to grab memorable melodies and emotion and that so Definitely kudos to them for that. I wish there was more of that in music today And and I wish more people took that seriously today because You know, there's a term floating around that I hate and it's you know, It's usually young beat makers calling old school rock dad rock Right. I said, well, your dad learned how to play and you didn't so There it is these guys Did you didn't learn from your dad you learned from your friends and that was But these guys really enjoyed the song very refreshing to hear Someone put craft Into music and that hits you right there when they do that because you could feel the The emotion coming through their fingers and that's that's why I play music and probably no other reason so I tip my hat and my my condolences to them and they are they honored their friend beautifully. Yeah respect. Yeah respect respect Absolutely. Um, I I haven't got much more to add. Um, I I particularly I love harmonies And these there was thick vocal harmony there. Obviously quite a few overdubs and I just love it You can never have enough for me. Enjoy it immensely. It sounds so rich Um, but I'm just reminded a little bit by the first track And the second one here of what an important role the bass plays in the music and it's it's sort of like one of those things I guess we think of um, you know singers and lead guitarists tend to attract more attention from You know the media or whoever's watching And that's understandable But I always feel like the the nature of a bass player is to quietly sit back No, he won't get recognition for what he does like a good parent really But but he's actually holding it all together and without the bass being just right A lot of other things are wrong, you know when it's there and sometimes it's simplicity But in both of these songs we heard uh bass playing which was relatively simple to play but creative in in its nature, you know For me put a bass guitar in my hand and I'm just root notes all the way, you know There's there's a craft uh bass players do Or good bass players actually need to understand quite a lot about harmony chord structures and things like that To be able to uh to play the instrument well and effectively so it's sort of a bit of a I'm just using The example here of frank to tip my hat to bass players in general and what they bring to our art form is just incredible and one of the most enjoyable parts of music for me to listen to And I really was um, if even without the backstory there with this piece of music I definitely would have been listening to this song going oh, I dig that bass guitar That's just really nice, you know the way it's in there. So, um, you know A big loss there. I can I can see that in terms of you know, what this band would have experienced and Hopefully they can move forward and uh and find a worthy replacement. I know that will be hard, but Um, I bet you guys are great live, you know, I bet this this would sound fantastic live So, you know, definitely likes to hear the rest of this album as well Um, we haven't got we've got all original music on the show tonight. Um There's no covers occasionally We do have covers and if you do want to submit a cover Into the show do feel free to do that. I'm happy to play cover songs I'm more likely to play them if they're a little bit different from the original Um, I will say that or if there's something particular about the production And you can release your cover songs on my uh with my friends at distro kids as well They you can release cover music through there quite easily in fact surprisingly easy Um, I'm just going to ask one of you guys a question so that I can take care of technical exercise here Um, let me just randomly think of a question. Uh, dan, what was the last cover song you learned to play? Oh, wow It's funny. I was thinking about this just the other day because I rarely do covers But I when I started my channel, I did some uh, a Foo Fighters cover and a rush cover And I was actually thinking about redoing a rush cover that I did a bunch of years ago, which is a limelight But just from a technical perspective, like I I don't play the song any better But I want to improve on the tones and the sounds that I recreated. So I'll But what have I learned? I'm writing my all my own music. So that's but I was thinking about it So does that count as an answer? We can move on that we can move on that you filled in enough time enough time for me to show this That on distro kid you can in fact release covers. Um, you just have to pay $12 per year per song So a dollar per month for every uh cover song you release on distro kid They take care of all the permissions and everything for you You don't have to reach out to publishers or anything like that They do all of the leg work for you. They make sure that you keep up to date And you're not infringing any copyright laws or anything affecting your music So if you thought it was good, it's if you thought hey, I've done this great different version of a cover song I'd really like to put it out to the world But uh, you know, probably the artist is not going to give me permission or whatever It doesn't work like that at all. Don't worry about that Um, those sort of days are gone. You you could definitely go ahead and just use a service like distro kid They're all of that out for you I can't believe we're on to um of the show already. Um, it's just been great fun listening to the music but All great things have to come towards an end and um, I'm not going to say leave the best till last But I definitely think that um, what I'm doing here is maintaining the same quality that we've had throughout the show So I've got a feeling with this that both of my guests are still are going to end up praising it, but um You know Whatever whatever we can't criticize everything Um, this is from a good friend of the channel. Um, his name is uh, tony mark. This song is called hey Um, it's actually he recorded this a little while ago. It's not a recent recording But he submitted it and there was something about I thought yeah, I'd really like to put this on the show Um, he described it as quickly recording the bass of the track when his wife was out one day Invited the drummer over who took up the living room So he tried to get as far away from the drummer as he could with his acoustic tango wood guitar That's just an interesting process. Uh, trying to record in kusa guitar with a live drummer And had his son play bass guitar They played the basis of the recording like that live no click track or anything used Just a freeform playing which he did say For that some of the edits that he he tried to do that doesn't make life more difficult But he managed to get away with it. Um He then later I should mention that he was using cakewalk, of course He later and added uh, he's gretch electromagnetic I'm a big gretch fan as you would know and I do not mind the electromagnetic series whatsoever It's kind of their mid-range. It's not their super expensive stuff, but it's their kind of mid-range stuff awesome awesome guitars And uh, dan would understand this a little better than me But um, he was he put some microphones in front of a pv tube modeling amp I'm not familiar with pv tube modeling amps, but um, so that's an interesting idea Still a real amp, but there's some modeling going on there But recorded with a microphone and recorded. I believe a little live piano in there as well So, um, I've got this in big letters here And I do remember that Tony said to me in the email that um, some guests of the show will be pleased to hear There was no virtual instruments. Um tortured or killed or used during this recording. So Let's have a listen to it. Um the final song of the show and don't forget in The live chat do keep those comments coming. I love hearing what you guys think about the music that we're playing Let's have a listen to this one Me I love you Don't I mean a thing Me I need you Can't you see how I missed you? The people I think I'm crazy Jane I can't know Okay, so I feel like there's a lot more to say about this one and I've put dan up there big not by mistake Of course, not that I don't know what I'm doing with all these controls because I feel like I'm going to go to dan first on this occasion All right, that's why I'm here. There's got a lot more to say. I think with this dan though, isn't there? I'll let you go ahead and talk about a few. Well, I mean, let's start. Um, another great track Again a band that's playing their instruments and Great arranging and just like those those little drops and time things that came love stuff like that That means the musicians are listening to each other working this out. I I love doing stuff like that In music, that's one of my favorite things just to make sure that everyone knows that we're in sync You know, we're you know, we're doing these little things. That's great Vocally, you know had a very kind of modern spin on a sort of traditional role That makes any sense, you know, like I heard some more modern rock artists But you know with the song title like hey the first thing you think of is like a pink floyd or something like that So so a real like toss salad of influences, which is was good to hear um Just nice guitar playing nice melody really nice and the arrangement was really clever I think is the best way to describe it. Um, you know for more of a constructive criticism And you explained how they were tracking the drums with the acoustic guitar. I did send some issues Specifically with the drums because it sounds like the drums have sort of a big open sound But the cymbals were sort of overpowering everything Forcing the drum kit to come back in the mix because I wanted to feel that big drum kit and I and and if they did it More in a live context cymbals are Very hard to mix if they're not mic'd properly and placed properly and you're contending with bleed and things like that I don't get the opportunity to mix drum real drums a lot But I had the pleasure of doing that earlier this year with a drummer who Created a plan one of my songs and he tracked everything and there was some issues with the cymbal side and it was it was it took me weeks to figure it out It was never perfect. So I found myself thinking about that there was a challenge there I don't know exactly what it was But the drums felt a little bit too background for me in occasion the cymbals were just overpowering and the acoustic guitar Sometimes was overpowering the drums themselves. So I'd like to see them if possible to kind of get in there and see if they can balance that a little bit better but that's doesn't take away from the song and and Everything else that they put in place because I think it's an answer a really good track. So Cool. Cool. Let's move on to mr. Ricky T Brown. What were your thoughts on that? For me, I felt this this song had the It had the bones of a great track And you know all the things that have been mentioned about the the arrangement and you know Where certain drops were put in that kind of thing clearly, you know There's a lot. There's a level of musicianship at play here, but I think this song would benefit from Um I suppose tidying up some of the bits. I mean Dan touched on you know, certainly the drums And jumped out of me. It's like, oh, okay. I can hear what you're meant to be doing that I'm not sure that it was actually quite pulled off. I mean there were things in there that you might forgive a live performance you know, because you know When you're in stage, man, it's the vibe and sometimes you don't get it 100 right, but it feels good. Yeah But but as if I'm going to judge it as a as a recording It's like there there are certainly some mix issues for me. Um, I noticed towards the end of of the song that The vocals were panned hard left Kind of thing and for me that kind of unbalanced it because Then it made the vocal sound the lead vocal sound like it was coming from that side and and Well, I know there's a freedom to do mix how you want, but I always expect the the lead vocal to be somewhere near the middle and I think Mix-wise it may have been better to have You know, if it was a three or four part harmony, it's like okay, have Double up and split them So they were kind of either side of the center. So It would improve the sound stage for me. It sounded more like it was all okay. Did you really mean to do that because? Didn't quite work for me That way of mixing it and the drums. Yes, certainly in place has got a bit lost to me Yeah, the the cymbal was a a little bit splashy I Yeah As I said, you know, I'm trying really hard not to make it sound like I don't like this song. I do it's just Another go at mixing this right and it may be addressed some of the drum issues and this could be you know A fantastic fantastic song that bypasses any critique Yeah It's interesting you say, I mean That was my sort of probably fourth listen of the song just then and I found myself To me it spoke a little bit to the power of the song because I'd noticed all of the same things that you guys had had talked about before but um in fact The sort of I was just getting into the vibe of the song There's a certain looseness to that recording. It is like a live recording Which is really enchanting to me. Um, but yeah, definitely the drums in terms of production Were someone was mentioning in in the comments that they it sounded a little bit harsh I think that someone was saying that the whole recording sounded a little bit harsh on the high end But I think that was mainly due to the drums there so But there was a couple of other things with the drums where In actual fact, some of the the fills were a little bit loose Maybe that's what you're you're alluding to there ricky. Um, and I kind of didn't mind it to be honest with you It just had that nice. Oh, yeah, it feels like a band playing it wasn't Bad enough to be really uncomfortable be bad. It was just oh, yeah, you noticed But um, but you know, I really like the song. There was a lot of double tracking loads of double tracking of the main vocal And with some particular voices that works really really well as an obvious effect Right because when I do it, I normally just try and blend them in so that you can't actually hear the double track But some with some voices and some styles you can get away with Doing it all the way through the song and I think it was done all the way through the song there from tony and maybe Uh, ricky, I think maybe what happened is is some of those doubled vocals got a little bit of out balance in the mix Which is why you were hearing it on one side So that would be some I'd I'd be careful with their tony if you were gonna, you know, look at this song again I sort of feel personally that it's such a good song. It's worth really recording It's and and even if you use the same sort of idea of you know setting up a basically a live session Um, and I know tony's been at this for some years So with everything you've learned in between tony you can apply something because I think the song's worth it. Um At first I thought oh this sounds like a kink song or something like that Maybe it was something similar to the kink song, but then there was this real modern vibe to it at the same time Which I really really liked The only other thing I've mentioned just on the mix as well It when tony watches, I think as much as I love that gretz guitar That was a little bit too loud in the mix and was Masking your vocal a little bit here and there just one of those things if it came down 5% it would make like all the difference in the world. But yeah Well, didn't we have a great show in terms of music guys? It was it was one of the better quality shows We've had in terms of music. So I want to thank all of the artists that have submitted their music tonight really just a really interesting stuff to listen to I You know, I actually don't regard myself as a as a as a And a sort of producer at all Or anything like that or even a guitarist. I'd primarily actually regard myself as a songwriter. I didn't know that did you? That's what I enjoy doing the most And it's the thing that I feel maybe I've got a bit of talent for so that's what I was enjoying You know, I love to hear other good songwriters. They were all three of them good songwriters It's just something that gives me a buzz when people have First of all put it all together in a nice way, but then surprised you here and there with some, you know Less predictable changes In in what they do it was that was where it was out for me tonight. Um Could could I ask you to pick a favorite Dan? Which one? Oh, he struck struck you Well, I mean, I I definitely I'd like all of them as you say, uh chromestar had a certain Resonated with me on multiple levels Musically how they produced the video even their logo. I mean it's almost like it's a, you know It's a literal translation of the name But it worked and I don't know if they made that or they found that and how that came together But it was uh, it's also a five-pointed star and uh, as you all know, I'm the big rush fan and they have the five Gotta give those guys the the number one slot We'll have to start count and we'll have to start counting aren't we ricky the times he mentions rush I know Yeah, maybe who I am today, right? So Good on you. So, um, ricky, what was your favorite? You can't pick chromestar Well as it happens, you know, I mean if if I I'm very hard pressed to to choose between certainly what tracks one and two um for different reasons They they were both superb But um, I'm gonna have to go with number one Yeah, two reasons why? um Is that I love um sweet melodies and uh, yeah, that just hit the spot for me. Um, the the first one and uh, you know the sentiment, um, it was It's all in our minds at the moment, but I think he captured it in a beautiful way He did Yeah, in a really beautiful way I think he mentioned that he works in a supermarket as a shop Stacker, you know, it's amazing you go Your grocery shopping you could be walking past a genius. Yeah He's wasted. Trust me Hands up whoever worked in a supermarket Yeah It's the right of passage for every musician to do A job like that where you have to work really hard for a small amount of money. No one appreciates you That's that's the right of passage. That's the essence of being musician, isn't it good picks guys? And and I find myself in the position of of pecking number three, which as I say I really enjoyed um With number three just the songwriting part of it mostly I mean all of the other great characters it had But there was just some really yeah, just a nice feel especially just to the core progression in that song Um, just yeah better than I could do it in many many ways. So I enjoyed listening to that Great to have you guys on the show. Thank you so much to everyone who's taken part in the chat tonight And it's very much appreciated if you're watching on the replay Do let us know and let us know what are some of your favorite moments of the show in the comments down below I'm loving doing these shows very much But I do want to hear more and more music from you guys keep it coming Keep entering your music in if you've got a friend who creates great music tell them about it enter as well And we will be seeing you or I'll be seeing you every Thursday and I'm absolutely certain you'll be seeing Dan and Ricky once again on this show. I love having them here. They're great guys They're great at what they do. They're great musicians and producers They're great sort of influences if you like in this but more than anything They're my friends and I really appreciate hanging out with them very much. Uh, it's just Great guys, like nice to have you here and I'm going to leave the last word. I think it was Ricky last time So the last word tonight goes to dan also known as the lonely rocker dan tell us all about Tell well, I'm going to say just in the spirit of the music that we heard today is uh, I'm inspired by other musicians and I'm happy to see that music creation in the purest sense is alive and well And I encourage anyone out there listening and watching this show is that music is Art art is creation