Some of My Music

[jemaholic]

http://www.esnips.com/web/Strat-God-Music

[kotornut]

So here's my honest opinion:


Sounds pretty good. I thought the acoustic beginings of "Concrete Cowboy" and "All Alone" were a little effects heavy and overly processed, but that's just my taste. Your voice fit better with "Concrete Cowboy" than the other songs but they didn't sound bad at all.

If you work on your mixing and mastering you could get a very good recorded sound for your guitars and vocals. The electric guitar sounded a bit distant in the tracks so work on that. The quality was pretty good but just a bit extra work and it'll be outstanding.

But as far as your talent it's definately there and your playing was very fitting. I liked how rock the songs were they weren't genre distinctive (meaning too much of just one genre). I also thought that you have a lot of patience as a guitarist and self recorded musician. It's usually very difficult for people in that situation to hold back on their guitar playing and it becomes too much noodling or they overplay every part. The song structures were great and I liked them quite a bit. Keep up the good work.

[jemaholic]

Great review. I'm doing these recordings alone in my basement studio. I consider this as 'stress relief' to offset work.
In "All I Know" and "Triumphant Return" I used a single mic on a 9-piece drum set - positioned about 4 feet away- so I hear you about the quality issues....but since I never plan on doing anything with these anyway I don't feel the need to go balistic with proper microphone placement and stuff.

I think the vocals suck, but I like the idea of me playing everything better than getting a good singer to come in and do the parts. I'm thinking it will be cool for my great-grandchildren to 'discover' these recordings long after I'm gone.

[vy100]

Sure you are proud of hat job, man! I love specially the bossa-latin-jazz guitar-piano combo on midnight along with the latin rythm section (Al-Dimeola rules!). It takes my mind to a summer night. I like the way you focuse your music, taking our beloved guitars present on it but not being always the main voice on the mix. Itīs a feeling like "you play your guitar to make your music and no make music to play the guitar". Very little of us are mature enough to rise to that level leaving all that weird fingerings only for the moment they are needed and try to compose some kind of "spiritual/introspective music". We all know how much hard working hours are needed to achieve just one minute of music. Congrats.

[kotornut]

Originally Posted by jemaholic

Great review. I'm doing these recordings alone in my basement studio. I consider this as 'stress relief' to offset work.
In "All I Know" and "Triumphant Return" I used a single mic on a 9-piece drum set - positioned about 4 feet away- so I hear you about the quality issues....but since I never plan on doing anything with these anyway I don't feel the need to go balistic with proper microphone placement and stuff.

I think the vocals suck, but I like the idea of me playing everything better than getting a good singer to come in and do the parts. I'm thinking it will be cool for my great-grandchildren to 'discover' these recordings long after I'm gone.

Please don't take anything I said the wrong way I thought it was all great I was just trying to tell you a few things that you might want to look into. ALl of it was great to listen too, and the vocals didn't suck. There are more options for evaluating things than "suck" and "awesome."

Dang!!!! I need to start doing home recording. This was really inspiring to me.

[Stringz]

I really enjoyed your stuff Jem, Midnight Over Spain is my favorite. If you like Latin influenced stuff, check out Jesse Cook. Triumphant Return had a nice Satriani - Vai feel as you mentioned, but I also heard alittle 'RUSH' in it as well. ( I am a huge Rush fan ) and in your vocals ( which don't suck at all ) I hear a hint of Chris Cornel. As I was listening I was playing along ( and I don't just play along to any old thing ) . Great stuff man.

[Myst and rain]

That was cool, man. I haven't listened to all of them yet, but I really liked Concrete cowboy.

Alwin