Kevin Walsh

Same for me!

On 12/17/2020 at 4:37 AM, Tobias said:

I would say don't upgrade unless you are having any issues  

I love the fact you are having such a great result from your upgrade and its comforting to know that tech is improving so if/when there is a need for an upgrade there are actually good ones out there and that are worth while. That said, I think the vast majority of users do very well with Cakewalk ( and other DAW's I am sure ) on very modest setups. Most computers these days are very powerful, even the "weaker" and older ones.   In the words of Spiderman ""With great power comes great responsibility",  given too much power there is the risk that developers get sloppy/lazy and write code that is not optimized or efficient requiring ever more resources.

😲

No way!

I am in the Always Upgrade Always camp, which is imho vastly superior to the "Always use obsolete hardware in a futile attempt to get developers to write more efficient code" camp.  Faster is always better. Always. 

I will certainly update my 3950X to a 5950X after the holidays. The IPC and clock improvements are simply to great to ignore.

Pro.

Nice work! I feel your mixing pain. I finally broke down and bought a pair of Slate VSX headphones. Has a plugin with a bunch of different room emulations (including two cars, lol).  Oh man, what a difference. They were a little pricey but they are way cheaper than getting a decent set of monitors and fixing the acoustics in my room. I'm not endorsing them, mind you, just telling you what I did to try to solve the very same problem with bass that you describe.

On 11/10/2020 at 7:14 AM, daryl1968 said:

very cool tune Kevin - love the atmosphere that you've created and all of the rhythmic elements.

I'm not sure if I'm hearing things but there may be some slight timing issues (bass/vocals) when it goes into the Gone Baby Gone (chorus) part that makes that part go a little flat energy-wise?  

Thank you Daryl, I appreciate you listening closely enough to find that! 

Well, much as I hate the licensing technology, you can't really complain about their support desk. They got back to me and after uploading a system information file turns out that the license manager had bound to a built in network connection that I've never used and never had a network cable connected to. I had tried the disable/re-enable thing they tell you to but I didn't really think of the device I never use and which did not have a cable attached. In the end I actually had to connect a cable to it, disable all the other network connections on the box and refresh my licenses in Waves Central. And there they were.

I quickly moved them to the cloud and from there to a USB thumb drive that will henceforth live on the back plane of my PC.

He couldn't explain why it connected to the unused NIC except to speculate that if I disconnected the cable from my main one for some reason it would mess things up. Whatever the case, it's actually the third time this has happened and the first time I was able to get by without waiting for a year to go by before I could recover the licenses. 

I suggested that this licensing scheme is fraught with peril for un-technical people, a comment for which the support guy had no response.  

What a pain.

Amazing work, sounds fantastic on my cheapo phone buds. Great performance of a great song. Looking forward to the next installments!

Nailed it. Good song that gets the vibe, more please.

5 hours ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

It's a tough lesson, but the only safe way to activate Waves plugins is to a USB thumb drive.  Yes it's a dongle you have to buy and keep track of yourself.  But it can save you so much pain and suffering.

You're right, but I lose stuff on a pretty regular basis, and thumb drives are right at the top of the list of most frequent things that get lost. 

4 hours ago, bitflipper said:

I've had to recover Waves licenses twice.

Although aggravating, it really wasn't a big deal. Still, given that most of Waves' competitors will never hassle you like that, why on earth would you put up with any aggravation at all?

Exactly my point! I do like the CLA2A quite a bit but I've found Kush's AR-1 to sound pretty great. 

4 hours ago, kennywtelejazz said:

Hey I liked your tune Kevin ! Has a nice Swamp Rock type of vibe going for it ...

Sounds clean almost a little  too clean in places ( some of the guitars ) I like when you added a little crunch to a few of the guitars as the song played through ..

Yeah the vocals fit for sure ...overall your song was genuine sounding ...

this was a good listen

 

Kenny

 

Thank you, Kenny, I'm glad to hear you liked it! 

32 minutes ago, Philip G Hunt said:

Kevin, I really like the vibe of the verses, and the electric guitar fills are great. As Kurt said above, the acoustic seems to be messing with the mix. It might even be slightly off time/unaligned with the other tracks.  I'd either tone it down or redo it.

My biggest (and possibly most painful for you) word of advice would be to rework the chorus. It isn't strong enough as is. It could be so much better with a stronger chorus. Either more complexity in the vocal/musical arrangement - (think of Rolling Stones Citadel) or a rewrite. I hope this doesn't upset you as I imagine it is a very personal song, and I do love the vibe and tone of your voice.

All the best

Philip, fear not, I'm very grateful for your feedback. I've been thinking along the same lines with respect to the arrangement. I struggle to push a song out of the path that it's laid for itself, and this one seemed to want a simple repetitive vibe. I think I have to let this one sit for some time until the grooves in my brain fade a bit and allows me to see other possibilities for it. Thanks again for your criticism, it's very welcome indeed.

Great stuff, Kenny! Three very different pieces and all of them are going in to my study pile. Personal favorite is "To Thine Own Self Be Blue". You always put together a solid mix with killer guitar tones. You're going to have to talk about how you record one of these days. 

Yeah, I wish it would work. It shows a new "connected drive" with no licenses and a "disconnected drive" with all of my licenses. I was  able to select and move three licenses to the cloud but the other four defy every attempt to correct things.  I never thought I'd pine for an ilok solution. 😀

41 minutes ago, abacab said:

Well if you still have the NIC, just re-enable it and access to the licenses is restored.

Just like the documents say to do, right. Did it work? No. Why? I don't know. I've contacted support. This is the third time this has happened in the last year. 

Damn them and their stupid license management scheme. It's tied to your NIC and if you foolishly forget and disable a NIC for some reason, goodbye Waves plugin licenses until you can recover them sometime NEXT YEAR.

Seriously, just slap me.

Such a cool song! A memorable melody with a really good chorus. I very much enjoy the tone of your vocals here. Reminds me of Donovan.

The mix sounds kind of reverby and thick and confused to my ears, like some of the instruments and are competing for my attention. There's also a sheen of harsh highs that detract from  the really nice retro vibe you're establishing.

Again, such a cool song!

42 minutes ago, mark skinner said:

Kevin , I loved "Everything" about this song.    Great mix and blend of electric and acoustic.   mark

Thank you, Mark, I appreciate you taking the time to listen!

On 11/6/2020 at 10:06 AM, DeeringAmps said:

I can see that.
Now he needs some extra voices in the chorus (think Nash and Crosby; that's what makes Stills' vocals work so well)

No one has mentioned (WT hey?) the "breakdown" there at 2:04ish; very cool!

All in on this one Kevin; 👍's and toes!

t

Thanks for giving it chance! I'm really glad you dug it, thank you!

On 11/5/2020 at 5:24 PM, bjornpdx said:

I tend to start a song at too slow of a tempo which I don't even notice until someone points it out. And then like you said it makes a big difference to bump it up a few BPM.
The lyrics seem like they relate to a real life event. I'm not sure what's going on but that just adds to the mystery and your voice fits the theme very well.

Thank you bjorn, I'm always doing that too. I guess the lyrics do relate to a life event, but not mine.

On 11/6/2020 at 3:08 PM, thegaltieribrothers said:

Hi Kevin,

Really cool song + love the 'scratchy' guitar and excellent guitar licks throughout.

Thanks for sharing.

Good Job!

regards

Paul

Thank you, Paul! I appreciate you chiming in!

I use nectar too, but the assistant puts a sheen on the track that just kills the human element. That's great if thats what you're going for (modern pop, I'm looking at you) but not for more roots-oriented stuff or blues or classic rock styles (imho!)

Like you said, it does do a great job of finding resonant frequencies, so its a good starting point but I almost never use what it suggests without a lot of changes.

Have you tried Neutron? Same kind of thing for all the othe instruments. We live in wondrous days.

I agree, #2 although I like #1 quite a lot.

Thanks for listening and I appreciate your critique!

Not sure why I didn't see this earlier, but wow, this is really great stuff. I'm so grateful that music like this is still being done! Everything was just right, keys, (great playing there) guitar, vocals, really nice mix. But the bass sounds are so very good. Killer song.