bats brew

right away, i like the low end in the acoustic, it sounds full, without being boomy. good capture. vocal performance is excellent. i think the drum track sounds good, but is a bit busy for the mellow quality, i think if you simply took out every other snare double hit,, that'd do it. there are too many in a row, and it's a bit distracting. but that's the only thing i'd change. excellent captures on the harmonica, and slide. great tune.

that warms my heart, starise. good places, yes. and yea, playing like this, is PRETTY EXPOSED! LOL, but i love the expressiveness of the acoustic guitar, it's a proper real sound. immediate, requires a bit of effort and focus. i like it!

hi wookiee, thanks for listening to this one, yea, it's gonna sound a bit like zep, just because it's acoustic and rock style, but honestly, i'm familiar with their entire catalog, and i can't find anything they've done that sounds like this, arrangement wise. definitely mine originally.

hey mark! glad your diggin' this one.... def not a 'strummer', tho i'm not sure exactly what inspired this particular approach. probably something like old dan fogelburg, or eagles, or sumptin' i have some older material off of previous albums that is in this style... probably not enough to put together for an entire album of mellow stuff, but i've been thinking about doing just that.

a hottie. heheh not what i think of when contemplating the term 'hottie'. ?

hi freddy! yea, softer tune, for sure... i write a LOT of this kind of stuff, but not much of it makes it's way to bats brew albums, maybe i should have a different band for more of that style of tune! glad your a fan! thanks!

that's a really nice thing to say, david! a lot of the tunes on my previous albums have been about less positive issues! but this one is pretty straight up. thanks for listening

hey java! thanks for the critique on the mix, this one would seem to be easy to mix on the surface of it all, but blending the 4 guitar parts required some eq carving, as to not get freq masking. took some trial and error passes before it seemed to be right. the bass was probably the hardest to decide on. it's funny, but on any given day......

thanks so much man... appreciate it.

https://soundcloud.com/bats-brew/lake-katherine this is a song off of my new album, called "The Wild Animals" it's a love song! ha! I used the Taylor 414 and Seagull Artist Mosiac seen in this photo: miced with a shure KSM44, pointed somewhere near the neck/body joint. vox with a ADK Hamburg. bass direct.

hi paul~! thanks for checking this tune out, i thought a few here, would really dig the spacier vibe.

damn freddy! thanks for the kind words man, appreciate it. this lyric, is pretty much a real dream i had, forgot it when i woke up, then re-dreamed it with a different ending!! LOL i'm actively working on slowing down meters on tunes right now... when i feel it's totally in the pocket, i slow it down just a few BPM more... seems to work out well.

hi starise! hey thanks for taking the journey, for me writing this kind of stuff, that is definitely the vibe i want to put across, and if you are in the right head space, i know it'll be a cool vibe. so thanks again, for listening, and commenting

HI andy! vocals should ALWAYS be in tune!!! LOL and without that danged new fangled contraption that takes a poor voice and makes it stellar!!! who knew!!!! heheh, ok, off of soap box for now. thanks for listening, man, yea, coming up with the right formula for dreamy and complex, aint easy! i had long lasting slow delays on the voices, just like you said, and after i lived with it for a while, it was too distracting for me, it took away from the tension i was building after the voices quit... seems like there is always a compromise to be met, maybe one day i'll nail the mix just right. means i gotta write some more spacey songs so i can experiment!

hey douglas! thanks man, glad you dig the vox, i work the hardest on the vox. i pretty much keep at each track til i get something that doesn't cause me to make that face that you get when you eat lemons. heheh

hey tom! yea, i just love that organ sound... i guess i must have spent the better part of an evening just trying different sounds... the vst i used had about 200 different sounds, so i had to learn what i liked best, by just grinding out several hours of demo'ing. i think it starts with a simple electric piano blended with a B3 organ sound...two keys at once. underneath there is a big horn kind of synth, playing real low, and then i bring the B3 sound in more dominant. then when the song starts, it's that pure electric piano blended with the hammond again, but put thru several distortion elements. makes it kinda spooky. the 'ahhh's' at the end, were actually there (conceptually) before i even started to record this.... in fact, maybe i wouldn't have done it if i HADN'T heard those silly aahhhhss. LOL thanks so much for listening

hey paul! thanks so much for listening. yea, the wah.... that was my very first effect, so i've always been drawn to it. hendrix did that to me. hi andy! yea, i dig the floyd too... you know, if i didn't work a full time job, and could just write tunes, i bet i'd have 3 finished, every week... x4 weeks a month, that'd be 12 songs in a month, more than enough to release an album!!! as it is, i have to steal time, usually an hour at a time, and piece it all together from memory, and my memory's not that good!! LOL

HEY GARY! REALLY glad you like this one...it's a special one, for me, anyway... this started out as an instrumental, and featured more guitar solo instead of the lyric parts.. maybe i should put a whole album together of just this kind of stuff.

heh! hey tom, yea, i posted this one back during the demo process.... this one's a bit slicker than the one i posted before i finished, sometimes i think i'll post the before and after, but then i figure 'zero reason' to do it.... i've already done it by myself a dozen times!! glad you dig this one, thanks!

this is my floyd influence showing. ? fresh off the new bats brew album "The Wild Animals" This one was based on an instrumental i did way back when, on a cassette-based multitrack machine. it was originally called "Pali Face". i always wanted to do a song version of this, and once i got the lyric idea, the arrangement came together nicely. Lost Dream lyric: Here’s the dream that floats along the ceiling, Out the window, lost into the breeze. Walking in the dark there is no seeing, Fight the fear that brings you to your knees You stand along the edge to nowhere, You slowly fall into the sea. You run as hard as can, to something, A brilliant light envelopes all. That’s when you learn you found the answer, It came to you in a dream…. It comes to you, in another dream…. in another dream.

wanted to feature a tune that's a bit different than the other ones on the album: "Lake Katherine"

WOW! so much fun, with an iconic tune. congrats!

hey douglas, thanks so much man, glad you dig this one. took this one down, gonna post a new one now....

HEHEH, freddy, crack me up... thanks man, i'm glad you dig my stuff, i hope more folks get to hear some of it. i tried to put an album that worked from beginning to end together, like my favorite old classic rock albums. it's got pacing, and ebb and flow, and a bit of drama and goofiness, the whole thing. you really have to hear it from beginning to end, to get the whole vibe.

hey david!! thanks for listening, i appreciate it. you know, i used to play several reggae songs back when i toured doing cover tunes, and i've always been a huge bob marley fan, have several of his albums on forever rotation, but i don't think i could do a legit reggae vibe, without it sounding a bit karaoke... it's an intriguing idea, i think i'll go there with a demo, and see what happens....