This weekend I put the finishing touches on yet another cover, this time an instrumental called Coast to Coast by The Scorpions, whose two guitarists – Rudolph Schenker and Matthias Jabs – influenced me greatly growing up. This song always spoke to me somehow; although some might find it a bit simplistic and more than a little monotonous, it’s got a kind of hypnotic groove to it that I like. But most of all, I like the melodic lines that Jabs plays on the ‘chorus’ – searing and bittersweet, like the last days of summer.

Musically, this is pretty simple stuff. I didn’t need to do much rehearsing in order to record – just a couple sets of guide tracks, then the final tracking. As usual, I wasn’t happy with my initial off-the-cuff solo, so that was comped. Surprisingly, the hardest part was the drums – it was really hard to get the feel right without the beat sounding uneven. Quantization was no panacea; it would have exacerbated the problem. So I had to go in and laboriously tweak a lot of the hits by hand. The final result is still a little uneven – there are some unfortunately “draggy” bits and obvious unsteadiness, but it seemed good enough to go with for now.

From a production standpoint, it offered several challenges, not the least of which is how to layer two very thick guitar tones in such a way that they can each be heard distinctly. Using the new Logic software (best upgrade I ever bought) I had the advantage of some really spiffy drum samples (which are already being incorporated into several new forthcoming songs). The other fabulous thing that Logic offers is several preset channel configurations – this made guide tracking a dream, and recording a great sounding direct bass track unbelievably simple.

The final product is still somewhat muddy, but in a kind of nice, roiling, grungy way.

I’ve just updated it, with a new bass track and rerecorded vocals. I think the result is a smoother and slightly more polished recording.

Let me know what you think.

Unfortunately, those of us in the Northern Hemisphere will miss out.

NASA’s eclipse page

Two bridges, a body with a bridge, various hardware, pickup selector switches, and three Seymour Duncan humbucking pickups.

1. Warmoth Soloist body + Wilkinson VS100
2. WIlkinson WV6 vintage bridge
3. Fixed bridge
4. Switches
5. Misc chrome hardware
6. Duncan ’59 Trembucker
7. Duncan Alnico II Bridge Trembucker
8. Duncan Alnico II Neck Humbucker

It seems we cannot be plugged in all the time, or else we risk developing a form of ADD.

So, I’m preparing to revamp my multitrack/MIDI recording equipment.

Although the Mac is probably of little value to anyone, now, I am offering for sale on eBay a couple of pieces of recording gear that are still quite viable, especially for someone looking to get started with good quality hardware for very little monetary outlay:

These are great entry-level tools that work with just about any PC or Mac desktop, and should offer years more of service.