MarkM Dear Prudence guitar lesson review upload

reiver
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Sun Feb 27, 2011 10:25 am

Mark
Have to agree with the previous comments, this sounded great - your picking was spot on and you played it at a great tempo. Great to hear that your getting the confidence to take on the singing too. Really enjoyed it.

Stuart


cosmicmechanic
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Sun Feb 27, 2011 10:42 am

Mark, from the very first strumming tunes you put up here, your playing has had solid timing and cadence, without seeming at all mechanical.

That quality is now evident in your finger-picking, and you sure don't fudge it up on certain strings: every note is clear that should be.

Your vocals are a fun addition, glad to see that you are gaining confidence, would be great to try some "harmonies" :huh: if your work travels send you near here.

So now "Dear Prudence" is on my "to do" finger-picking list, hopefully gratification will come faster than with Ralph McTell's "Streets of London", on which I will never surrender.

Thanks for this !
Pierre


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neverfoundthetime
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Sun Feb 27, 2011 10:52 am

Beautifully picked Mark! Lovely sound coming out of your set up there. great dubbing over of the vocals to make this an all round excellent post. Congrats! Everyone has said your timing was perfect and it is. Jay and Al have serious competition now! :-)


buddy
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Sun Feb 27, 2011 11:10 am

Mark,

Wow, Superb job on this. Your finger picking was very clear and clean and you are getting a great sound out of your guitar. Man your progress has been amazing.

Bud


MarkM
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Sun Feb 27, 2011 11:33 am

Thank you all very much for your kind words.

Willem - Thank you!!! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm still jealous that you got a chance to play with Vanessa. Great job again on your recent posts.

Cori - Thanks! My vocals aren't that good so I added a bit of reverb to it through this new app I'm using. More on that later.

Pete- Thanks. I know you always love the Beatles tunes.

Michele - Thank you! You made me laugh out lound reading your response. It's not perfect but it is getting better.

Al - Ha!! Thanks!! I wouldn't go that far. I muddle through most strumming songs and my fingerpicking is very limited to "pattern" based songs at this time. Always something to work on. You on the other hand are doing some really impressive stuff lately.

Marc - Thank you. Yeah that part at the end going from strumming back to picking was as bit tricky for me. There is supposed to be a small pause there but I never did count out the beats to make sure how long it is. I was more concerned with getting a smooth transition. Now if I had a drum track on here it would have been a bit easier.

Vanessa - Thank you!! This was part of the hole I was in. Between working on this song and real work I've been missing from the forum a bit. Now I've got some catching up to do.

Suzi - Thanks!! I'm glad the two of you liked it. After working on something for a while you don't know if it's good or not. I figure as long as I have a steady tempo the rest will come.

Stuart - Thank you!! Now that this song is done, your recent posts have got me thinking of a different direction for some new songs.

Pierre - Thank you!! My timing in the past was never that good so I've been working on it over the past year to clean that up a bit. I'm planning another trip up your way next month. Not sure when yet but I'll let you know. If you can play a "pattern" fingerpicking song then you'll do fine with this one.

Chris - Thanks!! Well I've got a long ways to go to catch up to Jay and Al but I use them for inspiration to hopefully get me there some day.

Bud - Thanks!! I've been working hard on trying to get better at fingerpicking. It's a long process. Now I'll pick up the other guitar and belt out a few strummers so I don't forget how to do that.


OK I think that's everyone up to this point. Thanks again!!!

There were a couple of firsts on this song. This was the first time that I actually recorded the 714 plugged in. I still prefer the sound of a standard mic recording as I'm not quite sure how to dial in the guitar when its plugged in. For this song it worked though. I had it plugged in to the M-Audio Fast track pro which is plugged into the computer via USB. There is still some issues with the buffers/latency as you can here a bit of a pop here or there. Still trying to figure that out. I will say that when one records with the guitar plugged in there is very little room for error. You can hear EVERY mistake on this track. I can get away with a bit of a flub when recording with a mic. I have to be extra careful when plugged in. Also the volume is something that I had to watch as well. When I went to the strumming part I really had to make sure that it was light enough so that it was at the same level as the fingerpicking part. That is why I was just strumming lightly with my thumb and not the invisible pick method which really was too loud. The other new thing was this was the first time I didn't use Audacity. With Audacity you cant have individual control with seperate tracks. So I did a little research and found an App called Reaver. It is free during the trial period which is indeffinate. You can buy the license of 50 dollars if you choose. I'll be in the indeffinate catagory for a while. This DAW is really amazing with out being overly complicated. There are a few effects in that that can be used and you can download more plugins for this as well. For this song I recorded the guitar on one track and then afterwards I recorded the vocals. I added a little bit of reverb to the vocals and in the "round, round, round" section I added two more tracks for the harmonies. Still a learning curve for me there but it was fun to play around with. I could have gotten crazy and added drums, bass, etc but for the purposes of this song I stayed pretty simple. Well enough of that. Where's my pick??????



MarkM


BobR
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Sun Feb 27, 2011 11:44 am

Hi Mark,

I thought that was Excellent. Your fingerpicking sounded perfect. The timing throughout seemed spot on IMHO(except 1 extremely minor transition from strum to picking). The guitar sounded so good. You should be very happy with this one.

Oh yeah, the singing added a lot. great job!!

Bob

Now to go shovel more snow :(


dennisg
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Sun Feb 27, 2011 12:12 pm

Okay, admit it -- that wasn't really you playing. It was Jay. Right? Come on, Mark, you can't possibly fingerpick that well when you're just starting to learn it.

Mark, this was just gorgeous, and I loved ever note of it. I honestly can't even believe how good your Taylor sounds on that setup. I'm now officially dying to learn this song.


Lavallee
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Sun Feb 27, 2011 12:29 pm

[
Marc - Thank you. Yeah that part at the end going from strumming back to picking was as bit tricky for me. There is supposed to be a small pause there but I never did count out the beats to make sure how long it is. I was more concerned with getting a smooth transition. Now if I had a drum track on here it would have been a bit easier.

Hi Mark, just to clarify, it was not really the pause but more that you had to look at your right hand to set it up correctly. I think it makes it difficult to count time if your focus change

Marc


MarkM
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Sun Feb 27, 2011 4:07 pm

Thanks Bob!!! Much appreciated!!!

Dennis - Ha!!! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: You're to blame. If I remember correctly you nudged me in to trying fingerpicking and to be honest everytime I start a new figerpicking song I think of you pushing me there. Jay is a constant reminder of how far I need to go. Especially when I get to see him play at his place from time to time. I'm glad you liked it. I think you could nail this song.

Marc - No worries. Yeah I had to look over there at my right hand for a second just to make sure that I got both strings lined up for that C. You know when you get towards the end of the song and you think you might just make it through without a serious hiccup and the nerves start shaking a bit, you say to yourself "Don't screw it up now!!" That's where I was at that moment.


MarkM


snipe
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Mon Feb 28, 2011 11:38 am

Mark,

It looks to me like you totally have that song down. Sounded like you didnt miss anything. The finger picking thing is something im not too great at. Im like Cori, into flat picking. So thats something I need to work on. And I notice that your vocals are always improving with each time you post. Keep up the good work
Mike


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