Would Any Of You Who Is Experienced In Gear Join Me?

Hey guys!

Would any of you join me in chat? I'm thinking about buying a new amp, and I'm interested in your opinions.

First Serious Recording, Interested In Opinions

Dear GMCers,

I finished my first serious recording yesterday. It's a song I wrote for my first demo album. If I'm correct at modal theory (I'm afraid I'm not, but I hope I am) the "folkish-melody" part is in mixolydian, the bluesy, long part is in dorian, and then it goes back to mixolydian again; I didn't write the song with proper modal knowledge anyways. The solos were improvized in the modal boxes I can safely play without going out.

I created the drums in Addictive Drums, but all the other tracks including the basslines were recorded by me (actually, I let my younger brother to play the rythm guitar parts). An Ibanez JEM7VWH was used for the solos, the FX and the melody, an LTD F-100 with 11's strings was used for the rythm, and a cheap Squier Affinity P-Bass was used for the bass.

I'd be pretty much interested in your opinions because most of you are more experienced and better songwriters, guitarists than me. The main things I'd love to hear your opinions on are:

• The overall song idea - do you enjoy listening to it? If not, what parts do you think needs improvements, and in what?
• My improvised solos - I'm aware that I don't play good enough to make these solos feel not so spontaneous but constructed. What do you think about them?
• The guitar tones - There are basically 4 guitar tones in the song. One for the "folkish-melody" and the solos, one for the rythm guitar, one for the FX (like the dive bomb and the Satch whammy trick) and finally one for the bass. All the tones were created by using a Line6 KB37 device and the Pod Farm plugin. What do you think, does any of these tones need improvement, and if yes, in what?
• The drums - I showed this song to one of my friends who said he didn't like the drums, he said it's driving his attention away from the solos and the song itself. I didn't notice any serious trouble with the drums. What do you think about them?
• The overall mix, levels - One thing that I was very happy about this recording is that I felt like I could mix it down pretty good - no clipping, normalized levels, etc. What's your opinion?

I wrote this list so that it could be a helping baseline for you to review my song, but feel free to add anything that might come to you. I'm really curious about your opinions, because I don't have as much experience in these things than you, and I'm always open to constructive criticism, even if it hurts sometimes

Thanks in advance guys!

Richard

Hello :)

Hello everyone!

I'm Richard Kovacs, an 18 yrs old guitar player (well, mostly a wannabe yet) from Budapest, Hungary. I've been playing for about 4 years now and I'm absolutely self-taught from the very beginning. I'll write a few things about my playing and style, so that you'll know me better . Since I've broken free from my power chord-era (that happened after half a year of playing, luckily for me) I'm trying hard to look into and learn from every styles and genres of guitar-oriented music (from jazz through rock to the darkest, heaviest metal). The styles I like the most are blues-rock and progressive rock from the 70ties (Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd) and instrumental rock from today virtuosos (Satch, Vai, Yngwie), but I'm totally open for less common and not so standard things as well. If I look at my weaknesses I always realize that I have many, many problems with my theory knowledge and playing technics (most of these problems come from the fact that I never went to a teacher) and these are the main things I'd like to improve at, but I'm also in a great need of inspiration to get my improvising ability better and my playing a lot more colorful.

A funny thing about how I got to know GMC - I was a member of the online forum of Yngwie Malmsteen, and I was lucky enough to get to know Marcus Lavendell from there, who is also on my MSN list since then and we're in contact. He told me once that he's an instructor at this site, and I felt like I really should be a member there as I always loved his style and approach. While browsing the site I was like "oh my god, these guys are probably amongst the world's best guitarists and guitar teachers". Sadly, I had no chance to register for a long period of time but finally, I've managed to join your amazing community, with world-class guitar players and tons of thoughtful and helpful people

Thanks for reading through my long introduction (yeah, I tend to talk or write too much sometimes, sorry )! I'm really happy to be part of GMC now

Richard (axes)