I'm producing a new CD for Rev. Rabia, a singer/guitarist/songwriter from Richmond, California. This a a scratch mix of a tune we recorded this afternoon. I was very happy that the Reverend Rabia picked this tune to record as I heard my guitar mentor, Brownie McGhee, and his partner, harmonica man Sonny Terry, close their sets with this song many times.

PACKIN' UP

Awesome! Slide guitar is always great And it has that southern flavor! Great work sir!

This sounds fantastic man. The voice is cool as well as the guitar playing. Top level!

Thanks for the compliments...I got some criticisms on other sites which I have addressed in this remix.

PACKIN' UP Remix

Cool, which are the most important changes that you did?

Someone wanted to hear more bottom so I EQed for an old jukebox style heavy bass. Another thought it was too long at 5 minutes, I thought so too. I edited out the second guitar solo and also removed a repeat of the first verse near the end of the song which reduced the running time by approximately 1 minute. I also reduced the stereo spread of the two guitars and brought the vocals down slightly. I have room ambiance mics on all the tracks which have a pretty heavy wide stereo echo chamber effect on them. I brought them all up slightly in the mix. I reduced the reverb on my guitar which is on the right in the mix. I've made another dub since then but haven't got it loaded to soundcloud yet...I'll post it when I do.

One thing is apparent...it is amazing how much sound one can make with a couple of good acoustic guitars recorded with a lot of echo on the ambiance microphones! The ambiance mics (LDC) were placed in a corner of the room as far from the guitars as possible on high stands facing into the corner near the ceiling. On this track both guitars were not directly miked but were recorded from the pickups, a piezo bridge pickup in the case of Rabia's Taylor (slide guitar) and a 1950s DeArmond Model 200 magnetic soundhole pickup on my Martin. This was the first time I had tried this particular combination of direct recording the guitars and using ambiance mics in the room. All of the vocals were recorded with two LDC mics, one in front of the singer(s) and one ambiance mic in the corner of the room.

Here's the new dub...full length this time.

PACKIN' UP - REMIX 2