Here’s a Demo I made with Ardour of a new instrumental we will be putting into our summer setlist as a set closer. I was feeling a summer patio Vibe reminiscent of all those great 60’s Soul Instrumentals (ie Booker T. and the MG’s etc.). It’s pared down to the basic elements because we are a guitar trio. I can foresee an expanded version in the future with Hammond Organ added.
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Nice! Funky! You might even get me dancing to that at a gig and that’s a rare event.
I could imagine a Hammond in there, maybe you could overdub a soft one for the recording.
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Sounds nice.
I’d sneak in a little bit more toms. More round-sounding toms - after all, it’s 60s and it’s an instrumental for a trio 
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On second listen, maybe i’d not add more tom work, maybe i’d just bring them more up font in the mix, shine some lights on 'em.
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I understand what you mean in the context of things like surf instrumentals like “Wipe Out” where the whole thing is a drum roll on the toms. Something like this where it’s more of a funky in the pocket groove it’s hard to do much with the toms because the kick and snare are really the glue. I don’t even know if the drums are finished on this, I was getting to a place already of overdoing it as a demo, it’s hard to stop sometimes when things are sounding like what you hear in your head… It makes me want to keep going…
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Yeah, i’m much more into the surf side of things .
I’ve just listened it on headphones (previously i was just listening it trough my phone’s speaker).
Here’s a thing to consider - now, a great drummer will do this instrumental justice live with ease, but an average one, also known as weekend player (like myself ) will most likely find that constant pre-measure kick hits a bit tricky. That stuff simply takes a good drummer in shape…sound easy, but it ain’t. Try it first with your drummer…most of those kinds of cool stuff i’ve ended up throwing out of every arrangement. This bring up memories of trying to keep a steady kick swing with occasiaonal pre-measure hits in Pearl Jam’s “Rats” cover - needles to say i’ve thrown it out the setlist after a couple of rehersals.
And for a demo this is great, even for like a pre-release version. If any band member needs a better recording to practice to, or a fan to hear a cool new song idea, they’re just full of it…right ? For a finsished song mix, it needs a bit low-mid and low end cleaning up. Kick, and the whole mix is a little bit muddy, nothing drastic. At the end of the day it’s the 60s, man!
(And honestly, i sould run and update my AV Linux, instead of typing stuff online much too often )
Cheers!
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This is very nice, and you did say that it’s an instrumental, and a demo, but I did wonder whether adding a vocal line would be worthwhile. It all seems very well played and produced.
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