Baby blue rendition

Community Recordings Audio-Video Of You Playing
1

Hi folks.
I’ve been wanting to do this song for a while now.
A fellow member, can’t remember who was talking about doing songs that have only barre chords in them. I’m thinking this one complies.

This is my rendition of Badfinger, Baby Blue. I always loved this song. It’s just fun Rock & Roll imho.

This song is 4 tracks.

The bass and drums are from the www as a back track.
Rhythm guitar is me.
Lead guitar is me.
Vocals is me.

I dearly wanted to have this video have three frames, ea. one with a different part. Alas, I can’t manipulate davinci resolve well enough to make that happen. I’m frusterated by not being able to do this. I just plain gave up. Ya get what ya get.

Worse yet. I think the audio and video don’t quite line up. Pretty close, but not quite.
I really never considered that I’d have to know a LOT about manipulating a computer to do this stuff. But I guess it is what it is.

Anyways, in lieu of I’m tired of working on this song, here it is.

3-4 weeks in the making of the audio. I must have recorded it a hundred times before I finally got something I liked.

Spent the last 3-4 days trying to make a movie. Not long, but it’s just making me crazy trying to get what I wanted.

So here ya go.

Baby Blue.

Bummer about my mean look for the first frame of the moive. Guessing I was looking at the music?

As always from me. Any criticism is welcome.
I just wanna play the guitar. Not be a producer.

As for you recording specialists.
This was all done live. Mic’s plugged into the audio interface. I recorded my amps, no direct in.
There is 2 effects used in this recording. The vocal has a small amount of reverb added via the daw. Both guitar tracks had a compressor pedal on. No other effects were used.

fwiw, youtube checked for copyright violation. It said permission to publish this video was granted. I hope so. I sure don’t want to be a violator.

14 Likes
2

Jim

That is a very good performance of quite a difficult song. Some of the runs and chord shapes will get tidier with more practice: you kept playing, obeying Justin’s ‘don’t stop, keep the rhythm’ rule. I enjoyed verything about your performance. Well played.

Brian

3

Well done, some excellent playing, what a great song, Jim. Some lovely tones on the guitar.

Mixing multi-tracks is always tricky. If I were mixing those tracks I might lift the vocal level up a wee bit, perhaps also the guitar panned right. Or maybe just drop the lead guitar on the left channel a wee bit. But the adjustments are slight and more my taste than suggesting it is not an enjoyable listen.

Bravo

4

Hi Jim ,
So So…Stepped out of the dark…just got used to seeing you in the light…but it suits you well :sweat_smile: :smile:
That is a wonderful performance :sunglasses: :clap: :sunglasses:

And with some nice guitar things in between… so nice that I wrote it down to work on myself and at least highlight/steal some things for myself… super :smiley:

Ps: if you asked me… (I wouldn’t :roll_eyes:) I thought the sound adjustment was completely fine and wouldn’t turn anything up louder

Greetings

5

That was really enjoyable Jim. Some lovely guitar playing coupled with good vocals. Great production and performance.

6

Yep, this is the first song I’ve done using the C shape barre chord. That E is hard to grab. F# too that is a C barre too on the rhythm track only. The lead track has some other strange C shape that I’ve not seen before. It’s using the inside 4 strings only. That chord is missing the 3rd and has F# and it’s octave and C# and it’s octave.

That was a challenge for sure, especially on the rhythm track. It really keeps moving.

I always get that comment :wink: I don’t like to sing. I’ll keep working on bringing it up though.

The guitars are L and R. Lead is L, rhythm is left. The guitars are different too. Lead is what your watching played through a prri. Rhythm is a Reverend double agent w through a supro blues king 12. Both amps have the reverb just barely on.
Try headphones. It may be more notable that way. Note the very last strum (after the song is over) is R, mostly. I did this mostly L (louder of the tracks) or R and softer and closer to center to hopefully simulate a amp in a room. While the amp may be left, you still hear R to a degree. Note, using different mic’s did make the recordings sound different. It appears mics do different things.
One of the mic’s used was condenser, the other dynamic. Both close mic’ed.

I used two mics on ea. track. I put the track I liked the best almost full L or R. The mic track that I liked less I turned down and brought closer to center, but not full center. Vocals are centered.

That’s funny Rogier! Yep, I recorded in the day time for something new. Now ya can scrutinize my house behind me… :wink:

Cool! Them barre C’s were new to me. I’d not used them in a song as frequent as I did in this tune. That stange F# on the lead part too. I found them interesting and hard to grab. I worked likely for hours making the change from B to that strange F# before I ever got close to correct.

Thanks for the vote of confidence there. For me, if I did anything to it I’d turn the whole thing down (all tracks) just a bit via gain, not volume in the daw. The whole tune is bordering on clip, but it didn’t, just ran a little hot I think into the yellow just before clip (red).

Thanks for listening @beejay56, @DavidP, and @roger_holland and kind comments on this song. I take all comments to heart and I appreciate the time ya all took to listen and give me feedback on what I tried to do here.

Thanks for the kind words @Eddie_09 Eddie.

Thanks for the kind words on the guitar playing but especially the good vocal part. As I said, I don’t like to sing so your kind words are inspiring for sure. fwiw, at the break, where it goes into that choppy sound, that vocal is supposed to be a octave higher, I for sure sing bass and I just couldn’t get that high in my vocals so went with a octave down so I could even come close to singing it.

Thanks for the feedback to all!

3 Likes
7

I was listening through headphones. Could hear the separation, just felt a little unbalanced to my ears. But as I say, beyond a point, mixing is quite subjective.

Thanks for the extra details. Recording turned out well.

8

Jim, That was very enjoyable. It takes me back to the first time I heard it as a teen. You have some very controlled and clean picking of difficult chord patterns. Great playing. Every time I hear this on my CD, I think I need to learn to play this. So I am adding your video to my list of AVOYPs with performances of wish list songs.

9

Thanks for the re-listen David. Appreciate you spending the time to listen twice. Glad that you were able to hear the separation. I really did try to get that separation.

I agree.
I believe I did this on purpose. When I listen to the real song I can hear the rhythm guitar, but it is, to me, in the background. The lead guitar seems more prevalent.
My answer to this was I kept the vol. at about the same level as the lead, but went into the rhythm guitar part and lowered the gain down.
I think this has lead to what both of us are perceiving as unbalanced.
I don’t know how to cure this unbalanced situation where it would become balanced, but still have the rhythm more in the background. The song needs that rhythm guitar part, but it needs to be in the background. Seems like a catch 22 to me.

Thanks for the listen and kind words Steve.
I can still remember hearing this as a teen too. Probably about when it was released (thinking '72ish). I’d go to my local library to do my school homework. I discovered that they had records that you could check out too. Needless to say, that one got checked out and listened to over and over. In the end, I got my own copy. Still got it too.

Thanks man! To me it seems it’s arpeggios of them difficult chords. The arpeggios (to me) are just running though the strings individually, I found the hard part was to get them chords to ring true while picking though the strings. That bare C is newer to me and I find it pretty hard to get it to ring on all strings. Pretty easy to mute a sting accidentally.

For sure, learn it. It’s a real fun one to play, just get ready for your fingers to bleed. Hope ya can play barre C (I kinda could to start with, now I do it better, but still got room for improvement imho). That seems to be how the E chord is played using the barre C. F# too, with a different variation of F# for the lead guitar. There seems to be no open chords in this song. Ya can use them, but they seem a bit off tone wise.

Go for it. It’s fun to get your guitar to sound like it’s really rockin but w/o any overdrive/distortion involved best I can tell. I had my prri up to 4+ on the vol. dial. Which is much louder than I normally play but that’s where I had to have it to get edge of breakup. Same with the supro, except the supro has a master vol. So I could turn up the preamp to edge of breakup and control the vol. with the master vol. The supro was much easier on my hearing than the prri was.
For a amp designed for students (and not a very large amp either, with a 10’’ speaker, @ 12w), the princeton reverb amp sure is a loud amp. Anything above 4 and it gets pretty loud, pretty fast. 4 is about my max vol for playing that amp, hardly ever get it to 5 (fwiw, my prri sits elevated to ear level about 5’ from me). Much difference between vol at 4 and vol at 5 volume wise. 3 is good with the guitar turned down a bit when the wife is home.
She wasn’t home when I recorded this. :wink:
I needed the amps turned up to get the tones I was after. :slight_smile:
Again, only a compressor pedal was used in this recording. No other sound altering pedals involved. To me, it came out sounding about right to me considering I don’t have a SG which is what I think Badfinger was using. Along with bigger amps, :wink: . I used the compressor to compensate for not having a big tube amp that was turned up… There’s a video of them playing this on the www. Not sure what amp they’re using, but they’re pretty big. Super reverbs maybe? I don’t know. If anyone knows for sure what they were, let us know. Who knows, maybe Joey will see this thread and let us know for sure, since he is the originator along with the rest of Badfinger. May they RIP. What a great band. I’ve much respect for them and love near all their music. They are influencers for me along with the Beatles.

1 Like
10

It sounds like you spent a lot of time look for the right sound, so congrats for the tone you achieved. I went on a rabbit hunt on the web and found lots of info. Some even useful. The best info I found is a reported quote from Joey Mallon someone posted in Harmony Central “Both Pete and I predominantly used two Fender Vibro Champs, and Tom used a Fender Bassman with a 2 x 12 bass cab. We both used Les Pauls, I used a 1957 TV model on Baby Blue which later got stolen. Pete used a Gibson SG that George had given to the band a couple years back.” My guess is the amp in concerts is different than the original recording. Perhaps 2 Finder Vibro Champ (student) amps in studio and Hi Watt amps in concert, but not sure. I am not anywhere the skill level to play this now. Never tried a C Barre chord. But I can appreciate the skill that you need to play this.

11

Actually just listened the once, with headphones . . . sorry :disappointed:

There was nothing wrong with your mix, nothing needing to be ‘cured’. If it sounds the way you want it to sound then all is good.

That is the downside of offering an opinion about a mix. My taste and ideas are just mine. And it is subjective.

I’d drop the lead by a couple of dB, literally maybe -2dB lower on the fader. I find such a small change can make a notable difference.

But that is my taste. And perhaps not in line with your thoughts about how you wanted to mix the track for the overall arrangement and sound.

Sometimes I think I should not share such an opinion. I tend to do so just to offer some food for thought. As such comments help me.

12

Hello Jim,

I am not that good to judge anything you played… all I saw you were great in timming and enjoyed a song. What else you need?
Listened whole piece and enjoyed. :slight_smile:

Thank you for sharing.

13

Hi Jim, a great song choice, Badfinger were a great band in their day.

I have not tried to play Baby Blue but watching your playing, which I really enjoyed, there are some tricky runs and chord changes in their, which if you got wrong could easily throw you off. It looks quite challenging to play well and I think you did a great job and the singing wasn’t bad either.

I have posted a few videos of my journey using an iPhone or Mac and Iam always a bit disappointed with the sound quality, it not easy to do. I think you got a really good balance.

Looking forward to you next release. :grinning:

14

Thanks for your info Steve. I always seem to forget google can be your friend. I though it funny you last words about some of it even useful. That struck me as funny.
I’d have never guessed they used vibro champs. Cool find man.

Perhaps you have and don’t know it.
I assume ya can play a regular 'ol D chord. In my mind, that’s part of a C shape. Take that D chord and play the top three stings only. I believe that would be a inversion chord of D. 5th tone, on G string, root on 2nd string, 3rd tone on the E string. Ya can take that up and down the fretboard for various chords. Try going down the fretboard with them three strings. Down a whole tone and it’s a inversion of the C chord (on them top three strings only). G, C, E. (CdEfGab), normal chord is CEG. 1st tone, 3rd tone, 5th tone. Just food for thought.
Play your D chord with index barre on top three strings (second fret). Play the D note with your second finger. Still D. Now ya can start adding in your 4th and 5th strings using your ring finger and pinky. Try it just adding one finger at a time, one string at a time. For me, adding the pinky in is the deal breaker. I find it kinda hard to do and let all string ring.
Just think of the relationship of the C and D chord. The fingering is the same on the top three strings wherever you play it on the fretboard for whatever chord your wanting.
This is how I look at playing a C shape barre. I near look at as a D chord which I find easy enough to play.
Heck, take your D chord up to the 7th fret. That’s G. Ya can even play the open D string with that. 2 D notes (open 4th string, 7th fret G string is D note) just an octave apart.
If that makes sense. It’s just food for thought.

I’m glad you take the time to offer your insight. To me, 2 minds are better than one. Likely come up with a better answer with 2 folks thinking about the same question imho. And I do take it as “food for thought”. Thanks for these comments.

Thanks for the listen and kind comments Adrian @AJSki2fly .
Them runs aint as hard as ya think. They are actually the same fingerings, just 2 different places on the fretboard using different strings, Against 2 different chords, B and C#M.
For me it was a good exercise in going from playing chords direct to playing lead notes then back to chords. w/o missing a beat preferably. :wink:

I couldn’t agree more. I hate using my phone to record my audio. Like ya say. It just don’t come out sounding great for me either. Some folks seem to get away with it better than others. Myself. It just don’t work.

Get your self a audio interface. I got the focusrige 2i2 as a bundle. Comes with headphone and a mic. Next thing you know your playing though your computer. Much better sound that way imho. Bad part is, now ya gotta tie the video and audio together. Which as you can see from my video, ain’t that easy to do. A fraction of a sec off and ya get what my video looks like here. Just off enough to tell I put audio and video together. I appreciate that you liked my balance.
I should have just put this up as a audio only, but I know folks like videos, so do I. So that’s what I did.
fwiw, if ya should get a AI, ya gotta have a digital audio work station too. A DAW. I use a free one I got off the www. This is a whole nother can of worms. Ya gotta manipulate the DAW (waveform by traction is what I use). This for me has been a hard task that I’m still only touching on.
The video part, making the movie. That’s worse than a DAW for me. Like I said, I didn’t get posted what I wanted. The reason was because I can’t figure out how to manipulate the video (davinci resolve) program.
Thanks again for the kind comments and listen.

1 Like
15

Hi Jim

Thanks for replying. I have garage band and band in the box, and a Positive grid RIFF so recording sound is fine for guitar, but like you with video it’s a different issue. I have tried using a Panosonic stereo usb mic and using Apple Mac video software and that was better. I need to try it with iMovie and see if that works, if it does then it’s free.

Cheers

16

Jim, thanks for the hints on the C shape barre D. I had played a type of D chord by sliding the open C chord up 2 frets, but had not considered just fretting the first or highest 3 strings. I tried this on my Strat and found it easier to form the C shape first with fingers 2,3 and 4 and the 2nd finger in the 3rd fret, because of my little fingers and short pinkie. Then I fretted the mini-barre on the high 3 stings at the 2nd fret the best I can. It would take some practice. I never tried because I thought you would have to use a full barre with the C shape which ( couldn’t comprehend :smile:

17

Thanks, Jim, appreciate that.

18

Wow! I was quite impressed. You were flying all over the fret board. Also, you say you hate to sing, but I thought your vocals were absolutely fine. Good job. It looked like a challenging song and your practice paid off well.