Old Man - Neil Young

Community Recordings Audio-Video Of You Playing
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So I learned this song using one of Justin’s song videos - this one: https://www.justinguitar.com/songs/neil-young-old-man-chords-tabs-guitar-lesson-st-905.

I love Neil Young’s songwriting and guitar playing - he has a unique style I think. The first bit of the song was tough to learn when I tried to learn it note by note - it turned out to be better to listen to the song and try to get a feel for it. Anyway, looking forward to any feedback you might have!

17 Likes
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Sounds really good Michael although when listening over on my phone it seems like vox is really way behind the guitar, perhaps that was your intention as playing is really good here, but I would prefer to hear your voice a bit better :slight_smile: well done!

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Thanks Adrian! Yes you’re right - I turned down the volume of my voice cuz I don’t like it much:) But maybe I went a bit too far.

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:clap: :clap: :clap:
Bravo, Michael, that was a wonderful performance, both the playing and the singing. You surely did get the NY vibe on this (one of so many) classic song (I’m also a big NY fan).

Your voice sounded good, easy on the ear. I think it is true that most of us don’t like the sound of our own voice when we listen back to it recorded, either speaking or singing. From what I heard you can can be confident in balancing it appropriately in the mix.

On the mix I noticed you’d panned the guitar hard right and the voice hard left. My personal preference, quite subjective, would be to have both tracks in the centre, voice sitting just on top of the guitar volume wise. You could do some further production tricks to make the guitar sound wide if you wanted to but for a play and sing like this, I like the two together, as I would be hearing it if I was sitting in front of you in your room.

Once again, well done, that was a most enjoyable listen.

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Great performance and inspiring playing.
Loved everything about that.

Well done

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That was some really great playing Michael.

I think you did go a little overboard on turning your vocals down. I was listening on my laptop an I could hardly hear your voice.

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Hi Michael, lovely cover of a NY song. I agree that your vocal could be more prominent in the mix and from what I heard your voice is great.

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Thanks David! I used QuickTime to record the video on a Mac desktop which apparently recorded the vocals hard left and hard right. But maybe I can use my video editor - HitFilm - to adjust the balance. I’m looking for a better way to record video using a mic but haven’t found one yet. I understand it’s a rabbit hole but I’m ready to take a peek:)

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Thanks!

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Thx, I will definitely fix the mix next time!

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Hi Micheal: Your guitar playing is wonderful! You did a great job. Like others have mentioned, unfortunately on my lap top I could barely hear your voice.

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Wow oh wow, that was great. If I closed my eyes I would swear it was NY himself playing that guitar. You did a great job getting the overall feel, the strumming vibe, picking out the individual notes and palm muting.

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Thanks!!! It’s great to hear your feedback.

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I enjoyed that! Thank you. What I could hear of your voice sounded great with your playing. I understand being a little voice shy. I am too!!! Your playing seemed relaxed and comfortable.

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Hi Micheal,
played great, I almost didn’t hear the vocals either…but your guitar is rock solid :sunglasses: :clap: :bouquet:
Greetings,Rogier

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GREAT playing. Great singing too, it was low but you sounded on key and had a soft voice like Neil.

Reaper is a free DAW. You can opt to pay to remove a splash screen ($60 when I bought it) but it’s fully featured without a purchase. I use a Focusrite 2i2 for input into the DAW. It can take your guitar and vocal simultaneously. There’s a slight learning curve when you start with DAW’s but well worth it and Reaper has a ton of support.

I want to hear more so I hope you work something out!

Unfortunately, comments were turned off in your video.

Thanks for sharing!

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@Endureth

John, unless something has changed when I bought Reaper it was on the basis of a free trial (30 or 60 days) that is fully functional and then either buy the license (I also paid $60) or should uninstall.

For $60 you receive all the minor releases plus one major upgrade. When the next major upgrade is released you’d pay another $60.

Given what DAWs like Pro Tools cost, Reaper is incredible value for money. There is also an extensive range of excellent video tutorials on the Reaper website, which help one to get up the DAW learning curve.

That said there are other options worth considering that are free.

1 Like
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Thanks for the tip! I have the Studio One DAW that came with my Spark practice amp so I’ll give that a go the next time I record a song. My biggest question is how to record video when I’m recording audio to the DAW and then how do I sync up the audio and video. I think I’ll be able to do that with Studio One but it would be interesting to know how you and others do it. I know it’s a rabbit hole but maybe I could just have a little peek down the hole:)

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Michael, if the videos you want to make are single take, live recordings with no desire to do post-processing/mixing, then once you can feed audio into the PC you should be able to use OBS to make the recording. You can configure OBS to select a variety of audio sources and record the video with either a webcam or even connect your phone if it has a video camera to feed OBS. That approach keeps it simple and no sync issues. And OBS is free.

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Hi Michael,
As a fellow Neil Young tragic I loved it.
You nailed the guitar just couldn’t hear your vocals well.
And as David said you panned voice left and guitar right which was a bit of a distraction.
But overall it was a fantastic cover. :clap::clap::clap:
Cheers
Ron