Traveler—September 2024: The Man Who Sold The World, Nirvana

Hello Community!

I hope that you are all doing well. I have been back to work full time for a few weeks, so I haven’t had as much guitar time as I would hope for. Such is life….

I have had a few gigs here and there to keep the axe sharp, but I haven’t been working on much new material for a couple weeks.

I did however acquire a new guitar that I think is going to compliment my sound perfectly. It’s a custom made USA Telecaster. It has many upgrades, including new electronics, upgraded Seymour and Duncan humbucker pickup by the bridge, Klusen Tuners, upgraded saddle, with a wide neck, which I’m looking forward to because I have giant hands. It plays like butter :sunglasses:

This is my first recording on the tele, so happy new guitar day folks! Credit for this tune to David Bowie, but it’s the Nirvana version that hits for me! As always, any feedback is greatly appreciated.

YouTube Version—The Man Who Sold The World, In the Nirvana Vein

SoundCloud Version—The Man Who Sold The World, Nirvana Style

6 Likes

Hello Travis, I liked the guitar part and your vocal take. You have a great growl in your voice. I feel like I want to remix your recording if that was possible: I’d keep the vocal sitting on top but not so much. Being the guitar up and separate it from the vocal.

1 Like

Thanks for the feedback @Willsie !! I’m definitely not very good at mixing or mastering yet, so I don’t know exactly how to do that.

I’m likely booking some professional studio time in the near future and they said that I could watch them mix and master after I record. Ha

1 Like

Hey, Travis, I agree with gor^ on the YT mix. Man, you have a powerful set of pipes.
I like your take on this one and to my ears the SC post has a better sound and very enjoyable listen.
Great looking/sounding guitar. Congrats.

1 Like

Thank you very much @oldhead49 !!

I feel like I’m at the crossroads with a couple of different things and that these comments will help me.

As far as both ends, YT and SC, I’m still doing everything in one cut. I haven’t expanded much into that on the studio end yet. Lately, I have mostly been messing around with different amp simulators. Pretty fun! But as far as the crossroads, I think that there are 2 things I need to do immediately.

  1. I’m better at it, but not yet great at setting my prerecord levels. Maybe it’s as simple as a few listens running through the mill of listening on headphones/speakers/and a social media version. I’m not sure. Ultimately having good balance at the beginning of a recording.

  2. Taking the next steps in editing. I’m getting better, again, but still lack many of the skills between guitar tone, vocal sound, and the mix of them. I use reaper as my DAW like many here, and OBS for the video portion. It’s a learning curve and has nothing to do with singing or playing guitar. It’s a whole different skill.

I really appreciate your feedback again. This is how I interpreted it and how I envision starting to improve upon the principles :+1:

Also, here is Simple man on my new guitar.

Simple Man—Lynyrd Skynyrd

SoundCloud Version

Well done on Simple Man. I especially liked when you threw in some dynamics.
As far as recording, I use -18 to -12 db on all my tracks and then adjust the final mix and try to hit around - 14 LUFS on the rendering, which is what YT recommends. This has worked pretty well for me and keeps everything from clipping and gives enough headroom for adjusting the mix. . There are others here with a lot more knowledge on recording and rendering. Mine is really basic. I’m sure if you reach out, others can give good advice on this topic. Also on the Reaper site are video tutorials that walk you through using Reaper.