Your assignment...should you decide to take it Mr. Phelps...
 

I listened to both..very nice, particularly the solo piece. It has a sweet Spanish flavor. It may be on my end but, to my ear, there seems to be more"brightness" than I would like to hear ( remembering, of course ,that I play a Martin) and a certain lack of bass presence in both but, like I said, that may be on my end.I'm sure it sounds very different live.( the only REAL way to hear...heheehe)..PLAY ON!

Song for Sunday - very melodic and relaxing. That's nap on the couch music. I liked it. The guitars are bright and focused, but I thought the bottom end was full and had plenty of thump. The trebles have some Gibsonish spank and the mids are complex. Very cool sound.

The second track shows that the Bashkin is a good percussive players guitar. I could imagine L.J. slapping that one. Nice work, guitar and players alike. Well done.

Well done, indeed.

I believe that, if I lived in Cheyenne, I'd be knocking at your door for lessons/mentorship.

Yes, I'm going to pop in and be another voice in the chorus of, "Wow, that's good stuff." On my admittedly anemic speakers, Song for Sunday sounded pretty much like the guitar was in the room with me. The bass was a little subtle, but I attribute that a lot more to the speakers than the recording (as most have no bass response on these).

The only complaint I had was that the volume overall might have been a little low and I had trouble hearing your explanation at the beginning of the recording.

As for the solo piece, it was also very nice....did I catch a little vocal outburst from you at about 3:20 on that one? I'll say this, you (and a handful of other people from the AGF) have really impressed upon me how cool fingerstyle guitar can be. Makes me wish I'd taken lessons years ago (before all my lack of discipline and shoddy technique were set so firmly in place).

Thanks
 

Songs themselves are good, I'm going to put in my two cents about the recording. (Please keep in mind that I'm a recording purist and overall recording gear snob). Here's my thoughts. When doing stuff like this, that's really a demonstration of the guitar's capabilities and overall sound, I think it's important to have a very basic signal path, flat eg, and no effects whatsover. I have never worked with Rodes, but they don't seem like bad mics for the money. I'm probably going to be getting a MOTU unit by this year's end based on the reviews I've read which are pretty favorable. I know we just had a discussion about pres, but what tube pre are you using? My suggestion would be to stereo mic one guitar at a time, running the mics into the MOTU's pres, leave the EQ flat, don't add any effects. That'll give you the best representation of the actuall sound of the gutiars.

http://www.harmony-central.com/Featu...ecAcousticGtr/

XY technique is the easiest. I wouldn't worry about mono capatability in this day and age.

Just another thought, if you know anyone that has a pair of SM81s, try to barrow them. I love them and swear by them for small diaphram stuff, as do most people that can't take the next step to a 1600 dollar pair of Neumann SKM184s. (Although, in your case those would probably fit the equation that mics used on a guitar should cost at about half of what the guitar costs. Actually, you would probably need to get some Earthworks if you were to go by that equation).

Interesting. I was going to mention (but then I got distracted), that your speaking voice sounds vaguely familiar....makes me figure you for a pretty solid tenor. Do you do much singing in your regular gigs? Or is it mostly just instrumentals?

The guitars sound great to me. The sustain surprised me - it was so long I thought you were using a pickup. Nice deep bass on that dropped D.

BTW - I love Bob Bennett too!

Thanks for asking...
 

Well, I hope you will take into account a (2 month) newbie review!

It sounded beautiful. I couldn't even pick up that one was drop D tuned, and I can't even imagine in my head how your fingers and ears coordinated all of that music. All I know is that I listened to this track over and over again. The guitars sounded amazing.

The musical talent that is embodied in the folks here at AGF never ceases to amaze.

So in a newbie nutshell: I loved it. Thanks providing a dumb acoustic groupie like me more good music.

Much better recording and playing than I could ever do. I will offer this up (for constructive purposes) ... my impression is that it was it was a bit on the bright side.

That aside... it was great. Going on the ipod. :)

Good guitar music, well played !
These guitars sound very good, also.
Although, it's very subjective to listen to music, here is my assessment.
In the first test recording I was looking for more dynamics to distinguish parts of the song, somewhat like you demostrate in the second test recording when you demostrate the sound of the guitar. It's just something I feel. I think, at times, the mix could be improved to have one or the guitar come to live a little bit more. It's something I would play around with a bit. Also, I wonder if the mic setup you use for the second test would work for each guitar on the first test. I know to record two acoustic guitars isn't easy. I always go back to the Renbourn/Jansch recordings for reference.
The second test recording sounded very good to me, it kept me interested to end. Good playing, I sensed you really enjoyed playing it. It sounded alive.
I think, for people that might be interested in Bashkin guitars it's essential to present a spectrum of sounds, agressive and punchy, soft and sweet etc.
Phelps

experiments and tests in progress...