Sixties Dance Music

Jack, that was just tremendous. or as its sixties style "FAB" is more appropriate  . I really enjoyed that, great musicality and lots of bounce.

I can't tell if Steve approves or if he wants to kick my ass  

Outstanding, Jack. I haven't taken the time to go back and listen to your earlier uploads, but if my memory is functioning correctly you have improved by leaps and bounds over the past few months. We need to know what you are doing, but don't post here. I'm going to start a separate thread to discuss how/what we are practicing.

Very cool, Jack. Man, that's just fun to listen to! You know, if it makes you wanna get up and move, it has to be good!

Bruce

Bruce, thanks so much! The dance song is actually danceable? That makes my day

As far as the video I got one of those light bulbs you recommended and just stuck it in a little lamp in front of me (I also sit right in front of a window and it was sunny that day). It seems to have helped with the color, as for the first time in one of my videos my shirt is actually the same color as it was in real life lol.

I'm using a free "ManyCam" program to record and then Microsoft Movie Maker to combine the video with the audio from Reaper - I only use ManyCam because Movie Maker won't recognize my camera for some reason. I'll probably upgrade the camera and / or the software at some point in the future, or I suppose I could just read the instructions for the software I've already got, it probably does everything I want but I just don't know about it.

On this song I recorded a clean sound into Reaper and then added Pod Farm afterwards, which allowed me to get the rhythm guitar to sound tremendously better than it did originally. I've been fooling around with the cabinets in Pod Farm a lot - they're a great tool for shaping your guitar sound. I'll just try every one and see which catches my fancy.  (I figured out - finally - that you can use any cabinet with any amp, even if the amp has its own speakers).  On this track I've also got the rhythm guitar panned about 12% to one side and the lead 12% to the other side (drums and bass in the center), which seems to help with keeping them both audible yet distinct from one another.  I was reading an article on production and the guy said you should listen to some of your favorite songs and write down where they've got the various instruments panned, and try those out in your own music.  So that's kind of where I got that idea. 

On this track the only effect I used in Reaper was the ReaXcomp compressor on the master track. I just go through the presets and see if any of them make it sound noticeable better. On other songs I've used quite a few effects, and usually ended up making it sound worse. By adding Pod Farm after the recording is done it seems like I don't need to add much else.