Izzy's Big Adventure

Showing my age in admitting to this, but Izzy is my grand daughter who turned 16 months old today, as I post this. This was written and recorded over the first 4 months of her life. I was trying to capture the basic consciousness of a young child who’s at once super innocent and vulnerable, yet at the same time open to everything and ready to “go”.
This was recorded on Cubase Pro 9 (I think that’s what it was at that time!?!?). It’s a nylon stringed and a steel stringed acoustic guitar along with a fretless Fender Jazz bass (the “real” analog instruments) along with some digital helpers in the form of Halion and Retrologue synths and percussion. The final section that features the guitar solo is a nylon stringed acoustic through an Electro Harmonix POG that gives it a fairly weird Nylon 12 string guitar effect.
As always, hoping that anyone giving it a listen will like it and be able to tap into that innocence that we once all had a share in.

Hey Swetch,
I wish Izzy hours and hours of pleasure listening to music! ----- and I don’t think anyone cares about your age :slight_smile:
Enjoy time with your grand daughter, that’s it!

Regarding the song itself, I was thinking about adding nature elements, like water, birds, etc…

Also, some steel stringed acoustic guitar notes seems little bit too noisy from time to time to my ears, behind the nylon.
Yes, innocence and curiosity, true it reminds me pictures of my own “share”

Thank you.

You have certainly captured innocence and beginnings.

The roughness (buzzes, noise) of the playing fits the theme of
a young life finding its way, so that didn’t really bother me.
However, I felt the guitars seemed somehow distant or remote in the mix.

Enjoy grandfatherhood. :wink:

Thanks for the listens and the positive comments. Hadn’t even thought of “guitar talk (aka string squeak)”. Just listened again, and it is there in spots. Doesn’t particularly bother me, but I do hear it. Bought a can of “String Ease” for use on future acoustic guitar based compositions (LOL)!
I did go for that mix with the guitars sharing the foreground because I was so fixated on the keyboard and synth elements that color the piece. Didn’t particularly want more of my guitar playing deficiencies to come to the fore either on what was a pretty tough song for me to perform!

Hi Swetch, I seem to have been out of town when this was posted. It has a natural innocent sound that fits the theme. As far as fret noise, I could suggest another way to reduce the impact. You can put the Cubase DeEsser plugin on the guitars and if you tune it right, it will reduce it. I don’t think you want to eliminate it, just reduce it a little, assuming you want to. There are other plugins using a different approach that can get rid of it entirely (Izotope RX6), but maybe wouldn’t make sense here. I liked the composition, and I liked the two guitars together. And congratulations on your grandchild!

That cubase deEsser sounds like a great idea. I will try that in the future. Funny thing is that this thread has made me generally more attuned to hearing guitar talk/string squeak. I’ve now recently noticed it on several commercially released recordings by some very good players dating back into the 70’s. I guess the digital world has made us more conscious of removing or avoiding things like that. Once upon a time even “professional” projects were more willing to go with a “warts and all” or “happy mistakes” approach.

True, but I think the de-esser solution must have been around for a long time. So reality, but a little quieter, so as not to distract.