Progress recording an album with the Soloway Prototype as of today

[Jim Soloway]

After working on this for .... forever? this is where I am as of today.

O Canada Arranged and played by Jim Soloway | Whyp

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

There’s a beautiful chime to the tone! It’s neither harsh nor strident - it’s truly round and full. I think the guitar responds beautifully to your touch, Jim.

[Jim Soloway]

There’s a beautiful chime to the tone! It’s neither harsh nor strident - it’s truly round and full. I think the guitar responds beautifully to your touch, Jim.

Thanks. The guitar was the easy part. There was a bond right from the start. On the other hand, after several years of guessing and bluffing with the recording setup, I finally spent most of the last six months learning how to get the recording software to actually do what I need. That was much more challenging and more than a little frustrating. I'm not quite ready to celebrate yet but I finally feel like I'll have this album completed including mixing and mastering in the next couple of weeks.

[Zigracer]

Nice!

[JDB123]

Gorgeous playing and tone, as always. I still spin your "Bare Handed" album regularly at home. Looking forward to hearing what else you've got in store next.

[Jim Soloway]

Gorgeous playing and tone, as always. I still spin your "Bare Handed" album regularly at home. Looking forward to hearing what else you've got in store next.

Thanks. It's always gratifying to hear the people are still listening to Bare Handed. This one is going to be a bit different. It's still just me and the guitar but no more reinterpreting standards. Other than this piece everything else is original and the whole thing is meant to be autobiographical. If all goes well, the mix and mastering should be done by the end of the month.

[jads57]

Wow what a great tone Jim! Would make Lenny Breau Proud for sure! There’s a woody type of openness and chime that’s really beautiful, like a fine Archtop.

[JDB123]

1260416[/URL]]Thanks. It's always gratifying to hear the people are still listening to Bare Handed. This one is going to be a bit different. It's still just me and the guitar but no more reinterpreting standards. Other than this piece everything else is original and the whole thing is meant to be autobiographical. If all goes well, the mix and mastering should be done by the end of the month.

Interesting, sounds like a neat concept. Besides the new Soloway prototype what are you running amp-wise? I hear some light trem on this, and on a couple of your older tunes. Love to hear new, original material. Excited for the finished product!

[Jim Soloway]

Interesting, sounds like a neat concept. Besides the new Soloway prototype what are you running amp-wise? I hear some light trem on this, and on a couple of your older tunes. Love to hear new, original material. Excited for the finished product!

No actual amps on either album. Bare Handed was done with a Pod HD and this one I'm using the Scuffham S-Gear VST amp plugin. The actual model is the Wayfarer which is a swiss army knife of Fender blackface tones and also produces the trem as an amp feature. Having begun play in the early 1960's, trem and reverb have been a pretty constant part of my sound for most of my life. I actually tried wean myself off of it this year but it's a pretty strong magnet for me and I just seem to keep going back to it. Other than S-gear, all of the other effects and eq's are done with free plugins and I'm mastering it on LANDR.

[JDB123]

No actual amps on either album. Bare Handed was done with a Pod HD and this one I'm using the Scuffham S-Gear VST amp plugin. The actual model is the Wayfarer which is a swiss army knife of Fender blackface tones and also produces the trem as an amp feature. Having begun play in the early 1960's, trem and reverb have been a pretty constant part of my sound for most of my life. I actually tried wean myself off of it this year but it's a pretty strong magnet for me and I just seem to keep going back to it. Other than S-gear, all of the other effects and eq's are done with free plugins and I'm mastering it on LANDR.

Very cool, hadn't heard of the Scuffham plugin before. You get some great sounds out of it. Will definitely check it out.

What are you using for your interface and monitors? I'm in a transition period waiting for a custom electric build and am thinking of minimizing my "amp" setup to the essentials/simplest form.

[Jim Soloway]

Very cool, hadn't heard of the Scuffham plugin before. You get some great sounds out of it. Will definitely check it out.

What are you using for your interface and monitors? I'm in a transition period waiting for a custom electric build and am thinking of minimizing my "amp" setup to the essentials/simplest form.

I have a Universal Audio Volt 2 from their newish lower priced lineup. It's a huge upgrade from my old Focusrite interface. My monitors are just a pair of KRK Rokit 4's. They're ok but definitely the weak link in my setup. Here's something I just recorded today as an experiment. It's just something that I was working out as a new intro to an original song that I'm trying to finish up right now. It's using S-Gear's Custom '57 amp model (a generic Tweed amp) on the Scuffham with a trem patch that comes as part of the plug-in suite included with Reaper. It's a much bigger sounding amp that the Wayfarer Blackface model and I think it works really well for the sort of mood that I was after with this.

The cool thing about uses an amp sim plugin like this is that they are independent from the actual recorded track so you can change the amp and the amp setting after the recorded has been done, looking for the just the right match without having to actually change the recorded track. When I was playing this for the recording, I was playing through their desk top app running the blackface model. After I listened to it, I thought it sounded a bit thin, so I switched it over to the tweed and it beefed up considerably.

[LifeOnJazz]

That sounded great, Jim. Indeed it had a nice thick, well balanced tone.

[Jim Soloway]

That sounded great, Jim. Indeed it had a nice thick, well balanced tone.

Thanks. So do you suppose this wretched weather is ever going to go away? I'm looking out at the harbour and I can't even see Halifax from downtown Dartmouth today.

[LifeOnJazz]

That's when you close the blinds and play some blues. Haha.