This is my first contribution to the Xtra Styles competition (content copied from the original post but I have also added the lyrics here).

Hardly Ever

I created this song using _CACTUS.STY (Cactus Songwriter Country Waltz) from the Xtra Styles pack.
I was looking for inspiration for this competition and didn't have to audition many of the new styles before my writers block became unblocked smile

Added my vocals and my guitar afterwards.

****** Song Summary *************
Title: Hardly Ever
Key=Em , Tempo 140
Style is _CACTUS.STY (Cactus Songwriter Country Waltz)

RealTracks in style: ~1123:Bass, Acoustic, CountryWaltz Sw 140
RealTracks in style: ~825:Guitar, Acoustic, Strumming Country Waltz Sw 140
RealTracks in style: ~2055:Guitar, Acoustic, Fingerpicking CountryWaltzBrent Sw 140
RealTracks in style: 1298:Pedal Steel, Rhythm CountryWaltz Sw 140
RealDrums in style: CountryWaltz^2-a,b:Brushes, Swirl
*************************************

Lyrics:

Well I never miss you
Or the things that you do
No I never miss you
Hardly ever

The laughter, the tears
The golden years
Don’t think of them much
Hardly ever

There’s never a day
I don’t think of the way
That you made me feel deep inside
The spark that we had
I could never feel sad
About what we had, hardly ever

It was only by chance
That we found romance
Don’t get lucky much
Hardly ever

Now I wish you were here
It’s you I revere
I had nothing to fear
Hardly ever

The roll of the dice
Took you from my life
With you by my side we were strong
There’s no second chance
But the love that’s inside
Will survive forever and ever


Enjoy!
Receder

Rec,

A great "sound" to this!

Cool BAND. The tone of your guitar matches nicely.

I especially like the vocal(s). How did you created the effect? It sort of sounds like there is a "perfect" harmony covering the entire vocal - like it was created (as opposed to sung). It is a beautiful effect - however it was done...

A terrific listen.

floyd

Wonderful!! I hear some Floyd (Pink, not Jane), some Sting, some old Fleetwood Mac (Bob Welch era), and a whole bunch of stuff I really like. Guitar is fantastic! Great job with EVERYTHING!! Take care. Greg

Awesome tune. Excellent vocal. I here pink floyd in the song as well. Guitar was awesome as well. Very cool tone.

Thanks a lot for this Floyd. I had the chord progression in my head for ages but when I paired it with this new Xtra style the melody just came to me. I still find BIAB "THE" creative songwriting tool of choice.

The guitar tone was my Variax JTV (using the normal pickups) DI'd and using S-Gear factory preset Heaven.

I spent quite a long time over the past few months working on creating a harmony vocal sound although it is quite labor intensive especially for complex chord progressions. I use a combination of my uncorrected vocal tracks alongside pitch corrected tracks, sung harmonies, generated harmonies (especially the very high or low parts which I can't reach) and stereo placement of each part is important. I also sometimes use doubling either using an effect or by cloning and delaying/panning tracks. I am still experimenting with the technique and bringing in other "harmonizing elements" but the key thing I find is getting the relative levels between all the vocal parts right.




Much appreciated Greg. The guitar was literally jammed in one take and I decided to leave in a couple of slight glitches as I didn't want to mess with the overall vibe.



Many thanks Scott. I find the tones in S-Gear (by Scuffham) to be much better sounding than most other amp sim plugins although Revalver comes a close second.

Rec