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#1 ·
I did this for GuitarWar.com while in the studio recording my last album DanziLand. When there's nothing for me to do when they are rendering files, I go to this little pre production room and noodle. I did most of the work there, and brought the tune home to my home studio and added drums and a few other goodies.

I didn't have time to load up the original work files and mix it for high quality, so I took the master file that was made for GW and tried to tweak it a bit. As you may or may not know, GW has a file size limit that forces you to EQ things a bit differently due to the artifacts you pick up when you are using a file size less than 128. We have to mix the master files to accommodate for this, and the end result isn't something you'd want on an album. So I did the best I could remastering this to make it more sonic and pleasant to your ears...but I think I hate it. LOL!! My explanation of the tune (most of it I pulled from GW and added a few things) is below. I hope you enjoy it, if not, that's ok too. :)


Life sure can be great sometimes, can't it? Then again, sometimes we get dealt a bad hand and we can hate life pretty fast. But ya know, sometimes those bad hands make us who and what we are, and of course life is what you make of it. This is happiness to me everyone. You know, the sounds of children at the beach, that good feeling you have inside when everything in your life is where it's supposed to be. Your family and friends alive and healthy, music in your life, maybe a new girlfriend or a new car or house.

I'm a very happy man probably 20 hours 7 days a week. The other 4 I sleep of course. :) I felt like sharing my happiness with you in song. I wanted to do a theme-oriented piece here that spoke for itself. One that wasn’t a super shred “look what I can do” piece. Not much tech goin on here, but definitely one of the best theme pieces I've ever written and that was what I was after. Something that really went somewhere and told a story and showed how I was feeling inside.

I needed a very triumphant and majestic ending here. I tried asking God to send me a choir of Angels, but I couldn't afford them. So I searched for a few keyboard samples to simulate what I was looking for. No dice. :icon_frow So, I decided to simulate the Angels myself and sing 15 "ahs" per side to give that choir effect.

I used old faithful "Goliath" on this one. That huge 25 space flight case of mine full of goodies. I've not fired him up in about 3-4 years to record with it, but I sure am glad I did. The heart of the distortion is a Digitech 2101 limited edition tube pre-amp.

For bass, I used the Bass pod and am quite happy with it. For drums, what a nightmare! LOL! I've not played since my first album came out in 1999, so this was quite an experience to which I still have blisters all over from. Anyway, I used Roland V-Drums on this, without any quantizing. I went for total human feel here.

It's not perfect but it sure is happy and reflects my true personality. I hope you enjoy it, and thanks for stopping by. Just remember, any time you think you have a problem, there's some poor person in this world that has one a million times worse! Man, I'm just “happy to be alive!” :icon_peac
 

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#5 ·
I like this. This is awesome. You sir are a gifted and talented guitarist with great tone too.

A+++++ definitely.
 
#7 ·
this was outstanding danny you are a great talent, and i look forward to hearin more of your stuff.. ima check out your cd's:thumb: :thumb:
 
#10 ·
Danz ... if i can become HALF the guitarist you are man .. i will be damn pleased ... i would also be about 2ft 5 tall ... but who cares right ? LOL .. this is awesome man ... i believe i got the live version of this the other night right ? .. truly a hell of a happy song . can't help but gather up a huyge cheesy grin when those first drums come in hahaha . rock on man . rock on forever you lil git and neva stop :rock: :D
 
#12 ·
this is stunning. Of that there is no question but I wish the levels were a little more balanced towrds the melody. - this may just be my speaker set up but with such classy playing I found myself straining to hear certain bits at the beginning. Not a criticism though - because the playing is outstanding. top marks!!!
 
#16 ·
Thanks everyone!

Thanks for all your kind words and comments everyone, I really appreciate them and am glad most of you enjoyed the tune.

Goport: I would say you are correct and your speakers are fine. Let me explain about that...if Imay? When the tune was mixed for Guitarwar.com, it was mixed for a lower bitrate (trial and error) that was more monophonic. Id mix the tune, then convert to a lower quality mp3 so it would fit the GW bitrate which couldn't exceed 2.0MB. When you convert to a lesser bitrate, you lose the stereo field as well as lose a few frequencies. If you adjust your mix to accommodate the lesser bit rate, you have a different animal altogether.

When I mixed and converted to the lesser quality mp3, the stereo field was really lacking, so I added a slight surround sound effect to widen things a bit for that particular mp3. The down side of that was the master file was processed and saved that way. When I went to remaster that wave file to convert it to the current mp3 you hear, that surround effect was a bit too intense for a higher bitrate, and hid the lead guitar a bit more in the mix due to the stereo field separation. I wouldn't have even used that effect if I were making a high quality mp3.

So the mastered file couldn't be changed unless I fired up an entirely new mix of the song and went through all the processes again. This would have been time consuming, and I really didn't have the time to do it this time unfortunately. Also, you'll notice this particular mp3 is a bit hot in the treble area. This was done due to the highs you lose when you master a wave file to a lesser quality mp3. I tried to take some of the treble out, but then it sounded like I gained mid range congestion, so I just went with it in hopes people would get the general idea and still enjoy the tune. :) Hope this explains things a bit better for ya...thanks for listening and commenting. :)
 
#17 ·
Danny D, you have an amazing talent and skill. IMO, flawless guitar work and superb production all the way. The content of the song is very creative and the feeling is very lively. Again IMO, you are truly an inspiration to this forum. Don't hold back posting, dig in your closets and bring 'em on and for sure you will win some fans around here. :icon_thum :icon_thum :icon_thum
 
#18 ·
Thanks gtar, that's really awesome of you to say. I'll definitely pull a few things out for you to enjoy...but most of them will be kinda shreddy. I don't do the instrumental thing much anymore due to the record label pushing me to do behind the scenes things for them and of course, work on my songwriting. But I'm quite inspired by the talented people on this forum and may create a few things for here only in the future. This is a great place and I'm honored to have been given the chance to hang out with you all. Thanks again, you guys made my night with all these awesome compliments. I'll see what else I got hanging around that you may enjoy. :) And if you have any questions on anything, please feel free to post them so I can answer them and everyone can possibly learn a bit from each other. I'm good at building and wiring rigs, making them noiseless, big racks, recording and production, the music industry, contracts, publishing, copyrighting, licensing etc...so please don't hesitate to ask me anything if you guys ever need any assistance. It's one of the reasons why I'm here, so ask away. :)
 
#19 ·
Hey thanks for the explanation Dan. As I said it wasn't intended to be a criticism, I was just surprised how you had mixed it. Now I know why :thumb:

And the track is a keeper mate.

I have to congratulate you on your attitude too. It makes a refreshing change to see someone on the way up putting so much time in to help others. Good luck and keep us posted on any new releases. I don't like shred too much but from what I have heard I wouldn't begrudge shelling out a few pounds/dollars on a cd, especially given the quality of your playing. Respect :thumb:
 
#20 ·
just noticed that Phil's avatar resets with the beat so it looks like he's dancing directly towards this lol halarious ( just happened on when I played it)... ANYWAYS

Awesome guitar playing man, you had that whole balance of speed and good solid notes that mad eit sound awesome, wish I had three thumbs! :D
 
#22 ·
Goport said:
Hey thanks for the explanation Dan. As I said it wasn't intended to be a criticism, I was just surprised how you had mixed it. Now I know why :thumb:

And the track is a keeper mate.

I have to congratulate you on your attitude too. It makes a refreshing change to see someone on the way up putting so much time in to help others. Good luck and keep us posted on any new releases. I don't like shred too much but from what I have heard I wouldn't begrudge shelling out a few pounds/dollars on a cd, especially given the quality of your playing. Respect :thumb:
Not a problem Goport, and I meant to tell ya before that I didn't take anything as criticism. :) It's good to get feedback like yours though, and here's why. When we are true artists composing, we often get too close to our material. It's nice to take a step back and have people say things that are helpful in a professional way. Though I consider myself a professional musician, as you know that doesn't mean I'm anywhere close to perfect nor do I know it all. I'm here to learn and grow with the rest of you an share whatever I can to help people based on my real life experiences.

Thanks on the attitude props, I appreciate that. Some people take me the wrong way at times. And often things get lost in text on all ends of the spectrum. I never want to come off as an ego type of guy, or someone that thinks he's higher or mightier than anyone else. I try to keep my composure at all times, but sometimes I get my feathers ruffled. It's a part of being human, but most of it stems from all of us being egotistical guitar players....or so the rumor says! LOL!!

On the shred thing, I don't know if I'd even call it shred to be honest. If you enjoyed what you heard in my little instrumental here, I think you'd enjoy my full blown songs. I play fast melodically, but I play for the song first and foremost...or at least try to. :D

Here's a tune that I did as a demo a few years back man. I wound up making changes to it and re-recorded it to fit the rest of my new album, but this was the rough idea. This is the type of stuff on my albums. Sometimes heavier, sometimes lighter, but always hooky, poppy and melodic. Check this out when you get time, you just might enjoy it. I recorded this entire tune on my own, and this actual version saw quite a lot of airplay in Europe and Japan. I had a few problems with my last record deal, so we released this to keep the natives quiet. I personally like the new version better, as it's more raw, less produced and processed, and sounds a bit more like the quality of today's times. Enjoy, and thanks again. http://www.dannydanzi.com/downloads/Eternity.mp3
 
#25 ·
Mr Crumb said:
Man! That's some scary playing and composition there, Danny. Killer tone, too. What are you playing through? How did you mic it?
Thanks Crumb, this is Goliath. http://www.dannydanzi.com/gallery/gallery4-3.jpg

The distortion is (The gold piece that jumps out at you) a Digitech 2101 limited edition tube pre amp. I didn't use any mics for it. It has speaker simulation driven from 2 XLR outputs. I run them into a 32x8 Mackie mixer, then into my Layla soundcard. There is a 4:1 compression on my distortion to keep things tight, and all the effects used came from inside Goliath. He's quite mighty as you can see. Don't mind the gay pink chords, at the time of that pic I was bypassing a few things in the rack, so it looks a bit ugly there. LOL!!

But that Digitech unit is fantastic. It's very hard to program which is why it didn't do too well. But once you get the hang of it, it is the most powerful pre-amp/effects processor I ever used...and I have several. Not too bad for speaker sim eh? There is a trick to that though.

The problem with most speaker sim stuff, is it lacks a room sound. It's too direct sounding. The way around this is to create a room within a room. Meaning, a small verb that simulates the ambiance of a mic'd guitar cab. You know how you can kind of hear the air pushing? This is what a VERY small room verb with little decay can do for you. Once you have achieved the room sound, you pretty much have the mic simulation to where it sounds real. From there, you can use another verb to further enhance your signal. Maybe a larger hall or something to that effect. But when recording, I use at least 2 verbs at all times. One to simulate a mic's cab pushing air, the other, the real reverb. Hope this helps a bit. :)
 
#26 ·
Well Danny, there's no denying that you have serious chops and talent...as a player, composer, producer, etc. Very impressive!!!!:bowdown: But what's more impressive to me is your down to earth attitude. I've read several of your posts, (and there have been quite a few in your short time as a member here), and you have been very generous in sharing your knowledge of guitar playing and the ins and outs of the music industry that you have learned over the years. You are ,as they say, "giving back". The young up and coming players on this site are very fortunate to be able to benefit from your input here.You obviously know how talented you are and, you seem to have no ego whatsoever. You are indeed an ideal role model!!! I applaud you!!:thumb:


I will be looking forward to any more songs that you can post although, I'm sure that as a recording artist you will be very limited as to what your label will allow you to share with us. Anyway, I just thought your deeds should be acknowledged.:cool:
 
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