Ten Years Gone: The Scratch Tracks

The Two Versions: Demo vs. Final

For the Original Stairway Project, we recorded two complete versions of Stairway to Heaven. The first version was used as a real-time musical laboratory to work out the parts, the tempos, and then to workshop the production decisions & techniques that were be used to craft the final project. For Ten Years Gone, we decided to follow the same recipe.

This version-1 demo of Ten Years Gone is comprised of dozens of tracks and 100’s of takes that were recorded and abandoned as the song arrangement was worked up and crafted, and the parts learned and committed to memory. The main left side-guitar track had close to 90 takes alone, and as many as four different guitars were used while we experimented with pickup configurations, and amp and effect models, to arrive at what you hear now.

As it currently exists, the v-1 demo is about 75-85% accurate in terms of the musical arrangement, and the performances themselves are of comparable quality. The good news is that the final version of the project is going to be even better because of everything we have learned in the process of putting together the first version. Here’s the full version-1 demo (no vocals) for you to hear.

And as always, a direct link to the same file via our own media player in case we lose Soundcloud.

Area’s that need obvious improvement

Although the version-1 demo is fairly complete, it’s still far from perfect – and perfection is what we are striving for with this cover. Below is a list of some of the obvious things that will need to be addressed and perfected for the final version:

1. Improve the main guitar part both for clarity, but also specifically for touch. It’s currently a little ham-fisted and it needs to be played with more gentleness and elegance (both right and left hands).
2. Explore a little more deeply the free time feel of the unaccompanied sections and see how much we can play with time and liberate that part from the grid without losing time.
3. The bass part needs to be dialed in much tighter, and the accents, where the drums, guitar, and bass are playing in step, need to be cleaned up.
4. The solo is missing some of the inflections and idiosyncrasies that really make it a Jimmy Page solo, and a few specific phrases need to be corrected and tightened up in time with the rhythm guitar, drums, and bass parts.
5. The heavy riff  part coming out of the 1st solo is rhythmically incorrect – it needs to be relearned and re-recorded.
6. The dual guitar harmonies need to sit better in the mix and the pan and sing a little more.
7. The timing of the secondary dual harmonies (behind the primary) need to be played better and locked into the track better rhythmically. They are quite messy right now.
8. The drums lag a bit in the last quarter of the song – that needs to be looked at and the accents need to be audited. Auditing drums for pocket play also needs to be done.
9. The fade-out guitar harmonies still need to be better – currently missing the slide guitar, and what’s there is a bit messy and doesn’t sound good in the mix.
10. Overall it needs to be cleaner and less noisy from a production standpoint, and more attention is needed with respect to gain staging.
11. A general instrument by instrument audit needs to be done, and all errors omissions and mistakes in the arrangement need to be identified and worked out for each part and re-recorded.
12. Complete 100% replacement of all scratch tracks needs to happen.

You Can Help Too

If you are reading this before the release of the final version, you too are welcome to weigh-in in the comment section with elements you think need to be addressed before we finish and release the final version. Anything jumping out and calling for attention that we have not included in the list above? Remember – we’re going for accuracy in both the arrangement and in the production compared to the original Ten Years Gone studio recording from Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti. Lend us your ears!

Always Hard To Pull Back The Curtain

As a musician, it’s always difficult to reveal the behind the scenes elements that go into preparing for performances or finished pieces, but sharing has proven to be a very valuable incentive to not only drive the project forward towards higher quality results, but it also serves the project ethos. I myself have benefited so much from other people’s willingness to teach and share, that this is my way of giving back and honouring those that helped me along the way. So warts and all – you get the draft version-1 demo! I hope you enjoy it.

Feature Image Credit: Red light district by Lieven Van Melckebeke, via Flickr, by CC BY-ND 2.0