Thanks a lot Greg, it's always nice to hear these kinds of things, but when they come from a great player they mean even more.

I'll share a link to a Carvin thread that has A LOT more detail to the process on this song.

http://carvinbbs.com/viewtopic.php?t=45051

But......I'll tell you my goal & thought pattern here. While I know just enough to get good sounding demos & write lots of songs, licks & jams. I really wanted to understand the process for getting as PRO LEVEL a recording as I could. I selected one of my tracks that I felt was special. They're all good in some ways, but not all are special & have that something extra. I re-arranged the track & added a killer chord break down that goes into a new bridge section that I do an actual high energy solo of Epic Awesomeness over.

I then sent the song out with a click track to a Pro Level (Paid) drummer. We went through 2-revisions & it was good to go & this alone made my track 10x better if not more. Then it went with the new live drums to a local session Pro named Takashi iio who's played with everyone & been on the Ellen show. I asked him to do a bass solo over the walk out music that was to be fadded out in my original plan. His solo was SO good that I re-wrote the guitar parts at the end to do a solid ending.

Here's where I made some MAJOR progress!!!!!! While I'm a pretty clean player in the studio......I....um.....went crazy & only accepted perfection on my end of things. I re-recorded EVERY single backing guitar part & every single lead. I made sure that every verse melody & chorus shred section was one long take, even if that meant going 32-bars straight. This took me hours to do since the littlest slide, ping or bend could wreck a normally great take. This again makes this new track 10x better then anything I've EVER done to date.

I paid a friend named Jim Rawlings who owns his own studio to mix, master & produce this track too. The only thing he asked me to change playing wise was the 1st verse. He said that it didn't have the same vibe & feel as the rest of the song. I was kind of married to it, but trusted his ear & wrote a new one that I ended up liking even better. I raised my game playing wise & all this effort has really paid off.

Jim mixed all of this & spent a lot of time working with the drum & guitar parts & where they sit in the mix.

I also decided to have a seperate company (Disk Masters) do a Master as well. Their's is the one I chose & it just came back yesterday.

I've been creating itunes art work & shooting a HD video as well.

This is NOT about making money to me at all. I will NEVER get back the money that I've put into "Turning Point", but I will make enough to pay for the bass & drums on the next one!

This is a total "Bucket List" item for me & what I've learned on this is just PRICELESS to me. I did it, I created a high energy instrumental guitar song that is Pro Level iTunes quality. Having said all of this, I am going to do EVERYTHING in my power to market it & promote it. I have several cool things coming uo like a "Turning Point" give away & forum jam too!

The song was loaded to CD Baby last night and should be ready very soon.......So I'm ahead of schedule I think!

Stay tuned people.......X-Mann is coming back with a whole lot more Orange content.

Peace! X-Mann

PS - I also tracked the input signal on ALL of my lead work & re-amped over & over & over to get the tones right for me.

PSS - This is a MUCH improved version of what I've been trying to do for years now. My boys are very proud of me & that's all I really care about in the end. lol

PMS - I really think that the 11-Rack shines here in a very big way, but I've always been a huge fan of it! I've always been more about the composition, song & vibe........& the playing in the end too!