What's it all About, Alphie?

[Caravan Ray]

hehe, lol. im afraid all i can say to that Lord of Oats is WTF?!?!?! that's like well random! xxx

You're new here. The standard response in this situation is "CDO".
("Calm down Oats")

[JonPorobil]

That's why Songfight doesn't get a billion viewers a day. Well said, Lunkhead.

Also, the average person doesn't listen to commercial music and think "this guy doesn't know how to mix" because most commercial music has had all the flaws buffed away until it shines. Songfight is full of songs (and Lord knows I've contributed my share) that have glaring errors which no one would ever be able to get away with in commercial music - off-pitch vocals, mono mix, vocals too loud, vocals too soft, obvious performance errors.

[tbuk00]

This thread hijacking is a bit confusing but welcome nonetheless.

This place may be called "song fight" but you submit a recording of your song, not sheet music and lyrics. People are listening to and evaluating the whole package, including songwriting, performing, recording, mixing, and mastering. If you care about getting better reviews, then work on improving the whole package, starting with whatever is your weakest element. Or if you don't care, then don't tell people how they should write reviews.

As for SF! reviewers being more focused on mixes, I think that's baloney. It might seem that way because they actually know something about mixing, unlike average listeners, and can and do provide feedback about how mixes could be improved. To me that seems like a good thing.

Also I think SF! reviewers are actually much more lenient than people who are used to commercial music. SF! reviewers at least understand that there is going to be a lot of really amateurish music on here. Average listeners don't really hear much amateur music and they're personally not invested in SF! either. They have no reason to listen to someone singing way off pitch, or playing his/her instruments badly, or making a recording that sounds like it was made through two paper cups connected by a string. I have tried many times to get many different people to listen through a whole fight, and I always have to skip through most of the songs at their request.

No one said anything about sheet music and lyrics!! When I was talking about music and lyrics, that includes singing in pitch and properly playing your instrument... So when someone comes on here and all they can do is talk about mixing all I can think is "why are you so intense about this?... it has nothing to do with the music... being a good mixer does not mean you are a good musician." I think a goal for a musician should be that they can go and perform live... and not get boo'ed off the stage because they can't sing in pitch and they cant play their instrument. There is no doubt in my mind that mixing has its place in reviews, but it should come after lyrics and music... way after...

[JonPorobil]

I think a goal for a musician should be that they can go and perform live... and not get boo'ed off the stage because they can't sing in pitch and they cant play their instrument. There is no doubt in my mind that mixing has its place in reviews, but it should come after lyrics and music... way after...

Not everyone agrees with your goal for a musician. If someone disagrees, it will be reflected in their recordings, and in their reviews.

So when you do your reviews, write them the way you feel reviews ought to be written. When you read a review someone wrote of your song, like it or not, it's what you're going to get. That's a person who took three minutes of their time to listen to your music and give you their take on it. If you're not happy with it, you can ask a follow-up, but it doesn't do anyone any good to complain about which aspects of the recording didn't get enough attention in the review.

[JonPorobil]

...I'm almost certain my comment will not be moderated. <3

HAHAHAHAHA

[Spud]

No one said anything about sheet music and lyrics!! When I was talking about music and lyrics, that includes singing in pitch and properly playing your instrument....

A bit arbitrary, don't you think? You seem to have made up your own rules here. There are plenty of good songwriters out there who can neither sing nor play an instrument. It has been said - everyone has their own priorities. Yours are clear. They just may be different than someone else's. That's cool.

[tbuk00]

lol I think we can safely end this argument with an agree to disagree... fun none the less...

[nyjm]

As tbuk00 implies, this is an discussion that goes around in circles. I think it's good to have, every once in a while, because self-reflection (individual or collective) is good and it often leads members of the community to think about what they're doing here, writing- or reviewing-wise and hopefully, therefore, to improve their contributions to the community.

So, I don't really have anything to add to the conversation beyond that meta-critique, I just to apologize for setting it off and then to thank Spud for moving all of this out of the review thread and into its own space. So, thanks!

[furrypedro]

lol I think we can safely end this argument with an agree to disagree... fun none the less...

That's what you think, hehe....

but seriously, my two cents, gotta throw 'em in.

1. Mix comments are fairly helpful because they tend to be less to do with personal taste than musical and lyrical criticism. Personally, if someone didn't like an aspect of my mix, it was probably cos I did a crap job and I could learn from it and improve. If somebody didn't like an aspect of my song it's cos we have different taste and I'm damned if I'm gonna change my song because some nerd on the boards wants me to sound more like [insert band here]. (Having said that, my music is way less mathy than it used to be and I blame reviews here. Technically that makes me a sellout, and a really cheap one at that).

2. The best way to stop people giving you reviews which are heavily mix oriented is......(this has been said already right?)......do a better mix! Once you've nailed the art then your reviews will be more like "Not bad, but I'd rather you wrote like [insert songwriter here]. There's no pleasing [insert songfighter here].

3. I often think to myself when I'm listening to [insert one of my favourite bands here], "this would probably get fewer votes than me on Song Fight!, and I paid money for it" (most of the time), weird.

4. Complaining about reviews is churlish. Reviewing is a pain in the ass, and I appreciate any effort a person makes to take the time, unless it's 8LO, that guy can go fuck himself

5. Once you start a rant it's so hard to stop isn't it? I'm in my element....which thread shall I troll next......

[Lunkhead]

tbuk00, if your goals are to write a good song and perform it live well, that's your prerogative. (I think those are good goals, in my opinion.) The last thing I have to say is that, If that's the experience that you're trying to convey to us in your recordings, you would probably benefit from figuring out how to make your recordings of your performances sound as much like the real thing as possible. If you're going for a live/natural sound, you'll probably be surprised at how little mixing is involved (generally just a touch of EQ/compression/reverb), and how important it is to use a decent mic, a decent preamp, and a decent A/D convert. People here can help you with that stuff, if you want to work on it some day.

[Teplin]

^ Everything Furrypedro said +1000

Also,

I think a goal for a musician should be that they can go and perform live... and not get boo'ed off the stage because they can't sing in pitch and they cant play their instrument.

Fine if that's what your goal is, but don't impose that on the rest of us. I, for one, don't have any intention of performing live (unless it's a one-off thing at a future song fight live). My interest and my focus is recorded music, and my goal is to be the best songwriter/musician/lyricist I can be, but ALSO the best engineer/mixer/masterer I can be. And just who are you to tell me that my goals are wrong? Some of the most helpful reviews I've ever gotten have been filled with mixing advice. You don't want it? Fine... disregard it, but don't impose your narrow ideals on the rest of us. Like the man said, writing reviews is enough of a pain in this ass as it is without people like you coming along and telling us all how it should be done.

[tbuk00]

lol I think we can safely end this argument with an agree to disagree... fun none the less...

That's what you think, hehe....

but seriously, my two cents, gotta throw 'em in.

5. Once you start a rant it's so hard to stop isn't it? I'm in my element....which thread shall I troll next......

haha I like your style... I'll admit a good portion of my argument was just for the sake of keeping the rant going. I've been killing time at work for a while now...

lol Templin is so offended... its adorable...

[jb]

Please stop telling people what they can and cannot say.

The irony there almost killed me. I mean, they had to call the paramedics and everything. It was a crisis.

You know, Oats, even though a person has a right to, it's still out of line to scream about how hairy your nuts are when everybody else wants to talk about the weather. This sort of "cry fascism!" post aggravates me to no fucking end. Don't derail our god damned threads with your bullshit. Please. See? It's a request not an order.

*fart*

On-topic: You need a special set of circumstances for people to overlook your poop-on-a-shoe production and see the beautiful unpolished gem that is the result of your amazing dedication to songcraft. And even if you have that set of circumstances... like a thousand perverse stoned hipsters suffering through buzzy Mountaingoats recordings before he got money to MAKE HIS SONGS SOUND GOOD... even if you HAVE those thousand stoned hipsters more into your obscurity than your melody, if you insist upon recording into the left ear of a pair of walkman headphones you found on the sidewalk after school one day in 1986, onto what's left of the rust on a cassette tape you've recorded over about twenty dozen times during your passage from Raffi to the Minutemen to Genesis to the Cure to Sara MacLaughlin to Yanni and back to Raffi, then MOST PEOPLE ARE GOING TO THINK YOU'RE AN ASSHOLE IF YOU MAKE THEM LISTEN TO IT. A sad asshole.

That shouldn't be too hard to understand, but I acknowledge that it's confusing because here you are on a site that's ostensibly about making songs, not making recordings, so we should all be super-enlightened and shit. Well, we're not. We like shiny poppy recordings just like the receptionist at your office does and the only thing she's ever recorded is a dirty call she got one time on her cell phone that she won't stop making everybody listen to as if it's a joke but which she secretly masturbates to every night while watching Entertainment Tonight on mute.


JB

[Caravan Ray]

The only thing that pisses me off is when the mixheads start evoking the "golden rule" that fade outs are bad (yeah...I'm lookin' at you Glennnny). I'll freaking fade out if I want to freaking fade out, no matter what the freaking fade out Nazis say. Just like Neil Young said "It's better to fade away, than be a stupid, dirty old hippy"...or something like that, I don't remember exactly how it goes.

[Caravan Ray]

the only thing she's ever recorded is a dirty call she got one time on her cell phone that she won't stop making everybody listen to as if it's a joke but which she secretly masturbates to every night while watching Entertainment Tonight on mute.

She's playing it to everyone? That was meant to be a special moment just between us. I feel violated.

[Eric Y.]

if you insist upon recording into the left ear of a pair of walkman headphones you found on the sidewalk after school one day in 1986, onto what's left of the rust on a cassette tape you've recorded over about twenty dozen times (etc etc etc)

I fully agree with your central hypothesis here: if this is your recording scenerio, what you are recording has to be pretty fucking incredible. *Damnit, right here would be the punchline, which would have been a link to 'Mammoth Stylings Of This Tiny Tiny Dog' but it seems to have gone missing/hidden on somesongs. Now my whole post is ruined, damn you internet, damn you straight to hell.





EDIT:
Okay I will post something semi-relevant, then, instead.

I think a goal for a musician should be that they can go and perform live... and not get boo'ed off the stage because they can't sing in pitch and they cant play their instrument. There is no doubt in my mind that mixing has its place in reviews, but it should come after lyrics and music... way after...

Dude, go sign yourself up for a fucking battle of the bands if that is what you are looking for. Do not come to a place that competes via recorded music if you are going to whine about people caring about how recorded music sounds.

[roymond]

Nobody understands me

[JonPorobil]

Nobody understands me

That's just because you're so much smarter than the rest of us.

[tbuk00]

We like shiny poppy recordings just like the receptionist at your office does and the only thing she's ever recorded is a dirty call she got one time on her cell phone that she won't stop making everybody listen to as if it's a joke but which she secretly masturbates to every night while watching Entertainment Tonight on mute.

I almost cried laughing... JB knows whats up and that this is seriously a laughing matter because this thread is all opinion...

Do not come to a place that competes via recorded music if you are going to whine about people caring about how recorded music sounds.

First of all, settle down... second of all, that's not what I was "whining" about...did you read everything? Back with this all started, I was merely saying that you can't judge someone's song solely on their mixing ability and that some reviews seem to only talk about that. Its true, other people apparently agree with me or this argument wouldn't have lasted this long. If that wasn't the case, I would have just gotten a big "fuck you newb" and that would have been the end. Well not really cuz I would have retaliated... but either way, this is all just opinion. I apologize for manipulating the thread and sending it way off subject for my own amusement. This is how this site seems to be divided, between people that put more stake into the mixing and those who put more stake into the music and lyrics. Whatever you want to do is fine, I don't care anymore. Advice on mixing is totally fine, but when you make a review... just try to comment on the actual music as well. I can't imagine someone writing a song and not wanting to know if the actual music portion was good or not. And if you can't agree with that statement, I don't know what to say to you anymore...

[tbuk00]

The only thing that pisses me off is when the mixheads start evoking the "golden rule" that fade outs are bad (yeah...I'm lookin' at you Glennnny). I'll freaking fade out if I want to freaking fade out, no matter what the freaking fade out Nazis say. Just like Neil Young said "It's better to fade away, than be a stupid, dirty old hippy"...or something like that, I don't remember exactly how it goes.

You tell'em Ray! Who said its not good to fade out? Thousands upon thousands of songs that have been recorded with a fade out (not to mention sold way more cd's than anyone on this site)... and you think the person who did the mixing knows less than you do?!?!?!... that is called arrogance... you know, its that thing I have when talking about my opinion

Oh and Spud, does your profile pic change hourly or something? It seems like every time I get on here it is something different... I like it though, it keeps me on my toes...

[Rabid Garfunkel]

I want to learn it all: the composition, the content, the mix, and the production... the more I can do myself, the less I (ideally) would have to pay someone else to do (in the commercial world aspect). D I MFing Y!

And with that in mind, that's what I'm listening to & paying attention to, when I listen to y'all and read the related review threads. Everyone on both sides has something to offer in the furthering of this goal, is a go-to source of some specific knowledge/information...

...even if it's only what not to do. Yes, I've been accused of being obsessive and patological [sic] before.

All that said, I've really got to get the fights back in my life, heh.

[roymond]

Nobody understands me

That's just because you're so much smarter than the rest of us.

Case in point...