Reviewed in random order, listed alphabetically. From the old guy who sounds like Jerry Garcia even when he's trying not to
First listen impressions, but I don't seem to change my mind very often after re-listening.
Having commented on the audacity spectrum analysis stuff in the prefight thread, I ran SAs on a lot of the songs this week and did a little EQ on some of them based on what I saw. For anybody who wants to mess with this stuff, select "log" display rather than "linear" - with "linear" most of what you're looking at is just the 5k+ sparkle, with "log" you can see what's going on in the more audible portion...
Berkeley Social Scene
Would like to hear that one-note synth thing widen out into some harmonies here and there. Liking the dynamic effect when it drops out here and there, liking that the fuzzy rhythm guitar drops out when that guitar plays lead. Second lead guitar, 2:30-ish or so, maybe bring it a bit more center when it takes focus and plays lead. Going back, I think I would just use that synth as a lead instrument, don't try to use it when what you really want is a pad kind of fill. I liked this one better than (whatever the last one of yours I reviewed was), liking the Zappa influences I'm hearing. Gave this a second listen to try to figure out if there's a specific story I'm supposed to be relating to... I'm having a hard time connecting it to the OBL story (I think it's the "I'd have thrown you a party" line making it hard to make that connection, but I have no evidence that's where you're trying to go... yeah, I'm thinking that it's the conflict between having "seen it on the TV" and the "thrown you a party" lines that is confusing me about this. Maybe the "party" line is more, umm, cynical? - than I'm taking it). Keeper and vote.
Community Payback
Ugh, not liking this from note 1, but I am an old guy... given that so much of what is going on is rhythm instruments, you need to have a stronger beat, have things happening on the beats or precisely off the beat. Thanks, but not my thing.
Darin(g Front)
I like the strong beat here (there were some tracks this week where the beat was all over the place). Some of that organ-y sound around 1:00 is putting out some harmonics that are...
weird... I think I just don't like that particular patch. I like what's being played, though, some cool chords there; has anybody else mentioned Steely Dan? I EQ'd down the stuff over 5k and that seemed to make the organ more listenable for me, so I think it was just some weird harmonics in the patch. It seemed to me like the metaphor of the song kept changing, and when we ended up at the end of the song talking about cards and "I'm gonna put it all down on one last bet" it kinda felt like you were bailing out on us in the middle of the story... if it
had been card playing all the way through, it might have felt more like "leaving us in suspense." Nicely recorded, keeper and vote.
Dirge
Like the two guitars out to the sides, they work well against each other. Nice lead riff at the start. The vocal seems very unethusiastic for this style of music, are you singing deliberately low so that you can go up an octave later on in the song? Lead guitar work is good. Overall volume is lower than most this week; I tried compressing the whole mix but was getting a lot of pumping sound, so I think it needs the individual instruments compressed in the mixing to get the whole level up - those guitars, since they're nicely separated, could be a lot louder and leave a nice little pocket in the middle for the vocal. Okay, given that you're NOT going to go up an octave with the vocals, this needs to be in a key about a 5th higher so that you're singing in a stronger part of your vocal range, and then sing with a lot more oomph.
DJ Ranger Den
Couple times when the melody goes up the voice doesn't go up quite as far. Ever consider using a pick rather than thumbstrumming on the guitar? I'm feeling like there's a story here but I'm not quite putting it together. Since the song is under three minutes as is, you might think about putting in some pauses here and there after strategically important verses, places where you want the listener to put things together mentally before going on. Not "let the guitar ring" pauses, just a bar of guitar here and there, keeping the rhythm going.
EggNogAdam
Interesting stuff going on with that guitar, but the bass seems like it needs to be more on the beat; since there aren't any drums, the bass is the default rhythm instrument, and it's not doing its job here for me. This really wants some jazz drum stuff going on. At 2:42... the bass is playing a minor scale, so when the acoustic guitar comes in on a major chord, that felt weird. And where did the electric guitar go to? It would be interesting to ADD the acoustic guitar, not just use it as a replacement... no, the guitar going out of tune isn't funny, and you shouldn't have kept it. And ya know what they say, "if you have to explain what your song is about, the song didn't do its job..."
Hey it's Romer
Can you make that synth melody thing quieter during the spoken bits? Are there two different people rapping here or are you patching together takes that don't sound quite like each other?
Integration Test
How 'bout spreading out the instruments across the stereo field? Even if there's only one guitar, put it to one a bit, put the bass to the other side and put the backing vocal kind of stuff over there. I can hear some vocal stuff happening out to the sides, but that rhythm guitar is so dominating in the middle. Would like to hear more dynamic variation throughout he song, back that guitar off or drop it out altogether for some parts of the song.
James Owens
Yeah, Johnny Cash lives! "A Boy Named Sue" Hmm, something going on here, with the rhythm guitar, I think... is there an echo on it that's not adjusted to the beat of the song? Or maybe it's the tremolo... something here is working against the rhythm of the song. Ending seems a little anticlimactic; repeat that last "Who said I'm gone?" a couple times and on the last one go UP to the 1 note rather than down to it (even though you're trying to do Johnny Cash). Nice take on the Osama bin Laden story without being obvious about it, I didn't make the connection 'til second listen, at which point the cleverness of the lines came out. Audacity suggested there was some lo-mid buildup around 400-600 hz, and EQing a little of that out seemed to me like it helped. Keeper and vote.
Jelizaboaz
I can hear the hiss come in when you unmute that lead guitar channel, and throughout the song. Not sure the lead guitar is contributing much to the song, maybe a second rhythm guitar capo'd up a fifth and spread stereo-wise would have been a better use of the track... with no drums or bass, that lead guitar may be too intrusive for its own good.
King Arthur
I think the un-sync'd echo on the organ was a tactical error; I should've worked out the delay for a quarter note at the tempo or not used the delay at all... I get the comment about the whole track sounding sort of uninspired and the drums not doing the interesting rhythms that the bass is doing - FYI, the way I record is to work up the drum part in Band In a Box and then record everything to that; I know that I need to listen to the BIAB drums and really hear what they're doing (and in cases like this, pick a more interesting style).
Lake City
First off, thank you for all the reviews, this week and weeks gone by... you're plugging those guitars directly into your soundcard, aren't you? If you can afford it, a Line 6 Pod or something like that will make an audible difference, even something used / lower end... something to buffer the guitar signal. Strumming guitar (and lead guitar) are kind of jerky rhythmically; I think this song could have used a drum machine, mixed low so as not to draw attention to itself, but something to give more of a beat to the song; congas don't do enough. Vocals are really nice, good singer. Lead guitar playing probably doesn't justify a solo as long as the one in here. Backing vocals are good.
I'm doing audacity spectrum analyses on all the songs this week, just to see if it helps... based on what I saw on yours, I applied some eq to boost from 1k-5k and then cut from 10k up... seemed like it made the guitars sound better, so maybe you can do something with that...
Longfellow Street
This is really, really good. Well written, performed, recorded. The girl singer is very good and the guy's voice is perfect for this character. Keeper and vote.
Nurvuss
Interesting organ chords at the start, though they don't set us up for the "song" that follows; for me, the "song" part is kind of disappointing after that intro. The rhyming is clever, all the name checks; I wonder whether "rapping" it would work better than trying to semi-sing it. This is, of course, the old guy speaking. On the "I said I'm dead" lines around 3:00 and after that, the voice falls behind the beat, not happying me. Wish the track on the song part had more variation to it, some instruments coming and going. Well produced and the voice I can listen to, but the song as a whole doesn't quite make "keeper" for me. On the phone call bit at the start, that "cartoon" voice is interesting, I would have liked to see that come back once or twice in the song, use it to lead into the verses or something... "yeah, but look right here, it sez you're dead" to lead into the "facebook" reference.
The Panna Cotta Army
I like the way this one jumps right into its style and rhythm from the first note. Some places where it sits on the same chord for three measures or so where it feels like me it should move around. The chorus-y bit never seems like it resolves back to the 1 chord, and for this style, it feels like it needs to. This is very cleverly crafted, although if it was mine I think I'd be feeling like it doesn't quite lead into "who says I'm dead?" Hmm, maybe it's just that word "So" - if the singer just said "who says I'm dead?" it would connect better for me than "so who said I'm dead?" Yeah, I just keep feeling like that "so" in there doesn't belong. Nonetheless, fun song, keeper and vote.
Sanity
The drum machine makes itself a little too obvious here; the guitars are drenched in reverb and the drums are pretty dry... which makes it sound like somebody playing guitar over a drum machine. No bass? Needs bass. The whole thing doesn't hold together rhythmically for me, especially the vocals. Speaking of the vocals, the octave-up voice doesn't help, it seems like it's consistently a bit flat of the main voice. I'd like to hear more expression in the main vocal and lose the octave-up. It felt to me like the same four chords over and over; the little changeup on the outro about 2:50 helped, you might think about sprinkling something like that throughout the song or changing up the chords here and there... back to the vocals, this just doesn't sound like the sort of singer that this guitar player would be working with, if that makes sense...
Secret Submarine
Suggestion, add just a little bit of silence at the start of the song so that it doesn't start playing while we're still releasing the mouse click on "play." Backing vocals are nicely done, and the organ-y sound that comes in on the chorus provides nice dynamics, tho' I'd probably like it better if it was centered with more reverb. The two-chord pattern gets a little boring, the instrumental break at 1:50 is nice, but by then I'm starting to weary. The spoken "who said it?" backing vocal thing feels out of rhythm every time it comes in... maybe if the "said" came right on the downbeat... hmm, looking at the audacity spectrum analysis, I'd expect this one to sound tinny (lots of stuff above 5k), but to my ears, it's kind of muddy, so it must be the drums contributing all that HF stuff...
That Guy
Doubling (tripling?) the vocal here isn't helping, I'd rather hear a single lead voice, even if it's a little quirky. When the accordion (?) comes in, the feel of the song changes from 6/4 to 3/4, and based on what I hear later in the song, I think it was supposed to be a 3/4 feel from the start... you might think about what you could do as an introduction to the song that would establish your 3/4 beat from the start, maybe just a guitar strum or something. The cat howling that starts about 2:40 isn't helping either. I dunno, it feels to me like this might have been more effective as just one guitar and one voice.
Tibor
Like the guitar intro, although it feels a little rough rhythmically. Like "I'm not done yet..." The "running on..." part is a bit weird lyrically, I kept hearing you say "Ronnie Howard," which made me think this was about child actors who manage to make something of themselves in the movie biz, who don't just fade away. Overall, I liked this, this is something I'd listen to again, so, keeper and vote...
TOSHIRO
Okay, like the guitar stuff on the intro with the timed echo. Hearing a lot of Who here (I watched a documentary about them yesterday). "We get along so fine" line seems like its repeated more than it needs to be. Cool chord changes on the verse part, wish those changes had come around more than once. Suggestion, at the very end, fade the guitar out, don't chop it off like it is... even just a short fade would be fine. The part that starts at :20, I'd like to hear that done over the echoy guitar stuff in the intro rather than by itself. Not sure what this song has to do with "Who Said I'm Dead?" other than the first line of the song.
"...one does not write in dactylic hexameter purely by accident..." - poetic designs
