Bring Some of the Rock (Half a Stone Reviews)

[joshw]

A. A. Ace (6, 6, 7)

I like the music a lot. Kind of a Randy Newman vibe. The one big fault I have with this is the vocal delivery. You're pushing it too hard - you're overenunciating and your rhythm is forced at times. Nice mouse click at 1:20. ;-) Your chorus is excellent. Also some great piano chops, though I wish the quality of the piano sound was a lot better. This needs some more instrumentation, particularly in the solo.

Bell Green (7, 7, 7)

Very pretty. This one reminds me a little of Elliott Smith with a lower voice and slower tempo. Your two vocal tracks frequently don't sync up very well. The "half a stone" lyric is a little awkward - it screams "I had to write a song with this title". Very odd solo, in a good way. Some awkward phrasing ("Mexico .. City"), but as a whole I like this.

Caravan Ray (6, 7, 6)

You need a de-esser very badly. :) The muddy production makes it really hard to understand what your lyrics, and since the music isn't especially interesting, I get bored fairly quickly. The part that starts at 1:30 really needed to be something different - everything before it was fairly repetitive and this just kept it going. The part around 2:00 is interesting - I wish it'd been longer. Not really my thing overall.

Fifteen Years (8, 8, 8)

Intro has me hooked. The vocals draw me in even more. I'm not usually into this kind of thing, but I've been hearing more electronic music that's been opening my mind more, and this is a good example of the genre. Excellent vibe. Is Lonbobby behind this one? Reminds me of you, with the beautiful and haunting musical vibe. The singing is great. Nice layering, and the emotion is perfect. Excellent music fadeout. Very nicely done - possible vote.

Frankie Big Face (7, 8, 8)

I usually think that your voice is about as good as it gets here on SF, but this seems a little rough. It reminds me of you sticking up a couple mics and playing the song. Not that there's anything wrong with that, because this works. The verse is pretty good, but that chorus is excellent. Your chord changes show the usual depth I'd expect from your music. I'm going to break into your house someday and steal your voice. On second thought, no I won't.. it's in better hands with you. :) Possible vote.

Johnny "One-Take" Cashpoint (6, 5, 6)

Love the WWII line. The lyrics as a whole are good, but the rhyme scheme is lacking somehow. The "drowning" part was ungood. The chorus repeats too much.

Kapitano (7, 7, 6)

Interesting sound, though I find myself wondering if I'll be able to listen to this for a whole song. The squirty keyboard part is way too loud. Getting back to the electronic thing I mentioned in Fifteen Years review, this is an example of the genre that I don't like. It needs more of a human quality or something. The Postal Service always adds a pop sensibility, and things like Fifteen Years add a beautiful quality. This is just very.. electronic. Without a balancing factor. It's a personal genre bias, and I'm sure somebody who's into this type of thing would be into this song.

Ken's SDBAS (6, 7, 7)

Something about the mix in the intro kinda hurts my ears. It's harsh somehow that I can't put my finger on. Something in the upper-mids/lower-his. "Hope you get it right first time" seems like an {insert hook here} placeholder. I like the overall pop rock vibe of this, but that line needed to really deliver a solid hook to make this song work well.

The Likely Lads (7, 7, 6)

Severe genre-bias territory here. I'm really not into hard-rock/blues. Your voice is good. I don't really have anything else helpful to say.

Masters of Grip (7, 6, 6)

I don't like the vocal delivery - too low. I keep trying to sing "I Won't Back DDown" over the verses for some reason. This one is falling under genre bias territory as well for the same reason.

Pigpen (6, 7, 7)

Bonus points for what I'm guessing is your own interesting music. Your rapping isn't terrible. It's not great, but it's better than most of the rest here. I like the idea of this song, amusing. It's not something I'd listen to again, though.

Pookah (6, 7, 7)

You've got about 7 seconds of blank space at the start of your song. Negative points for a plugged-in acoustic guitar. This didn't grab me until the electric came in at :40. But then a solo came in and lost me again. That's only because I tend to hate most improv guitar solos. And this song's got plenty of those. You have some nice melodies. Strip out all of the guitar solos and you'd have a good song.

Ron Amorim (5, 7, 7)

The intro had me thinking "generic Jack Johnson funk" but the the verse is a lot better. The chorus sealed the deal. The length is too long, though. There's no real variation.

Ryan Rickenbach (6, 6, 6)

Welcome back. Holy over-enunciation, Batman. Loosen up! :) Nice riff. Very trite lyrics on the chorus. Some awkward phrasing, like "RainBOWS". This has potential, with great guitar work and nice melodies, but the lyrics have gotta go.

Stubby Phillips (7, 7, 6)

The intro has me interested. Hopefully the extreme looseness tightens up soon. By the 1:15 mark I'm getting a little uninterested. I don't really understand the point of the lyrics. I do kinda like the looseness. It feels intentional. The song itself doesn't have any meat to it, though. It's just two chords over and over without a compelling storyline.

It's down to Fifteen Years and Frankie Big Face. Though 15 has a production edge, FBF's song gives me more warm fuzzies, so he gets my vote.

[joshw]

Fifteen Years
the bit rate is bad

What do you mean?

<soapbox>192kbps is good for sound quality, but not so good for dial-up. Sticking to 128kbps also gives a level playing field.</soapbox>

I'd sooner quit SF than submit music at 128kbps. It sounds like absolute ass. It doesn't make that much difference in size, and it makes an infinite difference in fidelity. If you're not happy with song download times, then lose your dial-up. :)

FWIW, I've been using 64-192 VBR using Lame lately. I did a bunch of experiments with size vs. quality and settled on that one.

[j$]

<soapbox>192kbps is good for sound quality, but not so good for dial-up. Sticking to 128kbps also gives a level playing field.</soapbox>

I'd sooner quit SF than submit music at 128kbps. It sounds like absolute ass. It doesn't make that much difference in size, and it makes an infinite difference in fidelity. If you're not happy with song download times, then lose your dial-up. .

*sigh* With an attitude like that, I hope you make anonymous regular financial contributions to the Songfight server.

[From the FAQ - '128kps is prefered.']

[joshw]

<soapbox>192kbps is good for sound quality, but not so good for dial-up. Sticking to 128kbps also gives a level playing field.</soapbox>

I'd sooner quit SF than submit music at 128kbps. It sounds like absolute ass. It doesn't make that much difference in size, and it makes an infinite difference in fidelity. If you're not happy with song download times, then lose your dial-up. .

*sigh* With an attitude like that, I hope you make anonymous regular financial contributions to the Songfight server.

[From the FAQ - '128kps is prefered.']

If the fightmasters are paying extra for more bandwidth, than I will. Otherwise, I doubt the 56 GB of bandwidth that this site used last month is causing any problems, seeing as how that's a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of bandwidth most hosts allocate.

128kbps is preferred, fine. If you want your music to sound like crap, go for it. There are a lot of people here, including myself, working really hard to churn out songs that sound good. I'll be damned if I'm going to let all that work die in vein to the hands of crappy encoding rates to save a few bytes.

[j$]

If the fightmasters are paying extra for more bandwidth, than I will. Otherwise, I doubt the 56 GB of bandwidth that this site used last month is causing any problems, seeing as how that's a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of bandwidth most hosts allocate.

128kbps is preferred, fine. If you want your music to sound like crap, go for it. There are a lot of people here, including myself, working really hard to churn out songs that sound good. I'll be damned if I'm going to let all that work die in vein to the hands of crappy encoding rates to save a few bytes.

See I'm not looking for a fight over this. you have your opinion, that's fine. I don't agree with it, but doesn't mean I'm right. But to dismiss a polite request from the people who run this site with the argument that a good song has everything to do with the level you encode it, well ... I'll leave it at that.

If Octothorpe or JBB start encoding at 192kps I'll shut up about this.

j$

[gduncan]

Hi,

thanks for all The Likely Lads reviews, I appreciate it.

The ones I saved:

1) Ken's Super Duper Band n' Stuff

Best of the bunch. It rocks and I love it. The only critisms are that the solo is a bit weak and the chorus should be bigger. Great song.

2) Ron AmoriM

Best vocal melody of the week. The guitar playing locks into the vocal really well. The singing on the high section doesn't sound quite right. I don't like the groaning section, if you cut that the song wouldn't seem too long. Other than that, good effort.

3) Frankie Big Face

Your singing is great, with good use of falsetto. You manage to build up the chorus nicely considering your just using a guitar and your voice. Loose the wooah bit though.

4) Caravan Ray

Sounds like it was recorded underwater but I think that is part of why I like it. I've got a feeling that if this was really well recorded it would loose some of its uniqueness. The guitar parts fit in well with the loose feel of the song. Nice variations of melody. The outro is a bit irritating though.

The ones I didn't:

Pookah

Good song, I almost saved this one. I think if it had less instrumental guitar sections and more catchy vocals I would have.

A. A. Stone

Not a bad effort but I wasn't keen on the piano sound. The playing is good but there wasn't anything in the song that hooked me and made me want to play it again. Needs a bit of cleaning up, as I can hear a mouse being clicked in the middle of the song.

Bell Green

Double tracked vocals needs to be tighter. Guitar is too repetitive for something this long. Some interesting lyrics though. Variation in the middle does break up it up a bit but it almost sounds like a different song.

Fifteen Years

The timing of the vocal needs tightening up, especially the first line. The songs well done but it felt a bit flat to me, it didn't really build to anything. Good mixing of melody lines in the different vocals.

Johnny Cashpoint

The lyrical content of this is good. I'd like it to be set to a better melody though. The guitar playing needs to be more interesting if that's going to be your only accompaniment. The timing seems to be a bit all over the place.

Kapitano

Interesting synths, you've mananaged to arrange them well. The kick drum needs sorting out though, it sounds too much like a click and is really weak. A good effort but I like my electro with more of a hook and a bit more bite.

The Masters of Grip

The drums seem to be mixed too high. There's nothing really bad with this song but there's also nothing catchy about it so it makes it easy to forget, which is a shame because I think it deserves better.

PiGPEN

If your going to switch from tune to tune you have to make it seemless and pick tunes that fit together, otherwise it is too distracting.

Ryan Rickenbach

Not a bad song but if your going to do just a vocal and guitar there has to be more to keep peoples interest.

Stubby Phillips

Full marks for trying something different and you almost pull it of. To make something like this work though I think the timing needs to be tighter.

Cheers,

Gareth

[Henrietta]

I'm sure that most people here put as much effort into their songs as you do, Josh... even if you do win every week. By recording at 192 instead of 128 you'll add an extra 40-45Megs to the SF archive just this year alone.

And hey, can we contribute money to SF archive maintenance? It must get pricey for the masters.

[joshw]

I'm sure that most people here put as much effort into their songs as you do, Josh. You can't expect special privileges over everybody else... even if you do win every week. ;) By recording at 192 instead of 128 you'll add an extra 40-45Megs to the SF archive just this year alone.

And hey, can we contribute money to SF archive maintenance? It must get pricey for the masters. :?:

That was my point about the effort - it's not just me, most people on here put a ton of work into their songs, and it kills me to hear great songs that are mutilated by low bitrates. Starfinger's "More Than Soup" comes to mind. But as for the disk space, each week is about 100 MB of new songs by my calculations. That's about 5G of space per year. The $100 disk drive I just bought could hold 40 years worth of SongFight songs at that rate. Disk space is basically free these days.

I vastly appreciate beyond words the effort that the Fightmasters put into this site. But as a web host myself, I know the market rate for hosting a site like this, and it's not much. If memory serves, it's being hosted for free anyway. If it is a decent dent in your pockets, Fightmasters, speak up and I'd be happy to either chip in or help find a cheaper option.

Personally, I'd rather be able to submit both .SHNs and .MP3s, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. ;-)

Ok, back to the reviews!

[HeuristicsInc]

does everybody think 128kbps sounds terrible? i don't think it's that bad.
-bill

[Caravan Ray]

does everybody think 128kbps sounds terrible? i don't think it's that bad.
-bill

I'm pretty sure I couldn't tell the difference one way or the other.
Then again - when I listened to my song this week, I thought it was awesone - so obviously I'm hearing things very differently to everyone else. Might be time to clean the wax out.

[frankie big face]

If memory serves, it's being hosted for free anyway.

If, by "free," you mean on the server JBB pays for every month, then yeah, it's free.

[Kapitano]

Josh is exaggerating about 128, but it does entail a noticible loss of quality. I compare it with hearing music on cassette. There is however a principle of diminishing returns with increasing bitrates. 160 sounds a lot better than 128, and 192 somewhat better than 160, but the difference between 192 and 256 is (IME) small.

An encoding at CBR 192 is (obviously) 150% the size of the same song encoded at CBR 128. However, a VBR encoding using the MRTH system at 192 will be on average 125% of the CBR 128 file. Same quality - or near as makes no difference - but smaller file.

I have tested mp3 settings quit extensively, and settled on the ABR varient of VBR, with the bitrate set to a minimum of 32, a maximum of 192, and 'center' of 128.

For 'Half a Stone', this gave me a file size 99.72% of CBR 128, with a sound quality almost as good as CBR 192.

I appreciate that all this is a bit technical for some. But if you get 'CDex' from http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/downloads.php , it's simple enough to set up, and should give you the best of both worlds. Higher quality, at reasonable file sizes that are easily streamable.

[joshw]

Josh is exaggerating about 128, but it does entail a noticible loss of quality. I compare it with hearing music on cassette. There is however a principle of diminishing returns with increasing bitrates. 160 sounds a lot better than 128, and 192 somewhat better than 160, but the difference between 192 and 256 is (IME) small.

An encoding at CBR 192 is (obviously) 150% the size of the same song encoded at CBR 128. However, a VBR encoding using the MRTH system at 192 will be on average 125% of the CBR 128 file. Same quality - or near as makes no difference - but smaller file.

I have tested mp3 settings quit extensively, and settled on the ABR varient of VBR, with the bitrate set to a minimum of 32, a maximum of 192, and 'center' of 128.

Not to prolong this, but an example is worth a thousand words. I made a WAV file of a few seconds of a song in different encoding schemes:

1. Raw WAV file
2. VBR encoding, 64-192, with no weighting (what I usually use)
3. VBR encoding, 64-192, centered at 128 (like you mentioned)
4. Raw WAV file for reference

Here's the file: http://www.joshwoodward.com/etc/bitrates.wav

Listen to the high end deteriorate. The ride cymbal is most evident - it's nice and crisp in the first two, and for the third it completely falls apart. All of the overtones of the vocals and guitars are getting lopped off, which makes them harder to distinguish and understand. The attack of the guitar pick has all but vanished. Some clipping or something was introduced on the "never sees" vocal part. This isn't subtle stuff, and this is using something better than the usual CBR 128.

Agreed about diminishing returns. 160 is quite a bit better than 128, and 192 is still noticably better. On some songs, I can distinguish between 192 and something higher, but the majority I can't.

[Eric Y.]

Not to prolong this...

this discussion is both interesting and relevant to the community.
but not relevant to the review thread...

[j$]

For those of you who wonder how different the 'live' version of Half a Stone (electrified) was to the acoustic 'studio' version, here you go ...

http://www.kongbalong.com/dcm/halfastone.mp3

An audio capture from the DVD footage ...

j$

[Bell Green]

Bell Green (7, 7, 7)

Very pretty. This one reminds me a little of Elliott Smith with a lower voice and slower tempo. Your two vocal tracks frequently don't sync up very well.

Gosh Josh, that is such a huge compliment. I love Elliot Smith's work and as it happens I have been listening to XO a lot lately. I guess it's having an effect.

I kind of feel a bit embarrassed having sent this song in as I had an idea of where to take it, but ran out of time. There are some good ideas in there but they haven't been polished yet. But faced with the dilemma of sending in half a song and yet another half baked idea on my drive, I thought send it in. Now I'm not sure if I'll do that again. Anyway, glad you liked it.

[Leaf]

I was torn between Frankie and Ken in the end... and I went with Ken. I just had too... it was well done, as was Frankie's. Tough call....

[frankie big face]

I was torn between Frankie and Ken in the end... and I went with Ken. I just had too... it was well done, as was Frankie's. Tough call....

it's because of what i said about your avatar, isn't it?

[j$]

Oooh, unexpected results. Congrutlations, Bell Green, on being only the second UK songfighter (to my knowledge) to take the fight.

j$

[Kapitano]

Oooh, unexpected results. Congrutlations, Bell Green, on being only the second UK songfighter (to my knowledge) to take the fight.

Yes, surprising voting pattern. I'm surprised MoG didn't get more. Hopefully we'll be seeing more of Fifteen Years.

Congratulations indeed to Bell Green, who I suspect will appear in collab soon.

The new titles are both intriguing. I feel like new sex, in the dark. All day.

[Leaf]

I was torn between Frankie and Ken in the end... and I went with Ken. I just had too... it was well done, as was Frankie's. Tough call....

it's because of what i said about your avatar, isn't it?

IKNEW you were gonna think that!!

no... they were pretty equal in my mind, so I went with the image of Ken playing live... it was exciting, and that memory put him over the top...

[Andy Balham]

Oooh, unexpected results. Congrutlations, Bell Green, on being only the second UK songfighter (to my knowledge) to take the fight.

j$

And add my hearty congratulations (and a little envy ) to those too Mr. Green. Keep up the good work!