Rumor Has It That You've Lost This Fight (reviews)

[Eric Y.]

I know I go on about stereo separation a lot, and, listening to my own track this week, maybe I've taken it too far...

I think you're being too hard on yourself. Yours was definitely one of the better songs from this perspective.

It sure is tough getting used to non-weighted electronic keyboard keys...

I am not sure what you mean by this comment...
All inflections and accents were placed just where I wanted them. The opening piano line was constructed to create a 4 part canon where the accents would cycle around in various places against the straight ahead 4/4 drum beat.

...This comment was just plain useless.

Sorry for jumping to conclusions, and sorry if that seemed cryptic. I liked the piano part, thought it was well-written and sounded nice. I didn't have any particular problem with where you placed accents; rather, I felt like the whole thing was a bit over-accented. That is, (to my ears at least), all the notes seemed overly sharp (the attack, not the pitch) and I thought it sort of resembled slamming the keys down on a velocity-sensitive keyboard. Based on this, and the (apparently incorrect) presumption that it was unintentional, it suggested to me the idea of someone playing non-weighted keys who is accustomed to having to press down much harder. The comment may still be useless to you, but I hope it is at least less confusing now.

[inevitableguy]

I'm really curious, was this inspired in part by "The Invention of Lying"?

No, but I like that interpretation. I may just start saying that's what it's really about, even if it isn't.

You should also do the coverfight, if you haven't signed up yet. Your songs often have elements of strong musicianship or songwriterly craft which your mixes fail to live up to. In this case, you went a little crazy with the effects on your lead vocal. The backing vocals are REM-ish. In fact, I guess the whole song is kind of REM-ish. I wonder if you were trying to evoke the sound of a garage band playing into an old 4-track? If so, mission accomplished. Good lyrics, nice harmonies and interplay there. I'll be voting for this, but you need to work on that mix.

Yes, I'm in the coverfight.

I think that it's less a case of me trying to sound like I'm recording on a four-track, and more of a case that I spent so many years recording on a four-track that I don't realize that it's not supposed to sound like that when I'm done. Thanks for the kind words (And FWIW, I agree 100% with your opinion of the vocal effects - hindsight and all that).

Seems like it ends in a weird place in the story...

I guess I wasn't really trying to tell a story - this is really just me venting my anger for 2 and-a-half minutes. Then again, that's what most of my songs are.

Anyway, I've been pretty swamped this week - I hope to get reviews done tomorrow or Friday...

[JonPorobil]

ARGH I forgot to vote.

Oh well, I was going to vote for BSS anyway, so the outcome would not have changed.

Congratulations, everyone!