The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Caravan Ray wrote:Shut up. I am really quite graceful for a portly gent.

I think he may have been referring to the "I may be hard," part.

Mic distance: I vary this a lot, really. In my song this round, I probably was 50 cm away from the mic for the lead takes... but it really depends on how loud your voice is. Also, being able to cut through the mix is mostly a property of the vocal sound itself, not so much a property of the mic (given a mic that isn't total crap). A really good take won't require EQ or perfect mic placement in order for the vocals to cut through the mix (though both might improve the sound in other ways). I don't use a lot of EQ on my vocal takes at all... usually just a bit of low cut. What I do use, however, is compression... how much of it depends on the style and the takes. In my song for this fight, it wasn't a lot at all.

Mix: Jon, I think I'm going to agree with BLT and Ross here mostly. The main problem to me is that the whole thing doesn't sound cohesive. I usually solve that problem by having a reverb bus that I send most of the tracks through. I use convolution reverb almost exclusively and I have a fair collection of impulse files that sound pretty decent. I'm not aware of any algorithmic reverb plugins that sound nearly as nice (and those that come close usually eat more CPU than my convolution reverb plugin does).

To anyone interested: I'm not super great at mixing, but if you'd like to get an alternative mix for your song (plus comments about what I'm doing to it), send me your raw (consolidated) tracks and I'll see what I can do.

Part 1 of my reviews.

I just queued all the songs up, and my computer picked a weird order, so I'm sticking with that instead of my usual alphabetical, because I'm too lazy to rearrange all these songs myself.

Jan Krüger
I really like the bass tone you landed on here. The acoustic guitar sounds a bit distant, and there's some minor timing issues, but not enough to really bring the song down. Your vocal is great, cutting through and dominating the mix like you described elsewhere in this thread. I also dig your lyrics. You build the sound really well by layering harmonies. This is going to get a vote.

Jim of Seattle
One small problem: I usually write these reviews while listening, but now you're making me read a blog post while listening. Hrm. I guess you get more one-on-one time than the rest of the class.

Okay, done. So here's the deal. I understand that you've put a lot of effort into orchestrating this piece (and your ear for orchestration is pretty much unmatched in Songfight), and it may seem like heresy to suggest this, but why not actually include a reading of the blog post the audio recording? I see multiple benefits to this approach. First of all, it would avoid the annoyingly kludgy methods you've been talking about on this thread of getting people to read the blog post and figure out what it's about. Second of all, reading words on a page and listening to an audio recording aren't analogous because the listening is temporal, but the reading is not. People read at different paces, and you'd then have the benefit of being able to tailor the music to the point in the essay it's meant to accompany. I read kind of fast, so I don't know if I was ahead of where I was "supposed to be," or whether you'd thought it through that far at all. Finally, it would make the song work as a stand-alone piece, meaning that we could listen to it and get the full brunt of the intention here - both music and prose - with a single mp3 file.

Jon Eric
I stressed out about not having more words, but in retrospect I actually like it at this length. Thanks to everyone else for the helpful comments so far!

Longfellow Street
I remember your first entry, which was such a slick and polished affair that some of us joked how unfair it was to have "a real band" in the fight. Of course, you mopped the floor with us. This sounds a little rougher around the edges, but not to its detriment. I wish the guitar were a little bit crisper, but the vocals and lyrics are really strong, and I'll probably get this stuck in my head throughout the coming week. You get a vote.

Paco del Stinko
Oh my, the Tom Waits growl, over a They Might Be Giants groove. I dig it. I think that synth organ might be either a little too loud, or a little too fake - not sure which. I feel like the song is winking at me, like I'm supposed to enjoy it on an "ironic" level, though I'd rather just enjoy it on its own level.

Ross Durand
Nice guitar picking. I hear a couple of small mistakes, but they humanize the recording, rather than ruin it. The pacing of this song is really engaging. I like how it starts from this quiet place, then builds to a crescendo. I like the idea behind the lyrics, but they're a bit too rambly for my taste.

Scott Gesser
You've got two guitars here, one doing that thin little lead line, and the other doing the lower-pitched strumming. The latter is mixed way too loud. It dominates the mix and distracts from all the other elements, including your vocal. I do like the content and scansion of your lyrics. Needs a better ending; the "na na"s are fine, but the sudden resolution to a single chord doesn't do this song justice. I might vote for this; haven't yet made up my mind.

Seismic Toss
Some pretty nice looping. I like rap over a nice jazzy beat like that. Your lyrics are well-delivered, but they're a little facile. There's a lot of alliteration, but not much in the way of rhetoric or wordplay.

Smashy Claw
Is that you, Feldspar? You've got an interesting tone going on with that guitar? Is that an unplugged electric? After that first verse, the other instruments and voices, and you pull of a pretty competent TMGB impression. I must have drifted out from the lyrics and missed something, because now we're talking about Spider-Man.

Steve Durand
A great example of your big-band retro-jazz style. I wish I'd thought of this approach to the lyrics - music as conversation. The piano sounds a little thin in comparison to your brass, but otherwise this is a great recording of a great song. Voteworthy.

Suckweasel
You have a natural talent for finding interesting melodic cadences, and this is no exception. I like how the lines blend into each other. Was it difficult to manage your breath when recording this? I think there might be a little too much overdrive on your guitar here (in fact, I'd love to hear an acoustic version of this), so much so that it overwhelms your voice sometimes. I know you're sometimes down on your own vocal performance, so I wonder if this was an instance of trying to hide perceived faults by drowning them in the other instruments? I wish you wouldn't do that. I really liked this, and I'm voting for it. I'd love to hear Kasper tackle this at the next SFL.

Tuners' Union
Vaguely Flaming Lips. Again with the buried vocals. I like the melody and the harmony, but some of your lyrics are inaudible behind the guitars. It's a shame, too, because this is quite pretty.

The first half of this thread was funny as hell, but the second half is just a conversation.

Stubby Phillips wrote:The first half of this thread was funny as hell, but the second half is just a conversation.

Yeah, we stopped talking about your face.

jast wrote:

Stubby Phillips wrote:The first half of this thread was funny as hell, but the second half is just a conversation.

Yeah, we stopped talking about your face.

HA! I'm totally hearing this with your German accent and I'm about to pee myself Jan, you seem to be rocking the casaba in my pants heart today.

Reviews over yonder:

http://jardincandide.blogspot.com/2012/ ... ation.html

I love fights when I can confidently vote for six or more people, high marks for :

Berkeley Social Scene
Billy and The Psychotics
Blue Movies
Caravan Ray
Jan Krueger
Longfellow Street
Ross Durand
Scott Gesser
Steve Durand

Your band name in bold if I voted for you

Andy Sucks vs Darrell and Company
I've vowed to be kinder on my reviews than I used to be, but this kind of thing really pisses me off, so I'm breaking my resolve. "Look at -->> US <<-- everyone! We suck -- ON PURPOSE!!! Hahahahahahah!!!! I bet we're the only people who ever thought of sucking on purpose! We are so hilarious!" Seriously, this isn't funny or clever or anything other than you demanding my attention for the amount of time I listen. It makes Song Fight itself look bad. Too much of this is a big reason why I went away for a few years.

Berkeley Social Scene
Band solid as always, and it's not the least interesting song of all time or anything, but it's just slow and heavy and plodding. The lead singer rushes the beat multiple times, as if he also thinks it's too slow. If you're going to tread along this delibrately, it might do well to punch it up harmonically or melodically or something. The ideas-per-minute count is too low.

Billy & the Psychotics
Hearing this tough-stuff rocker chick say "by all means" sounds so passive-aggressive, I love it. The B chord is my favorite thing in this song (and your bass player's favorite part too, sounds like), and your oddly delicate lead vocal is my other favorite part. Nicely recorded. When it gets loud my ear gets bored, but that might be genre bias. Also, I'm not totally clear on the attitude the singer is taking to the lyric. Is she being passive-aggressive, or does she mean it? The lack of clarity in the point-of-view is keeping the song at a distance for me.

Blue Movies
Distorting your vocals doesn't hide the only so-so delivery, and the noisy effect is fighting with the fuzz guitar, so the whole aural experience is verging toward irritating. Listen to the vocal, and then listen to that lead guitar in the right speaker. See how they're sonically saying the same thing? It's too much for me.Then at 2:08 this potentially cool break comes, but it doesn't have the visceral punch it's going for. It think that might be because I'm tired of that fuzz guitar. I'm guessing you're going for a gritty kind of sound, but when the Stones go for that effect it doesn't have that same irritation factor. Hmmm...

Caravan Ray
The tonal quality of your voice is too close to that horn patch you've got going in the left speaker. Same kind of problem with the Blue Movies song. The horn patch is saying the same thing as your voice, sonically. When I can't make out the lyrics, like I can't at all from 1:12 to 1:34, my ear reverts to listening at a purely sonic level, and it's not a pleasant experience there. The drums sound like you're going for a big funky heavy beat. Maybe more drums and less horns would work better to achieve that effect. The Easter Island monoliths singing background vocals are really cool. I think this song could be really good with more attention paid to the total aural experience. If I had the guts to peform an entire a cappella verse (which I don't - kudos) I would at least sing about 50 takes until I got it totally perfect. And that snare at 4:15 is so cool.

Dwald
I'm big into the Residents, so I listen to this with my Residents ears on. I think the problem for me is that the lead vocal is lackluster. You're going for an out-there vibe with the instruments, but then the singer isn't acting the part. Also, everything is kind of flat in the mid-range. This makes the guitar solo which starts at 1:18 not pop out like it needs to. Lastly, you drop me off a cliff by ending the song after the "break". I wanted the singer to come back and take us out, preferably with some new interesting something going on. Like maybe he takes it up an octave, or says different words, or something. Good start, not finished.

The Elephant Choir
Pretty vibe going on that I like. I have no problem with swears, but two "fuckings" in the first verse sound like lazy lyric writing. I like how you come back to "in the morning" at every verse though. Holds the whole lyric together a bit. I wish nthe chorus was more different from the verse. The chords are the same, the tune is similar, and the arrangement doesn't change much.

FauX
I was all excited when this started. Nice Apple commercial sound going there. And the lyrics are decent and well-structured. You change it up for the chorus just enough, and it's recorded nicely enough. Big minus: This is in the wrong key! You've set it up so that you have to sing the whole thing in your low register, which limits your ability to be vocally expressive. The tune spends so much time between the A and C# which is a nasally range for your voice. So I would take it up a fourth maybe even. Also, maybe try playing that tune on a piano all by itself with no chords -- it's not very interesting all by itself, and mostly covers only four pitches. I might have tried experimenting with different melodic ideas to sprinkle some more interest there.

Hillbilly
"Yankee asshole" and "Adjust myself" (eww) immediately put me off, and so then you had an uphill battle bringing me back, which you never did. This is just a song about a guy who sees a hottie in a bar. You're going for some poignancy musically, sounds like, but the lyrics don't take me anywhere, and then we get to "stole my wallet but it's all right" and I'm like "huh"?

Infinity Point Buck
I like the spread of sounds. It's got variety and adds up to a single unit. You never change it though. It's interesting to start with, but that's all you came up with. It's way too short as well, and the vocals are too dry. Sounds like you ran out of time.

Jan Krueger
All well done. The band is smooth and tight and can play, so that's all working. Your vocal is pushing a bit, so you go sharp on those long notes and it gets nasally. The background vocals a nice, and I like how you left them out of the first verse, saving that up. Really everything here works, but the lead vocal needs work. Also, the song falls off a cliff at the end. Why not just fade out? This also sounds like you just ran out of time.

Jon Eric
Structurally, you totally get it. This is a real song, or well, part of one. Seems to be a pattern this fight, like several others here, the song just sort of stops, like you ran out of time. Also, I get tired of the piano riff even at this short length. All this talk about the mic and everything I think is barking up the wrong tree. You've just never been that in tune with your vocals. You simply miss too many pitches. If I were you I'd spend money on auto tuning software before I bought a new mic. The mic you're using doesn't sound all that horrible. If you have effects processing available, artful use of that as well could spruce things up.

Longfellow Street
This is pretty great. Feels a little too lo-fi for my taste, but that's just kind of part of the garage band sound. Mind you, I'd never want to listen to this, but I gotta hand it to you that it's well done. Those long yodels near the end are super cool as well.

Paco del Stinko
There's nothing really outstandingly terrible here. Basically it's a success. Why not throw some variety in there in the middle, bring in a different instrument or change the groove or something? I get kind of bored. I like the vocal style you're doing, and I like the processing on it. I'd have pulled back on the volume a bit, and the background vocals are so unprocessed that they sound out of character in comparison. I like how he's being all self-deprecating. That's an interesting wrinkle, because based purely on the sound of the singer, one would think he's going to be all about how he hates everyone else talking. But it does put you at a little disadvantage because it took a while for me to get that.

Ross Durand
Everything is nice musically. I'm not crazy about the pinched vocals, but it's fine. Songs like this live or die by the poignancy of their lyrics, and these aren't interesting enough. I don't get a clear enough picture of the scene, it's kind of generic. But hey, it's heartfelt and nicely recorded and performed, and how hard is it really to just click on the vote button next to your name?

Scott Gesser
The first time I heard this I thought "God, what does he have against southern hostels?" Anyway, these lyrics are hard to understand. I mean I can't make them out. And so I start responding musically, and don't have enough to hold my interest with that D and C back and forth over & over. All I'm getting is this really front and center guitar like two inches from my eardrums playing the same two chords. I think this song has possibility, but needs a different production. What I can make out of the lyrics sounds pretty interesting.

Seismic Toss
"While we work willingly Willy Wonka is under" -- that's what I hear. Not your fault, but I thought it was funny. This is pretty cool. I like the bizarre jazzy band. That keeps my attention. And the chorus lyrics are pretty good. On the verse you have written a few lines that are hard to spit out, things like "since we still" (0:31). That's tough for anybody to say at speed and in time. I think patter like this works best when the lyricist has given the singer every opportunity to sound awesome by using words that are easy to say. Also, you could add in more syncopation in some of the places where you have plain quarter notes, cool it up a bit.

Smashy Claw
I think someone else said this same thing: The lo-fi part lasts too long. (Especially on Song Fight, where so many songs stay that lo-fi the whole way through!) I think you're only late by maybe ten seconds though. Perhaps bring in just the drums at about 0:43 to clue us in, which wouldn't ruin the big reveal a few seconds later. Of course you're very aware how satisfying that moment is when everyone comes in, and it so totally works. Ultimately though, I wonder how much you gain by that technique. When you go back to quiet at the end, the guitar isn't filtered like at the beginning, so it doesn't come across to me like a symmetrical kind of thing, and then you just have that (admittedly cool) vocal audio trick the the very end. But I totally don't get what that has to do with the lyrics. Say for example this was a song about a guy proposing to a girl, and she says yes, and that's where the big sound pops in. The gimmick would help amplify the words. But in this song, it gets all big and exciting, but it sounds like it's about Spiderman dying. Anyway, that big cool musical statement seems totally at odds with the lyrics. Kind of schizo.

Steve Durand
This arrangement is impressively accurate in its representation of the style, and it's great to hear real brass. The song feels awfully slow and heavy though. And sadly, the lead vocal just pulls everything down. There isn't anything ironic or new twist-ish or anything about this composition, and for me that means it's going to be instead all be about the performance, and since the singing isn't that awesome, the whole experience is kind of a let down. You know what I mean? If you had Ella Fitzgerald or something, you could get away with a straightforward song like this, because the excitement is in hearing her rendition of it, so who cares what she's actually singing. But if you're Randy Newman or somebody like that who isn't a great singer, your song has to be better to make up the deficiency. This doesn't do that.

Suckweasel
I'm not going to complain about anything in this song, because it's fine, but I sort of don't like it. I think the chorus is a funny idea and is good and hook-y. The band is just so down and dirty that it makes me want to ask the bartender for a rag to wipe down my table, you know? Your lead vocals do about as good as they can, but in a few places I can hear youth and wimpiness peeking through. That's not good. Everything else could be taken up a notch. But if you're a bar band, you've got a perennial audience pleaser right here. I don't go in those kinds of bars. Partly because of this kind of music

Tuners Union
That Fmaj7 is so sweet, and the vocals are very nice. I love that you staccato it up at 1:15, and the bridge changes it up yet again. I think others have said that the whole mix needs to be brought way up. It's the quietest song in the fight, and the vocals are way back in the mix. One of my favorites in the fight though. I'm not commenting on lyrics because this song is all about the sonic experience to me. I'm just saying that to tell you how I perceived it, not making a judgement.

Jim-

yes. my character is passive aggressive. she's had to distance herself, and is 1) drawn in 2) somewhat addicted herself to the relationship situation 3) faintly amused at the predictability of it all 4) a bit weary of it.

It's a confusing tangle of emotions, really

jast wrote:

Stubby Phillips wrote:The first half of this thread was funny as hell, but the second half is just a conversation.

Yeah, we stopped talking about your face.

What's wrong with my face?

Billy's Little Trip wrote:

Ross wrote:Help us, Father bingo, you're our only hope.

Fear not princRoss Leia, I did Art.
....Linkletter.

It's of our Song Fight logo guys having a "civilized" conversation. The calm before the storm, if you will.

Ha. Sorry for missing this one. New job blah blah blah blah excuses you don't care whatever I just submitted art for the upcoming battle. Thanks for picking up my slack, Trip.

Wow, more reviews! Awesome! A few comments...

Jim of Seattle wrote:Jan Krueger
All well done. The band is smooth and tight

Well, that already proves that you listened to a different song than I recorded.

Your vocal is pushing a bit, so you go sharp on those long notes and it gets nasally.

I haven't decided yet whether I should be blaming it on my cold or on my still trying to find my way to consistently good technique. Hmm. I think I'll go with blaming the cold. Not that you aren't right, of course.

Also, the song falls off a cliff at the end. Why not just fade out? This also sounds like you just ran out of time.

Well, that's because I did run out of time. I probably would have done it differently if I'd had an extra hour (= 50% more time ). Not a fade out, though, probably. I have only ever used one, and only because it fit with the story.

Jon Eric
Seems to be a pattern this fight, like several others here, the song just sort of stops, like you ran out of time. Also, I get tired of the piano riff even at this short length. All this talk about the mic and everything I think is barking up the wrong tree. You've just never been that in tune with your vocals. You simply miss too many pitches. If I were you I'd spend money on auto tuning software before I bought a new mic.

Heck no. I'd rather have pitchy vocals than vocals full of Autotune's (or Melodyne's or what have you) idea of "corrected" vocals. And I think the ending was perfect the way it was written (except for the other concerns I had in my own review). Unlike my ending, in other words.

Stubby Phillips wrote:What's wrong with my face?

We kind of gave up on trying to find words that did it justice. On the positive side, though: your face is full of surprises.

jast wrote:

Stubby Phillips wrote:What's wrong with my face?

We kind of gave up on trying to find words that did it justice. On the positive side, though: your face is full of surprises.

get a room.

Jim of Seattle wrote:When I can't make out the lyrics, like I can't at all from 1:12 to 1:34

That is the bit that Moses wrote. We've been looking for a project to work on together for a while now.

jast wrote:

Jon Eric
Seems to be a pattern this fight, like several others here, the song just sort of stops, like you ran out of time. Also, I get tired of the piano riff even at this short length. All this talk about the mic and everything I think is barking up the wrong tree. You've just never been that in tune with your vocals. You simply miss too many pitches. If I were you I'd spend money on auto tuning software before I bought a new mic.

Heck no. I'd rather have pitchy vocals than vocals full of Autotune's (or Melodyne's or what have you) idea of "corrected" vocals. And I think the ending was perfect the way it was written (except for the other concerns I had in my own review). Unlike my ending, in other words.

What's ironic is that there is a pitch-correction plugin on the vocals in my entry. I just turned down the sensitivity because I didn't want it to sound like T-Pain.

Experiment for the weekend: I'm going to try to record using the mic technique JB described earlier. This will also give me more time to nail the pitch, too. Jim's got the most sensitive ear for pitch I've ever witnessed, so I believe him, even if I don't hear it myself (yet). It also means that there are things that bug him which don't necessarily bug other people. Double-edged sword.

I'm aware of the divergent opinions on auto-tune/pitch correction. If I'm not rushing to meet a deadline, I prefer to nail the vocal as closely as possible, even if it takes hundreds of takes over multiple recording sessions. I often use pitch correction to speed the process along, but I'm still wary of the artificiality, so I leave the threshold as low as I can get away with.

Also, Jan, I really appreciate the compliment. Thank you!

Generic wrote:I just turned down the sensitivity because I didn't want it to sound like T-Pain.

I use it all the time. I also do tons of takes and audition them and narrow them down until I finally pick the one (or two if I'm double-tracking) that I like best, and only THEN do I open Auto-Tune. A big danger with this approach is that some spontaneity can be lost -- I realize that, but on the other hand, on my 11th take I might suddenly come up with some new way to sing it I like better (immediately disqualifying the first ten takes of course). If yours is like mine, you can see those squiggly lines indicating where the pitch is. Usually I know what I want to fix, but sometimes the line will indicate I'm off but can't hear it. I just leave those off. And anything I think will sound artificial is disqualified. Many times I've picked my winning take, gone to fix that one off note, and I can't make it sound right to me without sounding artificial. Solution? (Sigh) Sing it over. And yeah, this process is insanely time-consuming. Ballpark guess, but if I have, say, one minute of stuff to sing, recording that minute will take 1-2 hours, auditioning takes another hour, auto-tuning half an hour, and adding reverbs EQ and compression another half hour. Sheesh, writing it all down like this it seems like a lot. Maybe this is why I so rarely enter fights. Or am doing more instrumentals.

Generic wrote:Experiment for the weekend...

If you're going to experiment, you might try recording a keyboard/piano (w/ sustain) playing the vocal melody, and then singing along with it (in headphones) when you record. When you deviate, the dissonance will let you know.

For acoustically bad rooms, you can probably make something like this fairly easily: http://www.amazon.com/Harlan-Hogan-Sign ... B00151YP18

Stubby Phillips wrote: If you're going to experiment, you might try recording a keyboard/piano (w/ sustain) playing the vocal melody, and then singing along with it (in headphones) when you record. When you deviate, the dissonance will let you know.

Oh yeah! That's a must. Sing along with a pitch-perfect guide in your headphones! Just make sure you played that melody in the correct octave (meaning the octave your voice actually sings)

Generic wrote:What's ironic is that there is a pitch-correction plugin on the vocals in my entry. I just turned down the sensitivity because I didn't want it to sound like T-Pain.

Shows how great these things are, right? I really tried using a pitch correction plugin once, just out of interest. I even tried the illustrious Melodyne. Well, no dice. They can only fix particular kinds of intonation problems, and somehow I never come across vocals that actually have those problems. For everything else you need to fix the pitch manually. I tried that once, but with the pitch shifting plugins I've got it sounds pretty mangled. I have yet to find a pitch shifter that doesn't sound like crap to me, anyway.

Actually, while we're at it, let me indulge in a bit of ranting. I don't really know anything about Autotune and its interface, but I do know Melodyne, at least pre-DNA. When you feed it an audio track, it analyses the audio and partitions the track into notes. It then treats the note's base pitch separately from intonation details, e.g. vibrato and portamento. You can then change the note without dehumanising the vocals too much. So far, so good. But quarter note shifts? Or even cent shifts? If it's even possible at all (I didn't find a way to do it in the short time I played with Melodyne), it's difficult to tell because you can have a quarter shift as part of a note that Melodyne "detected". So now if you shift the whole note, part of it is still wrong. You can split notes, but the wobblier a note is the less that will preserve natural-sounding intonation. What would actually make it useful is to have the plugin that model the singer's intonation style and generate new realistic intonation details if you straighten out a note. Or an intonation editor that does what Blender calls proportional editing, where you can change a small part of a shape and part of the surroundings automatically follows the change to a lesser degree.

I guess I could consider my little DSP project more strongly to try and make it happen myself. I just need the days to have a few more hours in them.

I've never used Melodyne, but the Antares that I use is pretty old, and it's very easy not to have the problems you're talking about. With Autotune you can adjust pitch microtonally as much as you want, and in fact, you have to manually turn that off if you want to snap to "real" notes.

Most sung notes don't get represented as horizontal lines in AT, because most of the time there are tiny swoops in and out. We don't notice them, but AT does, and faithfully shows them on the screen. So what sounds to me like a simple sung note looks not like a flat line, but maybe a sort of flat line with long legs going down on either side. So if I am correcting that note, I'm adjusting for the flat part, but I drag the whole line including the legs. If I correct the legs too, that sounds really unnatural.

Jim, do you still use that pirated copy of Antares that Mo gave everyone way back in 2004? I used that until last year, when a hard drive crash made me lose the installer for good.

Now I use the pitch corrector that came with Cubase 6. I'm sure with a little fine-tuning I could get it to sound halfway decent without coming across like a robot. That still requires at least a halfway-decent vocal take to begin with, though.