The Song Fight Bulletin Board

the fruit of our labors:

ex lugduno

handmaids
my favorite kind
everybody now
satellite
what else
les soupirs

a huge thanks to heuristics inc. and j$ for their contributions!

lugdunum, by the way, is the ancient roman name for lyon. it's named after a gaelic goddess of light. you have no idea how long it took me to find the proper declension (and spelling!) :-)

side note: can anyone tell me how to create a little "play all" link/bit of code?

Well, 'production wizardry' may nor not apply to my mixing skills, but I'd be more than happy to take a crack at any of your songs. I'd probably want the WAVs though ...

Shame to hear you're leaving Lyon - I liked the idea of having a 'French'man here on SF... you going back to the states?

j$

j$ wrote:Shame to hear you're leaving Lyon - I liked the idea of having a 'French'man here on SF... you going back to the states?

don't worry, i'm working on my PhD in french cinema. i'll still be the resident francophile. i've been in lyon teaching just for the year. i've got a wife and a cat and a car to get back to in just over a month's time.

so, yeah, back to the states. pennsylvania, to be exact; the town of state college. i think i'll be about an hour or so north of jb: if memory serves, he's in harrisburg.

just for you, i won't change my location in my profile.

I don't want to make any promises, but I'd like to take a crack at this.

What would help me would be:

Record everything to a click track, so I can re-arrange stuff and have it all line up OK.

Tell me what tempo the tracks were recorded at, 'cos I'm lazy and don't want to have to try to work it out.

Make each track line up with each other, so they all start on exactly the same beat of the same bar. Again, this is due to my innate laziness.

Write a sentence or two for each song about what you would like to hear from the production. Do you want it intimate or epic, mellow or in-your-face etc?
I'd like to think I'm working towards something you'll like. But don't worry, you'll get loads of reverb either way ;)

Record each drum machine sample on a separate track, so I can pan/effect them individually.

Try to record as clean a signal as you possibly can from the vox & guitar.

obscurity wrote:Record everything to a click track, so I can re-arrange stuff and have it all line up OK.

well, i usually have some robo-drums going (or at least i try to), but i'll be sure everything is a certain bpm and note it for you.

obscurity wrote:Make each track line up with each other, so they all start on exactly the same beat of the same bar. Again, this is due to my innate laziness.

that's not laziness, that's normal. all my tracks line up; no worries.

obscurity wrote:Write a sentence or two for each song about what you would like to hear from the production. Do you want it intimate or epic, mellow or in-your-face etc?

well, that's usually what the demo mix is for, but if you want to me to talk more about the tune, no problem. i'm a leo; i like to talk.

obscurity wrote:I'd like to think I'm working towards something you'll like. But don't worry, you'll get loads of reverb either way ;)

reverb is my friend. :-)

obscurity wrote:Record each drum machine sample on a separate track, so I can pan/effect them individually.

oi, now this might be a challenge. i only have a digital four-track. so, too much layering=signal loss. so, we'll just keep the drums light or no drums, how's that sound? of course, since i'll be playing a click-track, if you want to add some on your end, you're more than welcome.

nyjm wrote:

obscurity wrote:Record each drum machine sample on a separate track, so I can pan/effect them individually.

oi, now this might be a challenge. i only have a digital four-track. so, too much layering=signal loss.

How are you getting stuff from the 4-track to the computer?

so, yeah, back to the states. pennsylvania, to be exact; the town of state college. i think i'll be about an hour or so north of jb: if memory serves, he's in harrisburg.

I'm about 40 minutes from there (or 30 if i take the interstate and speed) and go there quite a bit. unfortunately, there is no longer any place to buy music in my town, Clearfield, except for walmart. so if i feel like going and looking through the shelves instead of buying online, i usually head there. (Mikes Movies and Music on Atherton St. is probably the best place in town FYI) Or for music instrument stores or anything but groceries, because there's nothing good where I'm at (just walmart and bullshit dollar stores and such). I'm actually heading to harrisburg this weekend too to visit a friend.

Anyway, I'd love to take a stab at mixing something without having to write the tune too. when its not my own stuff the mixing is more fun usually. keep in mind though if its not tracked well to begin with you might not be able to magically get a great mix no matter who mixes it or what tools they use.

obscurity wrote:How are you getting stuff from the 4-track to the computer?

it's a virtual 4-track: http://www.digitalsoundplanet.com , their quartz studio free.

of course, i just realized that i could easily just export each little drum part from the drum machine. however, that's not usually how i compose the drum parts. (i just do all panning and stuff in the drum machine; i love leaf drums). anyway, we'll see. for most of the tunes i've picked, i never composed them with a drum part in mind.

toddlans wrote:i usually head there. (Mikes Movies and Music on Atherton St. is probably the best place in town FYI)

haha! i live right around the corner! and my wife works across the street from mikes (no, not at the walmart).

toddlans wrote:Anyway, I'd love to take a stab at mixing something without having to write the tune too.

well, it looks like i have some serious recording to do. awesome. i'll be posting this stuff soon. thanks, everyone, for your interest and help!

i could probably try to do one too, if you're interested, especially if you want some electronic stuff in there
-bill

i've edited my first post with the links to three songs.

Maybe it's just me, but the links are either to text documents or missing pages.

Mogosagatai wrote:Maybe it's just me, but the links are either to text documents or missing pages.

sorry, a few technical problems. (it's not easy to upload BIG files from france to an american server.)

the links for "everybody now" and "handmaids" are good. i just checked them. i'm re-uploading the files for "les soupirs" as i type.

[Edit]: "Les Soupirs" just finished uploading and i've checked link. go to!

and thanks again.

haha! i live right around the corner! and my wife works across the street from mikes (no, not at the walmart).

oh i thought you meant you've never been to state but you're moving there

hrm. unforeseen problem: i've run out of webspace! well, you know, it's free, so i can't gripe. but i've only got half the files up. i can see two solutions:

1) i cut out the .WAV files (sorry, j$!), though files for specific songs could still be made available by request.

2) i can move the files elsewhere. i've been poking around the net, and ourmedia.org seems to be pretty open-handed with its webspace. however, though i can upload individual bits all i like (somewhat slowly), i can't get it to share the .RAR files. (it's possible to upload each individual little file, but it takes a good 9-10 files to make a song, times 6 songs, etc., etc.. yeah, not too fond of that approach.)

any ideas?

No problem, I grabbed Les Soupirs wavs before you took 'em down! So that'll be mine, if that's Ok with others ...

j$

i can give you some space temporarily, but i can't talk about it now as i'm tired and will go to bed soon. pm me if you want info.
-bill

j$ wrote:No problem, I grabbed Les Soupirs wavs before you took 'em down! So that'll be mine, if that's Ok with others ...
j$

my, what a brave man you are, johnny! that has to be THE most problematic track (i cut the drums from the vocal mix and shortened it, some of the vocal recordings are in unison, others are on separate tracks; in a word, ick.) but, i recorded it with my friend fabienne here, so i really want it on the e.p.

and in that case, thank you heuristics, but i'll just nuke the .WAV files. again, if anyone REALLY wants these MASSIVE files, pm me and i'll get them to you.

Again, I don't want to promise anything.

That said, I'm feeling handmaids (oh hush). What's the bpm? Any comments you'd like to make on what you're hoping to get?

obscurity wrote:That said, I'm feeling handmaids (oh hush). What's the bpm? Any comments you'd like to make on what you're hoping to get?

unfortunately, there's no bpm for handmaids. i did most of the recording about a week before i really formulated this idea, ekeing the last little life out of some too-used guitar strings. but, i really really like the takes i ended up with, so, no drums and no steady beat. sorry.

what to say about handmaids. most of my songs are on the quiet, simple side. but i've always wanted the coda on this one to have a crescendoing, very lush feel. almost operatic, perhaps. if i had the recording capacity, i'd make the vocals there like 8-12 parts with accompanying strings and timpany, but that's way off in the sky.

contrast and evolution are always what i key on with production: i like songs that evolve and grow. so, i usually write and produce things that start off very simple and even quiet and grow with each verse. "handmaids" is definitely like that: a swelling tide.

hope that helps!

nyjm wrote:unfortunately, there's no bpm for handmaids. i did most of the recording about a week before i really formulated this idea, ekeing the last little life out of some too-used guitar strings. but, i really really like the takes i ended up with, so, no drums and no steady beat. sorry.

Damn, that's a shame. I don't think I could do the song justice by just mixing the existing tracks together, and adding & re-arranging stuff without a steady tempo is far too fiddly for my approach to stuff, I'm afraid.

i think i'm gonna try to work a bit with "everybody now."
-bill