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Some Advice Needed

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 6:55 pm
by Me$$iah
Hey y'all

now I aint fought for ages, partially beacuse Ive been busy with other things and partially because Im a lazy shit.

However, I have been recording a demo for a local singer, its my studios first 'Commercial' undertaking. I really exited. So as I want to make this track as good as I can, in the hope of generating more business. I would like to ask the talent here what dya think? what is missing? I know I have to drop in a solo (anyone fancy it) and I think the Ride needs to be pushed a little more.
But other than that what advice can ya give me to take this track over the edge. When it came here it was just a GnG played live for me
This track has Heidi singing and playing the guit.

So, I got a friend of mine to host it here. cheers Matt
Its called Travel thru the Psyche clik and listen

any comments...cheers

-Messiah

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 7:06 pm
by Hoblit
Hey, it's sounding good.

However, if it's suggestions from a third party you are looking for, please take the following with an amateur grain of salt:

Reverb on the vocals is a bit heavy.

The vocals and the guitar are fighting. It may just be an eq thing but it's making the vocals a bit hard to decipher. This is only a problem in the verses. The choruses are fine in that regard. This may also be part of the reverb's fault as well, can't tell.

The end cuts out..but I imagine you're gonna fix that in post anyways.

Otherwise, this is sounding really good. (not crazy about the drums but hey...whattya gonna do...it's minor and it's just a matter of my crappy opinion anyways :) )

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 7:09 pm
by Me$$iah
Cheers Hoblit.

That exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.

so less verb.....cool..... I always wanna use more than I need

Me$$iah

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 9:56 pm
by king_arthur
Those on dialup, be aware it's an 11 mb download...

Not my thing, stylewise, so feel free to disregard, but...

yeah, that's a lot of reverb...

is that just one rhythm guitar? if so, maybe try panning the
guitar and bass out a ways so it's not so all-down-the-middle.
add some percussion stuff on the side opposite the guitar,
to keep stuff in balance. if it's two guitars, then definitely split
them wide-ish. particularly if this is a demo for the singer,
move the guitar and bass out of the way so she can own
center stage. yeah, pan the bass, a bit anyways, to whichever
side has less other low end stuff going on.

some of the backing "oohs" kinda seem like they miss the
note, or at least don't land on it and stay there... again, if
this is a demo for a vocalist, it's probably important to make
sure everything vocal on the song is really tight. anything
that is not right on the money probably hurts more than it
helps...

thought: maybe mute the guitar on the first phrase and
have it come in with the drums in bar 2 or 3 or whatever.
put the voice out there all by itself so that that's what the
listener forcuses on. given the purpose of this song, kudos
for having the vocals in from beat one.

realize it's not your song, but the vocal melody seems VERY
repetitive... maybe you can at least vary the rhythm a little
bit, or change some of the chords (that F#7 in the chorus seems
like it could be something else) to vary the harmonic structure.
or suggest to the singer that she look for ways to make the
melody line a bit less repetitive.

it feels like maybe you've trimmed the start of the song a little
too close, like there needs to be a one- or two-beat fade in.
if the vocalist breathes in right before that first line, keep that.

Just some first-listen observations. Again, this isn't really a style
I listen to a lot, so feel free to disregard... and congrats on being
able to squeeze some money out of the music!

Charles (KA)

Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2005 7:25 am
by deshead
Hey Messiah,

You might also want to try posting it over here: http://homerecording.com/bbs/forumdisplay.php?f=15

My feedback (in addition to what Charles and Hoblit said, all of which is good):

The bass guitar is too loud, and I think it could use a different EQ. It's completely masking the kick drum. I'd probably address it by boosting the point on the kick (usually somewhere around 3KHz), and doing a complementary EQ on the kick and bass somewhere around 80-90Hz and 200Hz (boost one, cut the other at the bottom frequency, and do the opposite at the top).

The bass guitar is also masking the vocals in places. So I'm not sure if the vocals need to come up. But I think they might, especially in the chorus. Also, the reverb on the voice sounds artificial. She's not in the same "space" as the drums. It would probably be fine if it was only half as wet.

You're definintely right about the ride cymbal. It has to come way up. (I'd also pan the hi-hat to the right, though that's a personal preference.)

Do you have any way to double the guitar track, like Charles suggested? It'll make a huge difference. Ideally, get a second take recorded, and hard-pan each take. But if extra recording's out of the question, you can often create a usable double by running the first through a chorus, pitch shifter, and EQing it differently. (Did you track a DI signal from the guitar? Or is it just the amp'd signal?)

Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2005 1:25 pm
by blue
The guitar sounds awful - not even like a guitar. So do the drums. How commercial is commercial? You should just never use drum machine cymbals - all they do is ruin your song. If you do, turn them waaaay down. Don't they annoy the crap out of you after the 4th or 5th listen? They sure do me.

If it were me, I'd go back and re-do the guitar thru a nice small amp, on a more reasonable distortion setting. You're not earning any edginess by having an inaudible, incoherent guitar tone. It sounds OK in the intro, but once the other instruments come in it's just annoying. I'd probably ask for about 6 guitar overdubs, too. If you're going for some wall-of-sound action, you're not going to get it with one take. If you must keep the guitar sound, distort the bass, too. Are you sure you want the tag at the end of every measure on the bass? I think that bass could get away with playing maybe 3 or 4 notes a measure.

I'd also simplify the drum machine bit, and go for more of a groove and less of the crazy overplaying. More of the way it is at the 3:01 mark.

The vocals are super low in the mix, the bass is too loud.

OTOH, the song is pretty poor, too. It would really take a lot of work to come out of this with something compelling. It has the sound and vibe of a midnight USA Channel movie-closing theme song. Is that what you're going for?

Anyways, the bass sounds good. :D

Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2005 2:09 pm
by blue
well, after taking a break and coming back to it, the song isn't quite as bad as i implied up there. probably you could just turn up the vocals and drums and turn the bass down and get rid of the vocal reverb.

or you could compare it to this:

http://www.c-hack.com/mp3/GOM/Heartbreaker.mp3

Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 2:04 am
by Dan-O from Five-O
blue wrote:or you could compare it to this:

http://www.c-hack.com/mp3/GOM/Heartbreaker.mp3
Well there's really no comparison. First off, Pat is singing with soul, her vocal has it laid out all on the line. And then there's that rocking ass guitar lead at the end of the song. It just grabs you, like the breaks in the middle of the song do.

Yeah you're right Blue, Me$$iah should compare his song to that.

Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 6:54 am
by erik
First, let me echo what blue said about the guitar tone. It's too thin and processed, and the way that the guitar player is playing (without any stops) really calls attention to the inappropriateness of the tone. Try for something beefier and crunchier, something that will blend with and sit behind the bass guitar.

Heartbreaker is a damn near perfect pop-rock song, and it's a good song to compare yours to, to try and get yours to sound as good as possible. First, look at the melody in Benetar's song. It doesn't start off right away, instead letting the intro establish that the song is indeed a rocker by exploiting the rhythmic hook of the song. Starting off with the melody so early draws attention to it, and since the melody isn't really the focus of the song, an intro might be a good addition.

When Benetar starts singing, her first melody (from 0:12 to 0:17) is only repeated one more time. When the song gets to 0:25, the melody has changed, and similarly, that section is only used twice before moving into the chorus. Looking at your song, your first melody (from 0:00 to 0:05) is used 4 times in a row, and then when it changes, it's really just the same melody jumped up to the fifth. It's way too much, it drags down the flow of the song. I would suggest that you tighten up that section, and have the melody jump up to the fifth at 0:15.

The next section at 0:45 feels like it's going to be a big chorus, but it's hard to tell if it is or not because it has such a very similar feel to the preceding section. If you're going to have a chorus that feels really similar to the verse, it's good to jam really short prechorus in there, to mark the chorus for the listener, so that everything doesn't run together. The section from 1:13 to 1:38 is a cool section, but about twice as long as it needs to be. It would sound better to jump back into the chorus at 1:31 after only two times of the "Travelling through the psyche" refrain. After the solo, jump right back into the "Everybody wants to be a star" part, because that's the part where the vocals are the most emotional, and the song scale tips at that exact point. The song is well structured, but each individual section is too long by about 1/3. If you trim the fat, and get this down to around 3:20, it would feel alot tighter.

In "Heartbreaker", the rhythm of the guitar changes alot throughout the song. In your song, the guitar keeps nearly the exact same rhythm from the start of the song up until the section at 1:13. The rhythm changes up at 0:44, but it's hard to really hear: it's different, but it doesn't sound all that different. To make it sound different, exaggerate the rhythm in the first section. Make the stop-starty thing *more* stop-starty, really make the stops more crisp, and have them really stand out. Similary, the rhythm changes again at 1:13 but it's hard to really hear the change. Have the guitar hit every other time from where it's hitting right now, or every fourth time. Like at 1:13, then at 1:16, then at 1:20, etc. Or just 1:13... 1:20... etc. The extra space between the notes will make the verse sound even better when it kicks back in.

Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 10:59 am
by Me$$iah
Awesome feedback y'all

great tips from evryone...thanks

I just spoke to the singer and I'll be seeing her again on Mon so I'll get her to lay more guits etc...

I must say thank you all, and this project is deffinatley gonna sound better.

cheers
-Me$$iah