Island Hopping with ibleedburgundy

R

Robus

Well-known member
Here's a new song with Dave on drums. Thanks mate! All comments welcome. No tuning on the vocal--does it need it? [Edit: can't say that anymore.] Thanks to Taras for great suggestions on the arrangement.

Dave and I will have another up soon with Nick (easlern) on vocals.

New Mixes:
Better sounding Mp3:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzqJIqBR8uJed3poYWNJVklLakk/view?usp=sharing

Swirly soundcloud:


Island Hopping
Words and music by Ray Taylor, 2016

Monday morning rain in traffic
Back where we always stood
And I know what you got under your hood
Take 57 out to the cornfields baby
Windy city closing round you
Like an eggshell lately
And the more I think of you
More it closes round me too

Got a room for two on Wednesday
Friday morning news is pressing round
And we can’t turn down
Take 80 on east to the state line baby
Winding road’ll point you back to me
In a straight line maybe
The more I think of you
The more I hope foregoing and above are true

We’ll go island hopping
In your tropics
Well everyone’s got dreams
And a breezy line of exit
From the scene
But the more I think of you
It’s got me thinking too
That I need you
If you need me
That I want you to

Would you kindly name your pleasure
In the flesh or by the measure’s fine
Or we walk on by
Every street that we pass got a memory maybe
In the flash or in the echo fading
More I fade with you
More they echo
More they echo
Round me too

We’ll go island hopping
In your tropics
Well everyone’s got dreams
And a breezy line of exit
From the scene
But the more I think of you
It’s got me thinking too
That I need you
If you need me
That I want you to
 
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The drums and guitars sound terrific. Great clarity without a hint of harshness. Snare is very cool sounding. Nice just-barely-breaking-up guitar sound.

Bass wasn't bad at all. No boomy frequencies or anything like that. Well controled levels. I'd like a little more definition to the notes. But that's a minor thing.

Vocal had nice clarity to it. The delivery/performance is a little tentative at times. Notes waver here and there. You might be able to help that some by double tracking. Not sure. But may be worth a try. A song like this would sound good with a double tracked vocal.
 
I am at the beach this week so all I've got is the car and some ear buds.

On those the mix sounds very natural.

The fade out at the end gets abrupt at the very last second. Maybe start the fade a little earlier or make it a little more steady.
 
Good job overall. I'm not a fan of the 100% panned guitars, but that's a personal choice. Agree with tripleM that the vocal notes waver in a couple of places, you could just retrack until you get more comfortable with it.
 
mjbphotos said:
Good job overall. I'm not a fan of the 100% panned guitars, but that's a personal choice. Agree with tripleM that the vocal notes waver in a couple of places, you could just retrack until you get more comfortable with it.
Click to expand...

Thanks Mjb, I might just do that. Nick has been doing vocals on a few of my songs lately and it's been pretty liberating. Lets me focus on the songwriting and arrangement. Working with vocalists is the direction I want to go. My limitations in that department are plain to see and hear.
 
+1 on the waveryness of the vocals.

I'm also not a huge fan of some of the hard-panned guitars. Maybe if you added some more verb and moved them back in the mix a bit, they'd dominate one ear less (listening on cans)

Otherwise, everything sounds clear and balanced.
 
Sounds real good to me, I listened to mix 3. I did notice something in the background knock at 3:04 and 3:12.

Really like the piano/pad in the back, nice touch! The solo in the outro on the left, that guitar tone sounds great.
 
Snare sound was my favorite tone in here, very cool. Thought the fadeout was much too abrupt. Vocals sound good to me, no complaints there, aside from not going all the way up on "hopping" the first time. That final note was important to the vocal melody, I thought.

I think this is a great mix. really nice work
 
Robus, can you see if the L speaker is giving more output than the right? My left ear is compressing more than the right.

The mix is great otherwise.
 
Yeah, that snare sounds good. I've been using more and more bottom mic in the blend. It's pretty close to 50/50 top/bottom blend right now. I'm finding that with the right blend of top and bottom, Dave's snare needs no EQ.

Yeah, Nola, I think you're right about the left/right balance. I noticed it before. I was focused on getting a better vocal take for this mix. I'm going to dig into the panning of the guitars for the next mix. I think that's where the balance problem is coming from.
 
easlern said:
Sounds real good to me, I listened to mix 3. I did notice something in the background knock at 3:04 and 3:12.

Really like the piano/pad in the back, nice touch! The solo in the outro on the left, that guitar tone sounds great.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll track that down. Probably something in the vocal mic. Thanks for noticing that left guitar in the outro. I like that too. It's a bit of a rarity in my recordings of late--a Les Paul. I have a nice one but tend to favor my SG when I'm looking for that solid-body Gibson tone. Just happened to use the LP here and thought it brought something different to the track. It's in the instrumental parts here and there too, if I recall.
 
I'd say the vocal is a bit better. I thought I heard a short section where it was doubled. I would double it the whole way through. In fact, if you still have the first take, blend it in here down about 10dbs. Didn't notice this the first time, but the vocal is dryer than the rest of the tracks.

The guitars and drums kind of cover things starting around 1:26 for 15 seconds or so. I didn't notice that the first time.

Everything else sounds very good to me. The drums and guitars sound fantastic.

You could get a better fade at the end. :)
 
Actually, it is doubled. But the double is way down-about 14dB below the lead. Anything more and I start to hear strange flanging and phasing issues. But maybe I'll try nudging it up a dB or two.
 
Robus said:
Actually, it is doubled. But the double is way down-about 14dB below the lead. Anything more and I start to hear strange flanging and phasing issues. But maybe I'll try nudging it up a dB or two.
Click to expand...

It's doubled the whole way through? I could hear it in spots, but for most of the song I couldn't. Yeah I'd bump it up a good 4-5dbs - if for no other reason than letting me hear what it sounds like. :)
 
The vocals are definitely improved. I'm still not sure about some of those lead placements tho. They're a little better, but some of them still sound like they're right up on my ear.
 
Mix 3 sounds great to me. The drums are nice and natural. They sound dry in a fitting way IMO. This is pretty much what I am going for.

I am hearing a crack at 3:12 and 3:05. It sounds like someone struck a pool ball in the background.
 
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