My first new original for almost two decades, lol.

Bubba po

Tiny Stonehenge Moment
So as you all know, my stock in trade is doing slavish cover versions of my favourite songs. :D

I lost confidence in writing years ago, but I thought I'd better have another go. This piece of music began life as an improvised session by my son on drums. I picked sections I liked, chopped them up, looped them and then began adding instruments.

A friend of mine contributed the piano and strings. I intend to add vocals to this, but I just wanted to post my progress so far and get some feedback.

The piece is provisionally titled "Marianas" and it's intended to come over as kind of a soundtrack to a deep ocean exploration.

Lyrics:

The Marianas Trench is the deepest part of the world's oceans
Located in the Western Pacific, it is a crescent scar in the Earth's crust.

Extreme tectonic forces thrust the Pacific Plate deep into the mantle
Three miles deeper than the Carbonate Compensation Depth, the sea floor is covered with diatomaceous ooze

First visited by the Bathyscaphe "Trieste" on the 23rd of January 1960
Huge amphipod crustaceans skitter hither and thither, surviving on sunken wood fragments

One thousand five hundred and eighty miles in length
Seven miles of crushing ocean above you in the cold, dark, Challenger Deep.

The Pacific Plate oceanic crust is one hundred and eighty million years old at this location
Hydrothermal vents spew out sulphur and liquid carbon dioxide.




 

Attachments

  • Marianas.mp3
    5.5 MB · Views: 13
Last edited:
When the first guitar comes in, the drums get pushed back a lot (they are pretty loud at the start), then when the lead guitar part comes in they come up a bit. The hi-hat rapid hits around 3:30 sound a little off, but I guess it'll depend on the full mix (with vocals). Will be waiting to hear what happens with this song when the vocals are added. Good to hear you doing an original, I don't usually bother with covers here.
 
When the first guitar comes in, the drums get pushed back a lot (they are pretty loud at the start), then when the lead guitar part comes in they come up a bit.

Thanks, Mike. I rendered the track with a limiter on it and I think I set the master volume a little high. I reduced the master a little and dropped the guitar and bass a touch. It still sounds as loud overall, but the pushing back effect on the drums is reduced. I haven't posted an update, though.

Part of the reason why the drums seem to drop in volume is due to how he set his kit up. He had his normal setup which I close mic, plus two overheads, then he had an ex-hat and an auxiliary snare which I didn't mic separately. He's swapped to the aux snare in that bit of the song and it's only being picked up by the hi-hat mic and overheads. I may have to pull down the hat mic a bit and get him to dub me a snare over those parts.
 
I'm only listening on ear-buds in the office so can't give you anything meaningful on the mix but it sounds like a cool song and I'd like to hear what it sounds like when its done.
 
Sounding pretty cool Bubba! Just my opinion ( and you know about opinions ) when the lead guitar lines come in it seems the drums are way too busy..but it's all subjective..

Congrats on getting out of the box and exploring uncharted territory! Keep on keeping on.
 
(Listening on HPs for reference)

First, I was surprised, I was expecting something very different. Nice, melodic tune. Some vocals would probably work on this and really give it some seasoning. I thought the drums sounded good, but wish they were a little more up closer in the mix. They feel too far back, they sound really good and add to the song (more than just a beat). Would like to hear them a bit more.

Nice.
 
Gives me a Pink Floyd feel. Tone on guitars is very nice. Same for the drums. Cymbals are particularly clear.

My only complaint, besides my obligatory "too much reverb" complaint, is the low end. I think the bass is too loud and too boomy. There's something going on maybe around 80hz-120hz that I think should be tamed.

OK one more. There is kind of a crowding of instruments in the midrange. The the 400hz to 2Khz or so, is a bit messy.
 
I'm only listening on ear-buds in the office so can't give you anything meaningful on the mix but it sounds like a cool song and I'd like to hear what it sounds like when its done.
Cheers, JDOD, thanks for the listen, mate. :)

Sounding pretty cool Bubba! Just my opinion ( and you know about opinions ) when the lead guitar lines come in it seems the drums are way too busy..but it's all subjective..

Congrats on getting out of the box and exploring uncharted territory! Keep on keeping on.
I know what you mean, TAE. I like what's being played, so I suppose it's a matter of getting the balance right! Thanks for the listen. :)

(Listening on HPs for reference)

First, I was surprised, I was expecting something very different. Nice, melodic tune. Some vocals would probably work on this and really give it some seasoning. I thought the drums sounded good, but wish they were a little more up closer in the mix. They feel too far back, they sound really good and add to the song (more than just a beat). Would like to hear them a bit more.

Nice.

Thanks, I'm in the process of tweaking back the reverb on the drums and other instruments. I like reverb when it's done well so I don't want it dry, but I'm aware that it can cause a few difficulties with loss of definition and separation of instruments. I'm going to have the missus singing on this one, I think. :D

Gives me a Pink Floyd feel. Tone on guitars is very nice. Same for the drums. Cymbals are particularly clear.

My only complaint, besides my obligatory "too much reverb" complaint, is the low end. I think the bass is too loud and too boomy. There's something going on maybe around 80hz-120hz that I think should be tamed.

OK one more. There is kind of a crowding of instruments in the midrange. The the 400hz to 2Khz or so, is a bit messy.

Tweaking back the reverb has done a lot for the messy midrange so far, TripleM. I'm going to hold back on posting new mixes of this until I sort some vocals out. Can I ask what size monitors you're listening on? Only I'm mixing on monitors with 5" drivers, so it's possible I'm not hearing any boominess for that reason. I've thinned the bottom end of the bass out a bit. Cheers for the ears! :)
 
I'm listening on Event PS5's. Old things.

Listening again, the kick and low tom are a little boomy as well.

I pulled your mp3 into Audacity. Looks to me like there are peaks at about 70hz and 140hz. A little outside the range I gave you. I would try to notch out the bass at one or both of those spots.
 
I'm listening on Event PS5's. Old things.

Listening again, the kick and low tom are a little boomy as well.

I pulled your mp3 into Audacity. Looks to me like there are peaks at about 70hz and 140hz. A little outside the range I gave you. I would try to notch out the bass at one or both of those spots.

Well, I hear them as rich and full. :D There's no accounting for taste. :D
 
I think it works well as an instrumental. I second the comments about the drum sound going down when the first guitar comes in, try to bring the drums back to the front.
 
Love the drums on this. Mix sounds great to me. Really like when that guitar busts out near the end.
 
I think you should scrap the Marianas concept and pitch this as the theme music for "Frozen 2" bubba ... :laughings:

My $0.02 - guitar up 3/5ths of a gnat's whisker, bass down about the same. :):thumbs up: But it could be these headphones.
 
Wasn't what I was expecting to hear from you Bubba, but sounded really good. I can't quite work out where the vocals will fit or what melody you might have in mind with what's there already, but will be interesting to hear.

The drums are busy, but I think that's what makes it pretty unusual - and as that's what the whole piece is built from it's pretty cool. Hope you post the update when you've got some vocals :)
 
Sounds like it'll go somewhere good. the loops can be a little busy but that's OK.
The bass sounds a little tentative on some of the repeated note up'n'down strokes.
It recalls a whole pile of stuff without copying.
Nice work Bubba Po.
What lyrics are you running with?
 
Hi, Ray - I'm just uploading an update. I have an "Oh, oh, oh, oh, Marianas" refrain for the chorus, and you'll see what I've done with the rest!
 
Sounds pretty good. Nice stereo spread on the drums.

The vocals seem to have some kind of lisp and some awkward phrasing. Are they a text-to-speech?
 
Sounds pretty good. Nice stereo spread on the drums.

The vocals seem to have some kind of lisp and some awkward phrasing. Are they a text-to-speech?

Thanks! Yes, they are TTS. An experiment. I've done a bit more work on them with eq and a de-esser. :)
 
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