Nick Drake Cover- Black Eyed Dog

A

AaronChapman

New member
Well, here we go again with me presenting another Nick Drake Cover. You'd think I'd be over these things by now :P. Well, along time ago I thought it'd be a cool idea to learn how to play all of his songs. In hindsight, I'm not sure if that was a good idea. BTW, I haven't forgotten about releasing the changes to that one song I posted here a while back- Thoughts of a Quiet Man. Your advice really helped me to improve things. Sorry, that I've been so slow with the progress of that. I've been on and off with that song. I'm almost at the point of showing the final changes. Anyone find that the longer time they spend working on a song the more stale it becomes to them? Anyways, back to the original topic. I recorded this last night in a hurry. There are some obvious issues, I imagine. I think the rhythm/pacing of the song is a little off in areas. Maybe, I could emphasize on some of the song's patterns more to differentiate from the original some? I'm not sure how my voice fares with the song. For some odd reason, this song has received more attention than any of my other recordings which is cool. 10 likes in 24 hours.....WOW...I'm amazed, haha. That's a personal best:P. I'd love any bit of criticism and what not. Hope everyone's doing well. The link is below: Nick Drake, Black Eyed Dog--Cover(TakeOne) -- by Aaron Chap | Free Listening on SoundCloud
 
Tip #1 - Use paragraphs so people can read your posts. It's so off-putting to squint through a mess of words. I almost didn't listen to the song because I didn't want to deal with your post.

But, glad I did. Nick Drake covers are difficult at best. I don't know how he did it, except maybe his ability to focus was more refined than the normal person. Oddball tunings, different voicings, dark lyrics... still he did it good and it was artistic and listenable and enjoyable. I'm not sure I could bang out a Nick Drake tune if I practiced for a month. He probably wrote the song at night and recorded it the next day. lol.

With your cover, I think you've got the guitar part down pretty good. The tone of the guitar and the playing style are pretty close. The voice isn't working. I'm guessing you are playing and singing at the same time. That might work for a coffee shop where people are only half listening, but when someone goes to your soundcloud link, they are there to listen.

To me, it sounds like you are purposely being quiet to balance with the guitar. If so, you lose control of your voice. Try recording the guitar part first. Record the guitar in stereo, mid-side if you can, and get a good capture. Let the guitar fill the stereo stage. Then record the vocal afterward. Don't hold yourself back. You don't have to concentrate on playing and singing, just sing. I think it will sound way better.

Hope this helps...

Oh yeah, and the paragraph thing.
 
Thanks for the advice. I realize now that my cluster paragraph is pretty unnecessary and intimidating. I'll try to keep things clean and brief for everyone.
Thanks, I'm glad the guitar portion is okay. Believe it or not, I actually recorded the guitar and voice separately. Initially, I was hoping the quiet singing would add a certain softness but I can see why it doesn't work. It probably didn't help that I couldn't raise my voice to high in fear of waking up my roommates. I'll give it another do over and we'll see how it goes :P. I haven't been practising with my voice as much I should, so I have my doubts but I'll keep on trying.
 
I echo Chili's sentiments. I'm a big fan of Nick Drake. You could also add a small amount of reverb to the whole mix (or at least the vocal) to get the feel he got in the room. The vocal should be a little louder too, but definitely push more air out when you're singing if you're going to try to do another take of this. Keep your chin down when you're singing too. Be confident, even if you make a mistake. You could even record 4 to 8 takes and comp them down if you want to release this in any capacity.
 
The vocal needs a redo with more conviction and a little reverb and brightness on it. The guitar is quite good.
 
Well, I think everyone is in agreement that I need to redo the vocals. Alrighty, then...let's see what I can squeeze out of these pipes. I'll post the final version here when I get it right.
 
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