First Song in the Clinic

Cut the first 30 seconds.

Have the bass guitar play the bass drum figure..instead of twice the figure all the time. Better foundation. No contrast to the plinkety plink. Especially the verses.

Voice louder.

cut the solo at 1:30. Buh bye. Superfluous and boring.

At 2:33 there's an E7 chord that is..or should be...the peak of the hook. But there's no dominant 7 note. It should be HUGE. A big phat D...in the bass...sustaining, even.

Other than that, it's an interesting construction...nice hooks. Good tune. Just cut the deadwood, and bang out that E7!!

MHO
 
This would make a great 3 min song. I have to agree, kill the solo, it's not adding anything to the song. Cut the fat and get it down to 3 min

There's a bit of an issue with the groove of the song which is causing more issues than the mix. The band never seems to lock on. The guitar is hesitating in some areas and rushing in others. It sounds very multitracked to me as opposed to sounding like a coheisive band jamming it out. We need a click on this one with the band jamming it out before recording it. The mix would be a fine garagy type thing if the band was grooving
 
Thanks to all for the excellent comments and suggestions.
Lets see,
Greg, due to my current technological and financial restrictions, the drums were recorded with a mic on the kick (not sure of the brand, but it's a generic cheap kick mic), 57 on the snare, and two shitty LDCs as x/y overheads, in a bad room, with a crappy sounding drum set. So, yeah, that could've definitely been done better. I've been experimenting recently with some of the different mic setups (GJ and Recorderman), and I'm slowly getting to a point where I can get a decent sound out of the room we're in. This is not an example of that.
Jeff,
I really appreciate the suggestions, and once I get the band all in the same room again, we'll trim it down.
Mars, yeah, it was multitracked, since I and my drummer were the only ones there for most of it. Right now we only have 4 simultaneous inputs and no access to good sounding rooms. Or money. So, we're working on all that.
We've done some experiments with all the amps and the drums in our recording closet, recording 2 mics for the room, then one for the kick and a line out from the bass amp, and it's come out not too bad, but I'm saving up right now to put us in a slightly more workable situation. Ideally, we'll be recording the full band somewhere around Christmas.
Thanks again for the listens and comments and suggestions.:D
 
I agree with what's been already said Bono :)

Good song, drums have issues and sounds are fighting each other in the low/mid area. You need to get the core of the song to pop out a bit before you add all the gravy IMO.

Good stuff though. I liked the song.
 
I like it...

Nice tune man, I remembered it 20 min. after I heard it so that's always a good sign...or symbol. The song could use a little arrangement work (shorter intro, cut the first guitar solo), but if it is your song and if artistically the arrangement works for you, cool. Keep recording man...
 
Jeff,
I really appreciate the suggestions, and once I get the band all in the same room again, we'll trim it down

Why don't you edit the track you have? Snip , slip and crossfade the parts you want to keep. You can preview what you and the band may want to use as the final version. And being able to do those kinds of things is an essential skill. There may come a time in your recording career when you're required to make loops, 5sec, 15sec, 30sec and 1min edits of you tracks. Get some practice now!

I went back to the SC page to see if it was downloadable...I was gonna edit it myself to see how it fell out with my suggested trimmings...see if I could do a decent job at it...and post it back here for you.

If you want, you can send me the WAV file via a download link from a file server...and I could try it. Shits and giggles. A high quality mp3 would be ok, too. jeffmaherguitar@juno.com
 
JRSIV said:
Nice tune man, I remembered it 20 min. after I heard it
Click to expand...

Thanks, Siv. That's pretty much what makes me write songs - the desire to create an ear-bug that sticks with you. If it's catchy, I'm happy, so thanks for that.
Jeff,
If you want to play around with it you're welcome to, I'll go ahead and make it downloadable on soundclick. I do some minor cut and pasting a lot of the time, usually fixing problems in tracking, but I've never undertaken anything that big. I'd be really interested to hear it, and also to hear about your workflow for going about it.
Thanks again,
Cancers.
 
http://www.yousendit.com/download/Y1Rva0ZXRSszeUx2Wmc9PQ

there are 5 edits

I kept the first two bars, attached v1 kept two of the next 'intro', attached v2...eliminating guitsolo. There are three more in the outro guit solo...some difficulty avoiding avoid-notes on the IV chord.

The notes on the E7 chord are D and G#..the tritone...that makes the thing sound significant. The soloist brushes by G# a time or two, IIRC. But that tritone, sustained, will make the section pop out in a manly way. And you can voice-lead a nice line through the changes...B, A, G#, G. I added it while working on the track...sounds nice; but I didn't want to work out a remaster to renorm to 0db. And I figured it was over-stepping. :^) Unless I can be in the band. Too old.

I also tried to draw-in the outside guits, and boost the vox using expander/contraction in the mastering software...but that requires freq seperation. The vox and guits occupy the same freqspace..can't fudge them apart. Technology I don't have...

I think it's a lot more interesting this way. YMMV.
 
Man I dig what Jeff did to the arrangement! The song is great at this length and the guitar solo isn't missed because the band gets to shine during the outro. I love this tune, could be on college radio no prolly...
 
Jeff,
listened to your edit, and I get what you're going at. I's got me inspired to go ahead and try some cutting and whatnot premixdown. I'll repost when I've got it cleaned up. Thanks for the map.
Siv, thanks again for the encouragement.
 
Just listened to the remix

I love it! I hope you'll let us know when your final version is available. I want to buy it. I like your vocal performance and the change-ups in the song. It's really fun to listen to. You do have a sort of Bono sound, but while I was listening, I was also reminded of Squeeze (80's). Maybe not your vocal sound, maybe more the composition. I'm not sure, but I wanted to tell you that.

I'm looking forward to hearing more from "the Cancers" of music.
 
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