fritsthegirls's Opus

fritsthegirl

fritsthegirl

Taste of home
Opus :laughings:



I know it hasn't been long since my last tune, like not even a week, but sometimes I do things on the fly, you know nice and random. I haven't forgotten about all that Jazz, but I found myself getting all obsessive about this tune almost as soon as I finished that one. I haven't been able to think about anything else.

I need help, badly. Usually when I post stuff I am pretty happy with it, you know as far as my skills go.

But, I'm a bit over my head with this one, all my tracks don't even fit on my tiny laptop screen. I got a bit carried away and added loads of stuff, acoustic, electric, midi, drums, now I'm stuck. It's Heatmiser's fault, getting me all ambitious. :D

I'm quite OK with the arrangement, I think, I spent the last 10 days figuring that out. But the MIX, and the drums (loops, probably need 8 arms to play that shit), vocals...it's all a bit, well, me. I like the tune a lot, but I just don't know where to start with getting it sorted and listenable.

I know it's a bit of an ask, but if someone has the time to tell me something that sticks out like a sore thumb, or you see an opportunity that you can be bothered taking for this song with drums, guitar, bass or mixing it, or something. I'd be really grateful for any help. It really is a raw mix, I know the high bits of the vocals are scheisse. I have to rethink those high notes.

Thanks a squillion to anyone that wants to help me. :cool:
 
Oh yeh lyrics. Cos of my accent you might not figure that...bit depressing I have to say.

In the light of the morning
when your dreams are put to sleep

As the sun is dawning
all your hopes will have to keep

Wonder why your head aches
and your heart bleeds from the core

I don't wanna say it
but I'm feeling kind of kind of sore (x2)

Wonder why your head aches
and your heart bleeds from the core

I don't wanna say it
but I'm feeling it for sure

In the light of the morning
when your dreams are put to sleep

As the sun is dawning
all your hopes will have to keep

I don't wanna say it
but I'm feeling kind of kind of sore
 
I had an instrumental preview of this on Soundcloud - I enjoyed it as an instro.
With vocals & harmonies it's very Beatlesque.
The mellotronish flute is really cool.
You'll need to edit out some incidental mouth noise here & there.
These lines are well worth the price of admission:
"In the light of the morning
when your dreams are put to sleep
As the sun is dawning
all your hopes will have to keep"
I wish I'd written them.
 
I love the natural vibe your tunes have. It has a personal emotion that I find hard to get in the genres I work with most of the time. I am not so sure my style of production would be appropriate for you. BUT....

I would love to play with a different approach for scientific purposes.

Send me some tracks! :)

Jimmy
 
Nice tune. Put it on the shelf for a week or two and redo the harmony part then. Sing it every day until then. Then record the harmony part again.

In Britain, does 'sore' sometimes mean 'angry'? Or does it just mean sore? Sore old opus.

What about a bass part? A bass part might do your opus good.
 
Sore in UK & Aust English is a noun (wound) and an adjective (painful - sore tooth, cranky/irritated - sore head, bad - sore loser, tired/weary - sight for sore eyes, severe - sorely afflicted etc).
 
jimmys69 said:
I love the natural vibe your tunes have. It has a personal emotion that I find hard to get in the genres I work with most of the time. I am not so sure my style of production would be appropriate for you. BUT....

I would love to play with a different approach for scientific purposes.

Send me some tracks! :)

Jimmy
Click to expand...

That's so awesome, thanks Jimmy. Ray has just kindly offered to add the bass, so when I've got this part in there, I'll send you the files. Thanks though, that's really cool you offered. It's a bit weird for me to do it like this, but I figured I might learn a lot from hearing what other people do with it, instead of me just mucking about trying to figure it out. I really appreciate you playing along. :)
 
dobro said:
Nice tune. Put it on the shelf for a week or two and redo the harmony part then. Sing it every day until then. Then record the harmony part again.

In Britain, does 'sore' sometimes mean 'angry'? Or does it just mean sore? Sore old opus.

What about a bass part? A bass part might do your opus good.
Click to expand...

Thanks. It needs a bit more practice the singing, I'm not sure those high notes are achievable but they need to come out as they are, it's embarrassing. Will do that today.

Yeh it's a :( opus not an :mad: one.
 
dobro said:
Nice tune. Put it on the shelf for a week or two and redo the harmony part then. Sing it every day until then. Then record the harmony part again.

In Britain, does 'sore' sometimes mean 'angry'? Or does it just mean sore? Sore old opus.

What about a bass part? A bass part might do your opus good.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the bass part - I just dropped it in, magic. I hope I got the timing right, I think I did, but sometimes I wonder about my timing. I wasn't sure about the volume as well, I think in some parts it needs to come up for sure, but I'm going to leave the mixing to Jimmy. What you did works perfectly in the tune though. :) So the weakest link is the vocals now. I just took out the most offending parts. You're right to advise me to give those a bit more time and practice.
 
rayc said:
I had an instrumental preview of this on Soundcloud - I enjoyed it as an instro.
With vocals & harmonies it's very Beatlesque.
The mellotronish flute is really cool.
You'll need to edit out some incidental mouth noise here & there.
These lines are well worth the price of admission:
"In the light of the morning
when your dreams are put to sleep
As the sun is dawning
all your hopes will have to keep"
I wish I'd written them.
Click to expand...

Thanks Ray. It's changed a fair bit since the instrumental version, but I'm glad you dig the changes and additions. :)
 
Ha, so you got three offers to play the bass part did you? I'd really recommend getting yourself a bass as soon as you can trish because even a cheap one will make a big difference to your mixes. I bumbled along trying to use keyboard parts and regular guitars severely EQd to leave only upto 100Hz in as substitutes for ages before buying one. After I did, I wished I hadn't struggled along for so long - having a natural sound to occupy that area of the mix fills it out a lot.

It's a gorgeous tune - it has a bit of a sleepy weariness to it that I like. The guitar parts are really nice too. The bass is a little high I think (the collaborators curse ;) ), but as Jimmy's remixing it I guess it doesn't really matter currently.

I think the drum pattern fits - it has a hint of triphop about it, but it maybe sounds a bit polite (you could maybe push them into more of a trip-hop/Portishead direction). I think that's the big difficulty with midi drums, that they can often sound a little too sterile and shiny to work properly. I find that overheads especially are tough to get sounding good - I hardly ever use crash sounds because they often sound so awful. Midi drums often need dirtying up, so if I were you I'd start experimenting with adding saturation, compression and low pass filters onto drum patterns to see where you can find more life in them.

Nice song, I look forward to hearing it evolve :)
 
Update is cool. Good observations Robgreen.
Trish, the really hard part will be feeling confident with your voice yet retaining the very attractive vulnerability and Englishness of it.
The song is just plain LUVERLEE.
 
rayc said:
Update is cool. Good observations Robgreen.
Trish, the really hard part will be feeling confident with your voice yet retaining the very attractive vulnerability and Englishness of it.
The song is just plain LUVERLEE.
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing. I would suggest doing a few more takes, As you get better with the song, keep everything the same, only feel more relaxed with the voice. It just feels a little shaky and I think after a few more tries will get more of a confidence level.

Nice tune.
 
Wow. This tune lights up alot of centers in my skull.

I'll disagree with DM60 and rayc a little....and it's just a personal preference thing. DO NOT change your vocal delivery. The honesty and vulnerablility is refreshing...and definitely in character for this tune. Your pitch centers are very stable, and that's the single most important element to an "un-trained" voice. Let the unique qualities of your voice sell the performance, because they most certainly will.
The vibe is very trippy meets Beetles....and I'm sold.

More.
 
I agree with Teysha. Like it or not, your vocals are what make your songs as far as I'm concerned. Leave it alone. If you go all pitch perfect Celine Dion style you'll lose that natural honesty that your songs seem to always have. I know where you're at right now....you're pretty new to recording and you wanna get all these songs hammered out because it's fun, inspiring, and exciting. You're churning them out like a machine. That's a good thing, but don't overthink it. Keep it real and natural and save everything. You can always go back to remix later. To my ears, you haven't really screwed anything up yet. In a way, I kind of get the impression that you approach your songs kind of the same way I approach mine. Our styles couldn't be more different, but I get the impression that you just do exactly what you want to do and that's what the song gets. You don't worry about the trappings of fitting any sort of template. You go with your gut and since you're honest and real about it, it just works. I like that. More people should be like that. I wouldn't significantly change anything about the mix. Maybe drop the vocals into the mix a bit more.
 
fritsthegirl said:
Thanks for the bass part - I just dropped it in, magic. I hope I got the timing right, I think I did, but sometimes I wonder about my timing.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the timing's right, but listening to it this morning again, I realize I'm going to have to do it again. The first one I sent was sort of a case of 'thinking out loud'. But listening to it again, I heard a small change that will make it better, I think. I'll get on it soon.
 
My drums are setup for another week or so in the drum room. Moresound is lending me some Earthworks condensers to try as overheads. Should be here this week. I shall throw down some live drums and see if you like, if that is cool with you. :)
 
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