fritsthegirls's Opus

TeyshaBlue said:
Nice. If he's sending them by mail, tell him they never got there.:D
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LOL! Never would I disrespect Henry.

Mic's of this caliber require insurance and a signature to receive. I just think he is one cool dood for trusting me and offering me to give them a try.
 
jimmys69 said:
LOL! Never would I disrespect Henry.

Mic's of this caliber require insurance and a signature to receive. I just think he is one cool dood for trusting me and offering me to give them a try.
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lol...He's a good dude. I'd still swipe 'em.:laughings::laughings:
 
Shit, sorry FTG. Didn't mean to jack your thread. :(

Looking forward to trying out some new toys and playing with your song. Not expecting you to use it, just curious as to what my take would be on your tune. I'm not even sure what that means....lol
 
robgreen said:
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 :)
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Cool, thanks so much Rob. Hear you on the bass thing, I was actually really close to buying a bass a couple of weeks ago. It was a Yamaha RBX170. It was metallic blue. Some would say colour doesn't matter at all, but I think nice coloured instruments look cooler and therefore must sound cooler too. It's about £100 second hand. Might buy it, I tried to forget about it, but you kind of talked me into it again. :D

The drums are just wav samples that I got for free off the music radar website, think it was categorized 'Lounge Kore'...whatever that is. I just cut up and used 5 samples sometimes doubled in one place. It was just to try it out. To be honest they were only samples I could find that sounded half way decent at 70bpm. I'll definitely keep what you've said about it in mind about mixing them, I really appreciate the tips and advice on that because I really don't know what I'm doing. :)
 
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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.
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I think you're probably more familiar with my voice than anyone. :) It's weird but some notes just seemed to be in a slightly awkward place for my voice. It's not even all the high notes, some of the lower ones I find the volume fading and my voice breaks. Think I was trying to sing to loud, getting a bit too worked up about it. I practiced it a lot yesterday just singing lalala and had no trouble hitting any of the notes. Weird....eventually figured out it's my jaw, I need to relax it and open my mouth more. I probably also ought to stop smoking.
 
DM60 said:
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.
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Thanks for the listen. I'm going to run through it again to today to see if it's an improvement. Thankfully the consensus to redo the vocals is 50/50 so if it turns out pants I'll stick with the original. :)
 
TeyshaBlue said:
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.
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Aww, thanks a lot, that's really kind. It never loses any degree of coolness for me to hear that people enjoy the stuff I post. Each time it's like I'm hearing it for the first time. It really means a lot to me that people take the time to have a listen. Thanks heaps. :)

I was just watching a doco about George Harrison in the weekend, he was a genius. I think I like his song writing the best out of all the Beatles. I don't know what that's got to with anything, but you mentioned the Beatles and I remembered that. And then I remembered the great cover of George's that Steenmaroo posted a while ago which I'm going to post for you to enjoy because it's so awesome. Hope he doesn't mind me promoting his cover. :D

 
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Greg_L said:
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.
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Haha, Celine Dion...oh God how I hate her. My sister loves her. I can never get my head around the fact that my own flesh and blood has such poor taste in music.

Cheers Greg, always enjoy reading your feedback. You're bang on about everything, and offer really good advice and guidance. There's not much I can add because you read me better than I do myself. :D

When I run out of ideas, I'll be coming back to some of these tunes to remix them. But yeh, until then it is a heap of fun to keep coming up with new stuff. I do get a kick out of it. I've always liked playing and listening to other people's music, but writing my own stuff feels like much more of an accomplishment.
 
jimmys69 said:
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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Err yeh, that's totally cool with me! :cool:
 
jimmys69 said:
Shit, sorry FTG. Didn't mean to jack your thread. :(

Looking forward to trying out some new toys and playing with your song. Not expecting you to use it, just curious as to what my take would be on your tune. I'm not even sure what that means....lol
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No worries, I know Henry for his funny one liners, but he sounds quite the generous gentleman too. :)
 
Nah, nah, Teysha, I don't want the voice changed at all - I was just making he point that feeling confident with a voice would have an effect on the sensibility/the vulnerability - there's some give'n'take in the development process.
The Englishness would likely remain but I'd not be pleased if that voice became MOR or AOR through ease of use.
PJ Harvey's best work is when she's unsettled, Melanie retained an edge of vulnerability whilst growing stronger - she was lucky. Scott Walker is a super comfy voice but maintains his edge/vulnerability/risk levels in lyrics and arrangements or bat poo craziness.
Buy a bass Trish, you won't play like a bassist (it's often assumed to be easy to do but isn't) but you'll be able to play & arrange like your head tells you & that makes your work even more your own.
Funnily enough the 80's was full of female bassists in cool melody driven bands.
 
rayc said:
Funnily enough the 80's was full of female bassists in cool melody driven bands.
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The Pixies was a fantastic band with a female bassist. I usually don't like genders to mix in rock and roll bands but there are 3 exceptions: Blondie, Joan Jett, and The Pixies.
 
Greg_L said:
The Pixies was a fantastic band with a female bassist. I usually don't like genders to mix in rock and roll bands but there are 3 exceptions: Blondie, Joan Jett, and The Pixies.
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Blondie, what a dream she/it is. Man, have you seen the bassist in Belly? I think it's Gail Greenwood. Check out her belly/abs. :D



I don't know how she rates as a bassist but she's got more energy than the Hadron collider. Quite unusual to see that much physicality in a bassist.

rayc said:
Buy a bass Trish, you won't play like a bassist (it's often assumed to be easy to do but isn't) but you'll be able to play & arrange like your head tells you & that makes your work even more your own.
*Funnily enough the 80's was full of female bassists in cool melody driven bands.
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I almost know already that bass isn't going to be my instrument, I'm waaay too obsessed with melody. Bass requires a more beat based approach.

It's the definition of ultra cool, playing the bass. You mostly see that guy just nodding his head, real calm, in his own little world. My kind of thing. I hope I can make it work when I do have one.

I just updated the link with Dobro's new bass (that I begrudgingly turned down) and some new vocals. Sorry that I'm not so good at keeping up the old with new versions. In my world, when a previous version has been revised it's dead and gone. So this new version is absolutely rough, but Jim'll fix it. :D

My voice is never going to be a refined sound with the lack of singing ability I have and the the amount of abuse I've given it over the years, but I think what I did this morning is a slight improvement. I gave up on the high parts. I was soprano when I was in a school choir when I was 12, but those days are clearly over.
 
fritsthegirl said:
Blondie, what a dream she/it is. Man, have you seen the bassist in Belly? I think it's Gail Greenwood. Check out her belly/abs. :D

.
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Lol. Yes! I remember belly's belly very well. They were quintessential 90's chick pap alternative folkie pop. Terrible music, quite nice to look at. That bassist came straight from Skid Row videos and right into 90's mainstream. We were all fans of the look. :D
 
fritsthegirl said:
I think it's Gail Greenwood. Check out her belly/abs. :D

I don't know how she rates as a bassist but she's got more energy than the Hadron collider. Quite unusual to see that much physicality in a bassist.
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Greg_L said:
Lol. Yes! I remember belly's belly very well. They were quintessential 90's chick pap alternative folkie pop. Terrible music, quite nice to look at. That bassist came straight from Skid Row videos and right into 90's mainstream. We were all fans of the look. :D
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Gail in 1988.

 
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