In Her Eyes

[ido1957]

This is the latest and greatest version - mastered by Jan @ finemastering.de ...
I decided to go ahead with the piano and synths as the guitars were, well, kinda meh by themselves.
Hope it sounds okay to you guys!



In Her Eyes - Master

In Her Eyes G. Steele

Verse 1
Look outside your window, there’s a full moon shining down on you tonight
Shining just as brightly, as the last time that you held your baby tight
You knew from the start, this life would take you far from the one you love
And though you should be sleeping, loving here is all you’re thinking of

Chorus
You’re gonna smile when you see her, always miss her when she’s gone
It’s never been so good, the passion’s never been so strong
And she makes you laugh, and she holds you when you cry
You know she loves you, you just got to look into her eyes
Her eyes, her eyes, her eyes

Verse 2
At night you dream about her, thinking for a moment that it’s real
Satisfies the longing for her, takes away the emptiness you feel
Then the dream begins to fade, and you wake up calling out her name
But soon you’ll hold her in your arms, it isn’t always going to be this way

Chorus

Bridge
Always dream about her when you’re gone, and you’re gone much too long
Always dream about her when you’re gone, and you’re gone much too long

Verse 3
Pack it up the job is done, hit the road you’re going home today
But it’s been a long time, wonder if it’s gonna be the same
She will always love you, it won’t take you long to realize
Cause you feel her love surround you, when you look into her eyes.

Chorus (2)

 

[rayc]

It's a lovely song Gerry & the mix is very nicely done.
I can hear a BIG string production based on your arrangement woking a treat when some clever company picks up on your stuff.

 

[ido1957]

Hey thanks Ray - maybe I should give DK a shout

 

[Brenton]

Very easy on the ears! There is a lot of life to this mix and such a natural feel.

Reminds me of the times where talent was required to sound good.

 

[schenkerguy]

Wow that's really nice! Good vocals, nice song overall.. My main concern is the frequency range of the strumming guitars is kind of walking all over the vocal.. I'd bring them down a bit and/or take some of the mid out of them, maybe in the 800-1k range? Just a bit, so the listener isn't straining to hear the vocal over all the music bed mids.. Or maybe just bring them down overall. Wow this is a nice song.. Sounds like I'm playing a 70s 8-track, which means I love it!

 

[Whatmysay]

This is really smooth song and a great mix. I really like how you get your vocals to sit just above the backing, but the character of the instruments still prevails.

Burt

 

[ido1957]

Hey Brenton,schenkerguy,Whatmysay - thanks for listening and the feedback.
A lot of the sound quality on this track is due to the great mastering job that Jan has done for me. He's done several songs for me and it's always produced great results. I can't say enough about his skills...

 

[joeym]

Simply wonderful, Gerry!
You sing this so beautifully and the harmonies sound great. Yes, Jan' superb mastering qualities are evident, the sound is very round and full, with every instrument occupying the right frequencies. Well done!

 

[ido1957]

Thanks for the listen and feedback Joe!

 

[kcearl]

the first thing I notice is the volume...after listening to a couple of tracks in here yours jumps out and has me flailing for the volume control...Jan really gets the volume up without crushing it to death


super pro sound Gerry....I dont have a gripe, sounds like Id accidentally turned the radio on...nice performance as well

 

[ido1957]

the first thing I notice is the volume...after listening to a couple of tracks in here yours jumps out and has me flailing for the volume control...Jan really gets the volume up without crushing it to death


super pro sound Gerry....I dont have a gripe, sounds like Id accidentally turned the radio on...nice performance as well

Thanks man. Yes it is a lot louder than my mixes I guess this is like loudness wars reversed - where you turn down instead of up .

 

[dainbramage]

Very profesionally written and produced. A very soothing song that could might as well have been a radio hit. You guys should definately distribute your music aggressively.

 

[ido1957]

Very profesionally written and produced. A very soothing song that could might as well have been a radio hit. You guys should definately distribute your music aggressively.

Thanks very much DB - I distribute aggressively to my family and friends.

 

[AL P]

loved it!!


thanks for posting!!

AL

 

[GuitarLegend]

the first thing I notice is the volume...after listening to a couple of tracks in here yours jumps out and has me flailing for the volume control...Jan really gets the volume up without crushing it to death


super pro sound Gerry....I dont have a gripe, sounds like Id accidentally turned the radio on...nice performance as well

I must apologize for being the first person to spill a drink at this party but I also had to jump for the volume control. However, I am not going to be as polite regarding the mastering. It sounds to me like way too much compression was added to get the final volume level up. Sounds like it is all crammed in. No criticism over the performance, I just feel there is a little too much mid there somewhere

Great song

 

[ido1957]

I must apologize for being the first person to spill a drink at this party but I also had to jump for the volume control. However, I am not going to be as polite regarding the mastering. It sounds to me like way too much compression was added to get the final volume level up. Sounds like it is all crammed in. No criticism over the performance, I just feel there is a little too much mid there somewhere

Great song

Thanks GL - my ears don't hear a mid build up - but that doesn't mean it's not there lol - it may be because most of the instruments are in the same frequency area maybe fighting for space. I also asked for the keys to be pushed a little. Maybe Jan can drop in and explain how the mastering works in regards to mids....

 

[Greg_L]

I must apologize for being the first person to spill a drink at this party but I also had to jump for the volume control. However, I am not going to be as polite regarding the mastering. It sounds to me like way too much compression was added to get the final volume level up. Sounds like it is all crammed in. No criticism over the performance, I just feel there is a little too much mid there somewhere

Great song

I agree with this. I'm not hearing a slick pro quality mastering job. I'm hearing something really compressed and kind of harsh. Sorry, but I think that Jan guy dropped the ball on this one.

 

[ido1957]

I agree with this. I'm not hearing a slick pro quality mastering job. I'm hearing something really compressed and kind of harsh. Sorry, but I think that Jan guy dropped the ball on this one.

Well... call 'em as you see 'em - that's the dealio here. Good or bad.....

It probably needs to be compressed to get the volume up to where it is - that's my assumption. In the guitar world, compression comes with a cost - and that may be what is happening here....

 

[karumba]

Maybe Jan can drop in and explain how the mastering works in regards to mids....

i do ;-)

thanks guys for your feedback, esp. the critics. i really like constructive critics!

i'm trying to explain roughly what i did & why i did it:
first, we should keep in mind that the quality of soundclick is quite bad due to the mp3 compression. further, the quality of a mastering job cannot be judged without hearing the unmastered mix, since this is the starting point defining the end point. as an mastering engineer i can improve things, but sometimes not beyond a certain level if there are limitations (recording/mixing quality). due to that i'm offering stem-mixing/mastering. even with that its sometimes quite difficult the really achieve perfect pro-quality, since also the recording quality is essential (& i'm not doing a full mix). but hopefully i can increase the quality of a song as much as possible & i'm doing my best to do so.

ok, lets come to the issues.

frequency-wise i think it translates quite well & also in the spectrum there is no mid boost:


what you maybe meant is the more forward vocals. gerald offered it to me like that & i found this quite nice. gerald has a really nice voice, so standing out 0.5-1dB is no problem & also when it has a bit more mids i don't care if it sounds good/suitable. frank sinatra's mid-boost was much greater (neumann U47) & it sounded brilliant on his voice! so from a translation perspective i don't see a problem. but at the end its of course a matter of taste.

the volume/compression is an interesting aspect i would like to describe in a more detail.
first, this song is very slightly compressed on my side. the limiter is catching maybe 1.5-2dB. i don't like the loudness race so if i'm not forced, i'm not pushing the levels to degradation:


as you can see, the song is at -11dB RMS which is far below most commercial masters which are up to -7dB or -6dB RMS. further, i think the volume is the absolute lowest bound for being selected for a radio play. i also would not like to make the volume too low due to that reason. (it also doesn't increase the perceived dynamic in that case since i'm not limiting much anyway)
geralds recordings are also somehow dense (or lets say this song is played quite "soft/emotionally"). another point is, that i sometimes need to reduce the dynamics to tame things. for that song, e.g. i tamed the rides/cymbals with dynamic EQing. on the other hand, i expanded the bassdrum to increase "the perceived dynamic" & to better separate it from the bass. also of the voice has some frequency which do occur seldom (S-words) i need to tame them a bit with dynamic EQing. this is also dynamic reduction!

maybe for a real clarification it would be nice to show "the mix vs. the master" with 320kbit mp3 (which is much better than the soundclick quality).
gerald do you allow me to post before/after mp3s?

 

[Greg_L]

Thanks for the clarification, karumba. Specifically, these are all just my opinions, the relationship between the drums and instrumentation stands out as way off. The drums seem small and distant and the kick and snare have little to no presence whatsoever to my ears. The kick is MIA most of the time and the snare is thin - like the overheads are out of phase. The guitars and vocals are right up front and clean. The drums are back there in another world getting stomped on. Maybe they were tracked poorly and that's just what you had to work with. If so, I can understand. But if you're using stems, I'd imagine that you could get better presence from the kit. As for the vocals, Ido is a good singer, and I've heard tons of his music. His vocals are usually smooth and mellow. I've never heard one of his tunes and thought "man those vocals are kind of shrill". And again, I understand if that's what you had to work with. I think I heard this mix pre mastering and it seemed more balanced. Spectrum analyzers and RMS averages are great and all, but the only test that matters is the ear test, and this seems off to me. I've heard other stuff mastered by you that was much better. Just my 2 cents.