Please comment - praise/worship song

I'm listening on crappy speakers right now but the mix still sounds really tight. There's no bass on these speakers so I'll try and check it out later on headphones.
Arrangement is good - You could add more harmonies. It would also be nice if you kicked up the vocals a bit to get some higher notes, the voice is excellent but that would give it a bit more emotion. I'm not sure if that makes sense...
I like the rest of it very much, the guitars, drums, keys all sound great...
 
cptnhook said:
The song is entitled "All Things", and can be heard at:

http://www.soundclick.com/praiseandworshiprock

I recently put together a modest home studio, and was able to track and mix some ideas. Would love to hear your comments concerning the playing/singing/mix/arrangement/etc., thanks!
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No nits here, Roger. Are you Roger or is this a cover? What I mean to say is did you write it? It's a very good sound and arrangement in my opinion.

Very tight and clean, love the half stops that accentuate the bass and drums.

Great bass tone, real or is it a patch? Two thumbs up for this one. More please.
 
Thanks for the comments!

Xeries said:
No nits here, Roger. Are you Roger or is this a cover? What I mean to say is did you write it? It's a very good sound and arrangement in my opinion.

Very tight and clean, love the half stops that accentuate the bass and drums.

Great bass tone, real or is it a patch? Two thumbs up for this one. More please.
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Yeah that's me, and it's an original. I've been playing music for a while, but I'm just recently getting into recording. It's been fun getting ideas together and building a song from the ground up.

The bass is real. I played a Sadowsky 5 Jazz Bass (it's like a souped-up Fender), favoring the bridge pickup a little and a little bass boost, patched through a UA Solo 610. I actually drove the tube in the 610 to some light overdrive - it's virtually inaudible in the mix, but I think it adds a little character. Squashed by RComp, and HPF'ed at around 60 Hz.


ido1957 said:
Arrangement is good - You could add more harmonies. It would also be nice if you kicked up the vocals a bit to get some higher notes, the voice is excellent but that would give it a bit more emotion. I'm not sure if that makes sense...
I like the rest of it very much, the guitars, drums, keys all sound great...
Click to expand...

I totally agree with you about the vocals. Unfortunately, I'm giving it all she's got as it is - I actually intentionally tracked the instruments a 1/2 step higher (G#) to try to squeeze out that extra emotion, then regretted it a little during tracking when my pitch was going all over the place. :D

The pad in the background and the lead in the prechorus are actually really wet guitars - no keys in this one.

The drums are Addictive Drums - I'm really liking this plug. Not the most samples, but they sound pretty good.

I may try to layer in some more vocals when I get the chance, maybe a lower harmony in the chorus.
 
I like it very much! Great praise song!
Nice sounds everywhere!
My only nits:
The snare drum’s reverb sounds funny to me for two reasons… #1. it sounds different than the ambience that is on the high hats, for example. What that boils down to is that the snare sounds as if it’s in a different room than anything else. #2. the reverb sounds almost mono. That can happen sometimes when the guy/girl who put the samples together does you a favor and puts reverb on a sample for you, and makes the sample mono instead of stereo. That sound just screams home studio to me. Tha may or may not be the case here, just a guess.
These are just my personal nits. Others may not even hear such things, and thus wouldn’t pay attention to them.
I personally like the vocal range; it sounds sing-able for the average joe. To me, the most important thing about a praise and worship song is that people are able to sing along with you. There’s nothing worse than leading worship and having everyone in the congregation stop singing!

God bless!

~Shawn
 
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eyema_believer said:
I like it very much! Great praise song!
Nice sounds everywhere!
My only nits:
The snare drum’s reverb sounds funny to me for two reasons… #1. it sounds different than the ambience that is on the high hats, for example. What that boils down to is that the snare sounds as if it’s in a different room than anything else. #2. the reverb sounds almost mono. That can happen sometimes when the guy/girl who put the samples together does you a favor and puts reverb on a sample for you, and makes the sample mono instead of stereo. That sound just screams home studio to me. Tha may or may not be the case here, just a guess.
These are just my personal nits. Others may not even hear such things, and thus wouldn’t pay attention to them.
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Hi Shawn,
Thanks for the comments and insights! Much appreciated. The samples are dry, and I added the 'verb in the plugin. I'm still tweakig the hat - it's been tricky to get a consistent, pleasing tone, esp. since the song has both open and closed hat parts.

The snare and hat are mono tracks, so I guess that's why the reverb sounds mono. Are you referring to the hat/snare bleed into the room and overheads? I can try increasing the bleed to see if that makes them sound more 3D, and maybe panning the room to L or R...

eyema_believer said:
I personally like the vocal range; it sounds sing-able for the average joe. To me, the most important thing about a praise and worship song is that people are able to sing along with you.
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That's probably because I am the average joe! :o But yeah, I tried to come up with a melody that folks would be able to pick up and sing easily. Hopefully that's the case!


Questions: (1) in the the intro and verses, is there enough separation between the clean and dirty guitars? (2) does the mix sound overly compressed?
 
cptnhook said:
Hi Shawn,
Thanks for the comments and insights! Much appreciated. The samples are dry, and I added the 'verb in the plugin. I'm still tweakig the hat - it's been tricky to get a consistent, pleasing tone, esp. since the song has both open and closed hat parts.

The snare and hat are mono tracks, so I guess that's why the reverb sounds mono. Are you referring to the hat/snare bleed into the room and overheads? I can try increasing the bleed to see if that makes them sound more 3D, and maybe panning the room to L or R...

Questions: (1) in the the intro and verses, is there enough separation between the clean and dirty guitars? (2) does the mix sound overly compressed?
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I've never tried those kind of drums, so I don't know about the "bleed" setting. The drums sound really really good, overall. Really sweet! It's just simply the verb on the snare. You have applied the reverb on a send, not an insert, correct? If you have, then it should be stereo, and my brain is just on drugs. Maybe try another verb setting. When I was talking about the snare and the hat sounding like they were in different rooms, here's what I meant: the snare sounds like it's around a corner, or in a big hall, and what we hear is all echo. Then, the hat sounds like it's very close to the listener. Does that make sense? To me, they sound like they are in completely different acoustic spaces. That's of course, what we are trying to accomplish when applying verb... to "set" the instruments in a "space."

I love the guitars, and no... the mix doesn't sound too compressed to me!

Blessings!

~Shawn
 
eyema_believer said:
The drums sound really really good, overall. Really sweet! It's just simply the verb on the snare. You have applied the reverb on a send, not an insert, correct? If you have, then it should be stereo, and my brain is just on drugs. Maybe try another verb setting. When I was talking about the snare and the hat sounding like they were in different rooms, here's what I meant: the snare sounds like it's around a corner, or in a big hall, and what we hear is all echo. Then, the hat sounds like it's very close to the listener. Does that make sense? To me, they sound like they are in completely different acoustic spaces. That's of course, what we are trying to accomplish when applying verb... to "set" the instruments in a "space."
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That makes sense to me, I'll mess with the verb settings a bit to see if I can't make the snare and hat a little more cohesive. I'm just getting my feet wet with this HR stuff and appreciate all the comments!
God bless,
Roger
 
I liked the song. The mix sounds pretty good to me. Some harmonies would add depth to the vocals, and as a lead guitarist I would like to hear a guitar solo or at least some lead fills. Thats just my taste. Good song.
 
medyy said:
I liked the song. The mix sounds pretty good to me. Some harmonies would add depth to the vocals, and as a lead guitarist I would like to hear a guitar solo or at least some lead fills. Thats just my taste. Good song.
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Thanks for the suggestions! I'll probably try to layer in some bgv's in the prechorus and chorus sections. The outro actually has a "chording" solo (my best Edge impersonation :o), maybe I need to bring it forward in the mix a bit.
 
I like it!
The snare sounds much better....
I would really like to hear a high quality MP3 of this song... would you email it to me if I PM my email addy to you?

Thanks!

~Shawn
 
cptnhook said:
I made some tweaks to the mix and added some bgv's. Would love to hear your opinions, thanks!

http://www.soundclick.com/praiseandworshiprock
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I hijacked your thread here and took a listen to the update. Very nice BGV's. Makes me want to send you a track of some more of them.

One suggestion on the snare: Can't you "tune" the snare? In Session Drummer 2, which I fight with in Sonar 6 PE, you can tune all the percussion instruments. The snare can get tighter and more cohesive with the hat by merely tuning it so the decay is truncated. Cool word, huh? Truncated.:rolleyes:
 
Well done on the recording. I like how that parts are spread out. Better than I'm doing. :D Anyway, the only thing that stuck out to me was there is some type of guitar going on after the first verse. I can't quite make it out. It's rather quiet... in the background. I can't really hear the notes ringing, but I can hear the percussion of the strumming. It's that strumming that seems odd, to me. the rhythm of it is... ah.. er.. off somehow. I like the song. Has a News Boys kinda feel to it.
 
Xeries said:
I hijacked your thread here and took a listen to the update. Very nice BGV's. Makes me want to send you a track of some more of them.

One suggestion on the snare: Can't you "tune" the snare? In Session Drummer 2, which I fight with in Sonar 6 PE, you can tune all the percussion instruments. The snare can get tighter and more cohesive with the hat by merely tuning it so the decay is truncated. Cool word, huh? Truncated.
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Thanks Xeries! Yeah, the bgv's were a lot of fun to do. I was trying to cop that "Mutt Lange" sound a little bit with the falsettos. :D

You're correct, the kits on AD have a lot of tunable parameters. You can also dial in the amount of rattle you want from the snare (which actually turned out to be the problem the first time around, too much and it sounded like reverb). I think I can mess around with the settings on this stuff for days...

Nick98338 said:
Well done on the recording. I like how that parts are spread out. Better than I'm doing. :D Anyway, the only thing that stuck out to me was there is some type of guitar going on after the first verse. I can't quite make it out. It's rather quiet... in the background. I can't really hear the notes ringing, but I can hear the percussion of the strumming. It's that strumming that seems odd, to me. the rhythm of it is... ah.. er.. off somehow. I like the song. Has a News Boys kinda feel to it.
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thanks for the comments! the e guitar you're hearing is the same guitar in the very beginning - a really wet, tremolo'ed triplet arpeggio picking part. I think the trem is probably what's causing it to sound a little off to you. I was trying to go for kind of a resonating pad sound in the background, but I agree it might be a bit much.
 
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