The Bin Song

Mr Clean

Mr Clean

AKA Teddy Wong
It's been a while but I thought I'd drop this one here. Continuing recording my old mate Tim and bringing his songs to life. This is a fun little song, my favourite of all of his. Planning on this being the last track of his "mini album type thing" that we're working on.

As usual, I started with a crappy demo and built a track around it for him to sing over the top of. I recorded the Acoustic and his Vocals a good while back and did everything else to it yesterday, Drums, Bass, Guitars, Piano, FX. Still got some more to do but I fancied doing a quick mix to see what it sounds like so far, for a tester.

*The song will fade out and not be quite as long as it is. I've already shortened this long thing by removing a chorus from it. People and their long songs are pains in the asses!

Opinions, put downs and general abuse, as always, welcomed. :thumbs up:

[MP3]http://themrclean.co.uk/mp3/The%20Bin%20Song.mp3[/MP3]

MP3 LINK

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Updated Mix - 24th Sept

[MP3]http://themrclean.co.uk/mp3/The%20Bin%20Song2.mp3[/MP3]

MP3 LINK
 
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It's a catchy song. I'm away from my monitors at the mo', so I couldn't comment too much on the mix other than saying that I can hear the guitars, drums, keyboard and bass well enough. The vocal sounds dark, but it could be the speakers I am using. It does go on a bit long. I take it the exaggerated English accent on the vocals is a deliberate choice? The repeated vocal refrain on the outro had me thinking this could be a great reggae tune... ;)
 
Not bad. I think the instruments could be given a little more life in the upper frequencies. try a little bump between 5K-10K on guitars and snare. Your crashes need to be brought down. They sound fake and the same hit every time and are a little distracting. Try playing with teh velocity of them to see if you can get each hit to sound a little different or use more than just one. I also think using the same beat through the whole song makes it very repetitious. Adding a different section in there after each chorus may help move the song along. Regardless, its a good sounding song that you two composed.
 
Sure hope this doesn't come off as "put downs and general abuse", because this is very catchy and instruments do come through well. That said, there are a few things I notice.

May be me but the crash, in addition to what Bruthish said, early in the tune seems to be nearly centered like right between the eyes. I can tell it's to the left a little, but not much. I don't know if you moved it a little more left later?

The vocal phrasing is a little strange to me. Sometimes I'm hoping for more words to fill out or complete a musical line. Probably doesn't make much sense and hard to explain what I mean.

Vocal melody becomes a little monotonous, but most of my stuff is similar.

Lots of essing in the vocals.

It looses me a little toward the end with the "call and response" vocal thing. Seems like the lead vocal just shifts from center to left and the response comes from the right. Somehow unsettling.

I like the deliberate British accent but it is somehow difficult to discern the lyric. This reminds me of the Kinks, but maybe that's just because I'm a dumb yank.

I really think overall this has a ton of potential, just needs a little more work.
 
Robus, Bruthish, einstein magoo. I won't quote you all as you've all pulled out similar things in the song that I can explain as one lot.

Regarding the English accent, it is just how he sings. It's not put on by any means or deliberate, it just is how he talks and sings and I can't really change that. That thick accent comes through in all of his songs. He's 55 yrs old now and I doubt I'll be able to teach an old dog like that any new tricks where the vocals are concerned.

The drums are temporary drums, (I should've said that in the first post really but I forgot) I literally played the first verse and chorus and then copied and pasted the rest. These will be amended so I'm not too worried about them. I'm not sure on the beat as yet. The constant kick works and it's kind of like I wanted for it, a dance/y kind of beat but I'm still not sold on that.

I'm basically trying to turn a folk song into something more as per his request. He doesn't play any other instruments other than guitar and has no idea what sounds he wants so it's basically down to me to imagine it all and magic something from nothing. I wanted it to be a piano based song as I thought it'd sound good but that idea was frowned upon.

It is definitely something that I'll keep working on. Maybe it'll change completely by the next time I get to work on it. Nice to get some honest opinions though and some food for thought.

Cheers guys. :thumbs up:
 
I like the feel of the song. Generally well performed. The song was well written I thought.

I liked the clean-ish electric.

The snare was a little thuddy. I didn't mind the cymbals. The toms were a little thuddy too. There isn't much definition to the kick.

The vocal could maybe be compressed a little harder. I think the singer could focus just a bit more on mic technique. The levels are a little uneven.

I didn't care for the bass sound. A bit sterile and a bit dull at the same time.
 
I really like this song, its mood, and how the vocal fits it nicely. Only comments are on the drum mix - the toms sound too loud to me, much more presence than the snare. I would pull the toms and cymbals down, and pull the tom more towards center? Just a suggestion. Besides that the mix sounds great!

- Paul
 
Mostly pretty solid. Nothing seems to be stepping on toes much.

The vox could be more consistent level-wise tho.

The panning on the drums is a bit wierd. They're mostly down the center except for the one tom which is way out left.

I like the snare accents on "rhythmically on time"!
 
Instead of the same cymbal hit, in the same place, every time, I'd rather hear each hit in a different space. First in the R ear, second in L, etc...and not the same cymbal twice in a row. It also needs to be EQ'd. Everything else sounded good to me. I didn't find this catchy - mostly because the lines were hard to follow, nothing was very consistent. but hey, that's another area, not mixing.
 
I live this guys voice. I think I like hearing English accents in a song. Which are often absent in modern music. Gives it "flavour" ;)

Little boxy, could cut some of those frequencies to brighten up a bit (pinches, nothing drastic).

Production note, cymbals seems to have an overtly amount of crash, rather than splash.


Love the tune, great performance and mix is very well done.
 
It's very cool, the accent, the theme and the accompaniment BUT the vocal seems to clip or peak out occasionally which is annoying in headphone land. A little top end across the master bus would add a little. I'd like the crash over with the far tom if possible.
 
I thought it was pretty good as is. The vocals could use some leveling out. Some parts of the vocals jump out a little too much. The crashes are a little over bearing. They seem too loud or something. I think it's still good anyway.
 
Cymbals and vocals have been done. I'll leave that alone.
Something you could try that I read someone else was doing. Make three tracks with the same cymbal spread across the three with different volume/eq/pan/even slight pitch differences so all the crashes aren't identical.
The snare sounds muffled to me, maybe just my ears.
Love this guys voice.
Everything is well balanced. Good tones. Catchy tune.
 
Thank you all for the comments. I forgot about this track for a week or so and came back to it a couple of days ago. The last mix was a rough, faders up mix. (I probably should've mentioned that) Here's a new mix that I've knocked up, tidied a few things up but not everything as this will probably be the final mix of this. The person I'm working with doesn't like the direction I took it so it'll either be re-worked somehow or abandoned. Shame as I thought it was sounding pretty good but you can't please 'em all!.

[MP3]http://themrclean.co.uk/mp3/The%20Bin%20Song2.mp3[/MP3]

MP3 LINK

Thank again. :thumbs up:
 
Hey man, sorry I'm just now catching up with this one. I'm always interested to hear what you put together.

Listening to the 24SEP mix. I think it sounds good overall. You might try turning down the strummed guitar in that right-of-center position just a tiny bit. Like a dB or two, or maybe EQ out just a little bit of the upper-end string attack of the strum.

Great song. I like your voice quite a bit, it's got a lot of personality. I think that the vocals sit nicely in the mix. Is there some sort of modulation effect on them? Like a chorus or some sort of stereo widening effect? Or maybe they're doubled? The call-and-response vocal on the right towards the end could come down just a notch.

Glad you posted this, it's a fun song, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Sorry for the totally tardy listen and comments!
 
Sounds really good Clean! I can hear the lyrics better.

I can hear that song as a reggae tune.
 
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