a cover of "I write the songs"

MusicalSound

New member
I did a cover of this old barry manilow track called i write the songs from 1975. it took me like four hours to record the piano at a college because the piano line on the song is deceptively hard. vocals are going through a 1978 ashly sc-50, spring reverb from 1970. drums are also sent to its own spring reverb, and the mics are all fed into a 1975 teac model 5 mixing machine. '60s Akg d-15 on bass drum, 1976 ludwig blue/olive supraphonic snare drum

 
nice sound! I like the way it sounds vintage. What mics did you use for this? on the vocals, piano and other instruments?
 
I guess that left panning was a personal choice for you.

Your performance is very nice. You sound a bit like Zappy.
 
interesting commentary.....well the piano was recorded the same way the vocals were - audix om2 into 1978 ashley compressor into reaper. It's a very, cheap bad mic I just had lying around
 
oh yeah well the piano too was sent to its own spring reverb. it's also a 1970 hammond spring. the only thing without its own dedicated reverb channel would be bass. this is a really rough demo you know, i was just having fun! that's why it's not the best all around...
but the bass was mic an AKG-d12 as well, also 60s mic. The bass was fed into a 70s tube amp to a '70s 15" speaker. the mic on the snare is a 1978 electro voice re11 which really isn't a good sounding mic on its own. Here the channel is for the RE11 (ch 1) has the 1978 ashly 1978 compressor cranked. This is the only way to make the RE11 sound reasonable I've found! Actually kinda interesting!

Then actually come to think of it i fed the drums to an echoplex do delay the signal before it gets to the spring. The echo repeat is set to zero. This is probably an old 60s 70s technique. all done to digital

dont know why i did the hard pan. I think my ears aren't balanced and I just like hearing the piano so clealry isolated
 
also, a pair of 1979 audio technica AT 811s at the overhead drums. The mics are matched and the card is hand written 12/12/1979. piano was a 1971 Yamaha studio over at the UCONN piano lockers
 
The song has a weird David Lynch slash Stanley Kubrick slash Quinten Taratino soundtrack sort of feel. Like someone is going to come out of the wings and start beating the crap out of someone. I'm not sure if I'm getting my idea across. In my mind it's a good thing. All of the reverb is and that 1970s distance is sort of intoxicating in a way the song probably wasn't originally intended. Not sure if that was your intention though.
 
The song has a weird David Lynch slash Stanley Kubrick slash Quinten Taratino soundtrack sort of feel. Like someone is going to come out of the wings and start beating the crap out of someone. I'm not sure if I'm getting my idea across. In my mind it's a good thing. All of the reverb is and that 1970s distance is sort of intoxicating in a way the song probably wasn't originally intended. Not sure if that was your intention though.

so the track makes you feel violent? lol I don't get it.
 
For the most part, I thought this was fucking ace. It's the first thing I've listened to all the way through on the clinic for ages, purely because I loved every second of it. If I have to make criticisms at all, it's that the reverb is overdone on the drums. Don't get me wrong, I love it swimming in reverb, but I feel you just went a bit too far with it.

Your voice has an awesome tone and you can definitely sing. That said, there were moments when you were just edging slightly towards pitchiness. Other than that you sounded like a pro singer. I would roll the highs back slightly if you're going to tweak the mix.

Brilliant.
 
so the track makes you feel violent? lol I don't get it.

Haha...no not at all but it seems like something that could be used in the same way as "stuck in the middle with you" was used in reservoir dogs or "Singing in the Rain" in Clockwork Orange. Don't get me wrong...it's cool.
 
hahah yeah or like in the beginning of the Sopranos, when they have '50s barbershop do-wop playing in the background while Tony Soprano is running over a guy lol........it just adds to the craziness.
 
My only complaints were also with the reverb. Drum reverb way overdone, and something about the vocal reverb just sounded to mid/mud/whatever. Great performance. Almost didn't listen cause I hated this song, but glad I did! :)
 
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