Dancing with my granddaughter...

dafduc

dafduc

New member
...last night to the Harris/Toki collab, and to Macle's retro-pop thing. You guys rock!

Great thing about girls under 2 - they don't call you a dork cos you dance funny.

Anyhow, watch this space. I wrote her a song right after she was born. Recorded it then, and it exposed my voice for the turd that it was. But vocal lessons have given me new skill and confidence, so the new vocal track goes down tonight...

Daf (or the process will reveal the continuing turdlike essence of my vox - in which case I'll post some lame-ass excuse here)
 
Sorry, Al - fell asleep waiting for the upload. Damn dialup.

Baby Baby Girl

It's kind of an odd little groove - laid the track down right after I bought Reason 1.0, sort of a scratchpad thing. Bunches of effects on the track. And the accompaniment organ is a B4 in standalone mode through Sound Forge- I don't think I had Cubase yet. Lead is B4 as a VSTi in Cubase.

Anyhow, I also added vocs after getting Cubase - they were just scary. So I put the thing away...

...and got brave again after taking a few vocal lessons this summer. My voice is still not gonna ever get me hired as a lead singer, but what I've learned about support and relaxation has made SUCH a difference!

And if you're thinking, um, Daf, this doesn't sound very good - trust me - it's 10 times better than the old track.

Vox are dry - so this is part of the HRC thing. I wasn't going all the way back to Reason to drop the FX, though.

Details:
Bass: Subtractor in Reason
Drums - ReDrum/Matrix in Reason
Electric piano - NN19 in Reason
Organ - B4
Vocals - me, through Studio Projects C1, dry

Song is copyright Jay Ricketts, 2001 - all rights reserved.

Problems I'm aware of -

1) yes, it's a goofy drum track. the rimshot accent is at 2 levels - levels sounded fine in Reason, but the low accent gets buried and then it all sounds real empty. Plus the echo fade in and out wasn't very well thought out.

2) level on the bass is a bit high - was using computer speakers when I set the levels in Reason. 'Cos the Reason output is a single stereo track, only severe EQing could fix the levels - causing a new set of problems. I like the bass sound, though.

3) vocal level was recorded way too low - had to crank channel, push through Group 1 cranked, AND push through Group 2 boosted another 2-3dbs. I'm sure that didn't help the sound quality. My mic technique was inconsistent, too - came in a little weak after the solo.

4) yes, it's a cheezy organ solo...

Daf
 
The first thing I noticed is that the bass is breaking up in a fuzzy way. Actually, it sounds like the whole track is clipping. Yeah, the drum track is odd. What you want is a straight gospel groove. I'm not sure if you want a 2/4 or 4/4 feel. It could go either way. Get that and the bass working together and you have a good foundation.

The song is cool--catchy in a Paul Simon kind of way. I thik your voice sounds good on this--the performance. Your pitch is good and you sound relaxed and natural. I also thought that B4 organ sounded convincing--I thought it was a real Hammond until I read your notes!
 
Thanks, Al. Yeah, I gotta scrap the drums. I think the distortion was a bad split second decision this morning - when I was creaating the mp3 in CDEx, I picked "Normalize aand Encode" insteaad of just "Encode". I knew I wasn't supposed to do that. CDEx normalizes to zero. Bad call on my part.

I like the Paul Simon idea!

Anyone else? NWR shows a bunch of listens today, hope it's not one of those "can't say anything nice so I won't say anything" deals...:(
 
You know what makes this good? It is because of your conviction! You are singing this from your heart and that is what makes this good! I'll take that anyday over someone who has a million dollar voice but doesn't have the conviction to go behind it.

The drums sounded just like very light percussion in the background and I think that worked fine. Of course they could always be improved upon, but I thought it worked. Nice organ sound...Dude, I like this! Those chords and the style in which you played them reminds me of Harry Nilsson. :D
 
i listened and its a nice little tune. Sounds like you wrote for you grandaughter and probly sang it while she was watchin.. IT don`t sound like you spent days working on it, and that probly makes it real cool to throw in with some others you've done. IT does sound clippy and the bass sounds like pedals on the b4 sorta. But I like the tune. I`ve done a couple on guitar for my lil sweety too.. :)
I`m having trouble with my b4 and would like to ask you some questions on it but I`ll put the post in the cakey forum.
 
Thanks, Fellas!

Boydrj; Well I WAS thrillled about having a grandkid. Still am. My love for her may be from the heart, but some serious fiction in the song - Alyssa's really a grandma's girl, always has been. Mom's #2, I'm down around 3 or 4...
I was thinking the way you were about the percussion - just wanted a light country two-step. If I ever do anything with this, it'll get a new drum loop, though.

Toki: I actually did spend days on it: (a) trying to tell my ass from a hole in the ground on Reason, which was brand new at the time, and (b) trying to fix the old vocal with every trick I could think of. It ultimately proved unfixable. The new vocal track was one take - that's how much help the vocal class has been!
You're right - bass on the tag was the B4. Subtractor on the rest of the track. And the clipping was definitely CDEx - I heard it too, but it's not there on the wav.

Thanks again for the listen, guys.

Daf
 
Daf

Had me smilin all the way through. :D

Very cute, infectious & effective marriage of lyric and tune.

Vocal is refreshingly natural & laid back.....fits the song well even with pitch issues on a few notes.

B4 solo is not cheezy!!! nice syncopation and effective use of G blues scale and chord tones, esp the B on the G7.

Mixwise, I'd try Sluice's -12db experiment...then raise the faders individually on the final mix to even it out, then salt & pepper it with light verb.

BTW: Nice pics over in the cave I saw a few months ago in the lawerman's thread! :cool:

Ralph
 
I love this. I totally got it. The continuous motion in the song actually reminds me of the continuous motion of a kid too - you know what I mean. It never stops

I would like to hear the rythym section when it is done, with full instrumentation. I really like the keys and and bass working together. And the minimalist drum part (intended or not) is perfect for this.
 
Thanks fellas,

flat-9: You're too kind. WAY too kind. I was having bigtime latency issues with B4 at the time, wanted to do something rhythmic, but the latency was killing me - I finally just went for slop, and got it, more or less. As for the vocs, thx for the vote of confidence. The "few" pitch issues were in the dozens the LAST time I tracked it. Hope to keep improving on that count. Glad you liked the tune.

Alan: Thank you too. Don't know yet what I'll do with this - wanna keep the groove, improve the drums, maybe add some structural dynamics. Watch this space...:D

Daf
 
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