Pop/R&B - Please review :)

lee miran

lee miran

New member
The mix sounds pretty thin to me... like the mids were sucked out or you used as smiley-face curve EQ on the whole mix.

For this style of music, I would have expected much more midrange energy, as well as deeper or at least more prominent bass....

Not a bad effort, just needs "more"....

Good luck,

Bruce


And JEEZUS, lose the "stepped-autotune" effect -- it's been overdone to death!!! (YMMV...) ;)
 
Not a bad tune in the "boy band" kind of sound. I thought the cymbal swells/panning and the wind chimes were used to good effect. I have to agree with Bruce on the stepped tuning effect. It's like a bad cliche` and has been over used so much on pop tunes that when I hear it I'm grabbing for the tuner on the radio so fast I end up breaking it.
You're almost there.:cool:
 
THe song is sweet. Definitely competes with most of the pop I am hearing today.

I dont hear a thinness. I am listening on phones though. The kick sound is soo fruity loops. I think you could have used a different sample off the net to make it bigger and not so fruityloops. Everything else sounds tight to me.

Say, Can you describe your signal chain?

Also, can you describe the process of getting the vocoder effect?

THe singer has a very good voice with a lot of potential to be out there.
 
Keep the publishing.

All I can do is echo what the others have already said. I think the song is great - very catchy. I think that the auto-tune effect is a bit distracting from the song. It's like saying my song isn't good enough - so listen to this gimick I put in to make it better. Your song is great, it doesn't need the cheesy FX. I hear what Bruce is saying about the low mids. The mix needs to be much thicker between the bass and the kick. That should be the foundation of the entire song. My last comment would be that the vocals sound a bit to loud. That is always the hardest part for me. Finding the right balance between vocal and music is my downfall.

In closing, KEEP THE PUBLISHING. Send the song out to Warner/Chappell, Sony Music Publishing, and any other publishers you can think of to see if they have an artist looking for new material.

Keep up the good work.

j
 
Great Replies

Thanks for all the great replies. I'm pretty much a lurker on this forum, and the criticism you guys gave is what I have come to expect from those who post here, very constructive and to the point.

___Bruce,

I had a mix that had more bottom end, but I thought it was too much. I guess I might have taken too much off. As for the auto-tune thing, maybe it is too much, especially how it's overused today. However, I would like some kind of effect during that bridge to make it distinct from the rest of the song. Any ideas or suggestions?

____CyanJaguar

I'm running a homebuilt Athlon 800mhz with one of the first generation SBLive!'s (A new sound card is on my list maybe an M-Audio Audiophile, echo Mia, or STA/Hoontech DSP24 MKII). The SBLive! goes to a (ack!) Behringer MX1604A mixer. And the vocals were recording using a Behringer B-2 condenser.

The vocoder effect it done with the Oberheim Ob-Tune plug-in. It's really the automatic mode of Antares Auto-Tune with a different GUI and a lot cheaper @ $50US. To achieve the effect you set the re-tune speed on the fast side and the rate more to the relaxed side.

And the singer is me. Thanks for the kind words. Although, I'm not too sure about the "potential to be out there."

_____Jamiecer

I'm new to the "business" of music (I'm just a bedroom hobbyist). Can you steer me towards some info about publishing? How to get published, where to go, etc. My dream is to write and produce (I've been improving little by little on the production side). My wife keeps telling me that this song is very marketable, but I don't know how to market it.
 
I agree with much of what's been said before. The kick is thin. To me it doesn't sound FruityLoops though, since I use fruity and none of my kicks sound like that. Also, you just need a sort of phat sine-wave bass line in there. The bass is pretty absent.

If you're looking for an effect to use at the breakdown, and you don't want to use the Cher effect (which also drives me batty), try a creative eq, maybe a phone-style eq, a sort of midrange-only notch filter. I think there's a preset in Fruity on the eq plugin called either "AM radio" or "telephone." Also, the Fruity Granulizer plugin can do really whacked things to your music, like you could have it play back your vocal line at half speed, or at full speed but with random little bits of it disarranged... I'm not explaining it well, but it's a unique sound...
 
Re: Great Replies

lee miran said:

___Bruce,

...However, I would like some kind of effect during that bridge to make it distinct from the rest of the song. Any ideas or suggestions?
Click to expand...
Anything but that now-cliched effect... even simply a different voice would do, but here's another chance to be creative and discover that next big future cliche effect!!

;)

Bruce
 
I liked the song. It reminds me of one of the movie soundtracks, but I can't put my finger on it....

I agree with Bruce about the low midrange. It does sound a little thin ( i think between 300 - 1K Hz.)

As far as making the bridge sound different, you could do a key change and then a double track vocal with heavy flang (Henri's idea) on one track. Pan the tracks for a little separation. After the bridge, go back to the original key. (Just thinking out loud.)

Good job.
 
Let's make some money! Quit our day jobs!

Lee

The first thing you should do is get in contact with your disrtict office of a performing rights society. ASCAP or BMI, the tow largest performing rights societies in America will send you an enrollment kit in which you can become a member. This is generally free, unless you want to create your own publishing company. The fee for creating a publishing company was less than $200.00 the last time I checked. Anyway, fill out the paperwork and start "clearing" all of the songs you have written. Both ASCAP and BMI offer clinics on writing and selling your songs - TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THESE.

While you are waiting for the membership agreement to get to you, go to the Library of Congress' websight and download the PDF file for a form SR. http://www.loc.gov/copyright/forms/formsr.pdf This will prove ownership of the song or songs. Again there is a fee for this but it is per disk or tape not song, so load up the CD or Tape with as many songs as posible. They do not need to be full blown productions, just a simple melody with vocals on top of it. DO NOT! send a CD to yourself and think that you are covered. It is a wivestale that this protects you 100%.

The next thing you should do is pick up a copy of "The Recording Industry Sourcebook." This is single handedly the most valuable resource anyone involved in the recording industry can have. It lists almost every record company, producer, engineer, recording studio, equipment rental, music publisher, engineer/producer management, artist management, ect.

Start looking at the CD's of the artist's you would think would be interested in your songs. Who are the Labels, A&R, and music publishers (FamousMusic, RoxanneMusicASACP,SonyMusicPublishing?) Find their numbers in the sourcebook. All of them will say that they do not accept unsolicited materials. What this means is have someone else call as your "manager," (you wife (with her maiden name) you best friend) and ask to send in a demo of a new song for NSYNC or the Backstreet Boys or whoever that individual represents. 9 out of 10 time they will tell you to go ahead and send it. Make sure that your "managers" name and phone number are on the CD, the case, the letter, anything you send.

Lastly, start calling about 3 weeks to a month after you send it to see what they thought.

I hope this gets you started. Good luck, and keep writing hits.

j
 
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