Can you believe a 14-year-old girl did this?

  • Thread starter Thread starter PoeticIntensity
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PoeticIntensity

PoeticIntensity

MagicJones.com (is a website)
Yeah, that's right. This group's manager hired me to track and mix their stuff. Very interested in any nits to make this sound better.

The whole thing was composed,written, played, and sung by a 14-year-old girl (except for drums).

Enjoy!

Dance With Me
 
Very talented for a 14 year old.

As far as the mix goes it's quite decent but I have two thoughts.

I can't understand what she's saying enough in the verses. I really have to strain to decipher her lyrics. Maybe push the vocals a little bit more. The guitars are quite in your face but the vocals aren't hitting me at all and they're the point to the song.

I'd experiment with some space. Verb or delay. Just wasn't enough depth for my liking. Do it subtly though. Too much verb will destroy the mix faster than anything. You've done a good job keeping everything high energy and you can quickly destroy that.

Those are just my humble suggestions. The mix is very good.
 
In Tune Audio said:
Very talented for a 14 year old.

As far as the mix goes it's quite decent but I have two thoughts.

I can't understand what she's saying enough in the verses. I really have to strain to decipher her lyrics. Maybe push the vocals a little bit more. The guitars are quite in your face but the vocals aren't hitting me at all and they're the point to the song.

I'd experiment with some space. Verb or delay. Just wasn't enough depth for my liking. Do it subtly though. Too much verb will destroy the mix faster than anything. You've done a good job keeping everything high energy and you can quickly destroy that.

Those are just my humble suggestions. The mix is very good.
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Thanks for the comments and suggestions! Yeah, keeping the energy high (which primarily comes from the guitars / bass / drums), and keeping the vocals prominent was a pretty delicate balancing act with this one. Her voice is powerful, but it just seems thin when put against the music. I've got as much verb as I can put in there without affecting the sharpness of her voice. I've also got a double-delay on there. So... I'm not quite sure how to make her vocals pop more without adversely affecting something else.

Thanks again for listening!
 
Harvey Gerst said:
I don't understand; if this girl did everything (except for drums), why do you refer to her as "this GROUP" and "THEIR stuff"?
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Great question. The 14-year-old writes and initially creates everything except the drum track because she doesn't know drums much. She has a bassist friend which gigs with her. Her sister also comes and does the drums, so when I refer to "the group", I'm referring to the people who follow her around so she can play live, but everything is initially created by her (except the drums).

Thanks for listening, Harvey! I'm honored you took the time. :)
 
PoeticIntensity said:
Thanks for the comments and suggestions! Yeah, keeping the energy high (which primarily comes from the guitars / bass / drums), and keeping the vocals prominent was a pretty delicate balancing act with this one. Her voice is powerful, but it just seems thin when put against the music. I've got as much verb as I can put in there without affecting the sharpness of her voice. I've also got a double-delay on there. So... I'm not quite sure how to make her vocals pop more without adversely affecting something else.

Thanks again for listening!
Click to expand...

Try a bit more compression on her vocals. That should at least help them from disappearing in the mix. There may be some pronunciation issues that can only be fixed through more practice; she did sound a bit tense/nervous in the recording.
Overall, it is a great start.
 
I agree the vocals are hard to decipher when the rhythm guitars come in.
Perhaps a little eq carving - drop 5 db at (say) 1500KHZ on guitars and up 5 db at same frequency on vocals. I tried this before and it seems to lift the vocals out a bit. The compression on vocals would just even it all out an I think that's already in place.
Great song and mix other than the above sounds great...!:D
 
Fishmed said:
Try a bit more compression on her vocals. That should at least help them from disappearing in the mix. There may be some pronunciation issues that can only be fixed through more practice; she did sound a bit tense/nervous in the recording.
Overall, it is a great start.
Click to expand...

Thanks for commenting!

Do her vocals disappear? I can't find any spot where her vocals even drop in volume... Can you give me a specific spot where they disappear? Maybe I'm missing it... (That's totally a possibility. I've been swimming in this song for days... My ears are pretty saturated at this point)

Yeah... Her vocals are compressed fairly heavily now. Any more and it starts to sound "compressed".

Thanks again!
 
ido1957 said:
I agree the vocals are hard to decipher when the rhythm guitars come in.
Perhaps a little eq carving - drop 5 db at (say) 1500KHZ on guitars and up 5 db at same frequency on vocals. I tried this before and it seems to lift the vocals out a bit. The compression on vocals would just even it all out an I think that's already in place.
Great song and mix other than the above sounds great...!:D
Click to expand...

I haven't really done any EQ carving yet. :spank: I might just try that.

Thanks for the suggestion, Gerry.
 
PoeticIntensity said:
Thanks for commenting!

Do her vocals disappear? I can't find any spot where her vocals even drop in volume... Can you give me a specific spot where they disappear? Maybe I'm missing it... (That's totally a possibility. I've been swimming in this song for days... My ears are pretty saturated at this point)

Yeah... Her vocals are compressed fairly heavily now. Any more and it starts to sound "compressed".

Thanks again!
Click to expand...

Most of it is due to pronunciation as she tends to fall off the note, or just running out of air. Another part is the doubled voices do not hold for the same duration, so as one voice drops, the vocals as a whole sound weak. The issue is more singing technique than anything. If you feel it is compressed as much as it can be, I would not do more.
 
Nice!

here's where I'd edit:

The last hit at 2:35...something's hitting late...or early...it's a double hit...something needs to be scootched.

The opening tom fills are unsteady in a couple places...I'd scootch, or copy/past some of the later material to replace the opening sequences...they're much stronger, later.

On the choruses, especially, I'd copy a single eighth note of, say, guitar, bass...and add a snare grace or something to fill '& of 4'.....the gap there might be killing to roll of the feel??

She, and you, done good! B52's live!
 
I can believe the lyrics were written by a 14 year old.
 
I'd beat-detective (or equivalent) those drums, they're messy and it just screams "demo".

Other than that, everything sounds good to me. And no, I wouldn't have guessed it was mostly-done by a 14 year old girl. She's very talented.

Good work d00d :D :drunk:
 
jeffmaher said:
Nice!

here's where I'd edit:

The last hit at 2:35...something's hitting late...or early...it's a double hit...something needs to be scootched.

The opening tom fills are unsteady in a couple places...I'd scootch, or copy/past some of the later material to replace the opening sequences...they're much stronger, later.

On the choruses, especially, I'd copy a single eighth note of, say, guitar, bass...and add a snare grace or something to fill '& of 4'.....the gap there might be killing to roll of the feel??

She, and you, done good! B52's live!
Click to expand...

Great catches, Jeff. The last hit has been buggin' me too, as well as the rhythm during the verses. The last one is stronger? I'll do some copy / pasting and see how that works for the first one.

Not sure what you're referring to when you talk about the gap in the "& of 4" on this song... I couldn't find any gaps there... Could you give me a bit more solid of a reference? I must be tired today...

Thanks for the comment and suggestions, Jeff!
 
TripleM said:
I can believe the lyrics were written by a 14 year old.
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Cool. Thanks for commenting. Glad it's believable.

philbagg said:
I'd beat-detective (or equivalent) those drums, they're messy and it just screams "demo".

Other than that, everything sounds good to me. And no, I wouldn't have guessed it was mostly-done by a 14 year old girl. She's very talented.

Good work d00d :D :drunk:
Click to expand...

Darn that timing... Same thing Jeff was saying. I'll have to get on that and fix it. I don't have any beat-detecting software (yet), so I'm off to "let's verify each beat in the whole song and shift where necessary" - land. ugh..

Ah well... A happy customer is worth it.

Thanks for commenting!
 
PoeticIntensity said:
Darn that timing... Same thing Jeff was saying. I'll have to get on that and fix it. I don't have any beat-detecting software (yet), so I'm off to "let's verify each beat in the whole song and shift where necessary" - land. ugh..

Ah well... A happy customer is worth it.

Thanks for commenting!
Click to expand...

I'd offer to do it, but PT LE doesn't have multi-track Beat Detective capabilities without the music production toolkit :(
 
philbagg said:
I'd offer to do it, but PT LE doesn't have multi-track Beat Detective capabilities without the music production toolkit :(
Click to expand...

Thanks for the sentiment... I've gotta get me some good beat-detection plugins.
 
Without having read the other comments mine were: "push up the vocals" and "not sure about those toms on the verses" so I think you have a fairly consistent reply in terms of nits. Otherwise its pretty impressive given how young she is.
 
beatlebum said:
Without having read the other comments mine were: "push up the vocals" and "not sure about those toms on the verses" so I think you have a fairly consistent reply in terms of nits. Otherwise its pretty impressive given how young she is.
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Gonna work on this now. Thanks for the nits, they're quite helpful! Unfortunately, the toms are pretty much set. I think a better beat could be worked out, but the drummer has the final say. I'll bring it up, but I doubt it's gonna change. I can tighten up the beat, but changing it is out of my hands.
 
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