A Mechanical Dream (mix for review)

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chuckduffy

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Hi All - this song is A Mechanical Dream. It's a bit of a departure for me as I used alot of electronic instrumentation as opposed to my normal guitar, bass, drums, piano stuff. I made many odd (for me) instrument, level and panning choices on this one. To me they suit the topic and nature of the song but I'm really interested in feedback. If you are listening and inclined to turn it off - please wait until the guitars come in as I'm super interested in comments on tone, panning and level on those.

THANKS!

ps - as with my last few posts - this song and all the other material I have been posting is intended for a collection of songs that I will zip up and post on the web as a sort of reverse birthday present to my friends in honor of my 45th! birthday on monday.
 
Cool (happy birthday in advance).

The chorus (I guess that's what it is?) where you sing in the higher registers is just awesome, as is the guitar laden section that follows it. The vocals in those sections are really well done and the chord progression there is brilliant.

Drums sound way cool - how were they done? Guitars sound great - nothing to worry about there. Piano part is really cool.

The bass region kind of confusing me though. It sounds like there's maybe a stand up bass in there? But the piano occupies some of that area too and the bass seemed to come and go at times. I'm thinking maybe you need to clean up the low end a little? Dunno, I could be full of shit. Not listening on great monitors or anything...

On the verses, I was thrown by the high pitched backing vocal - is that your voice pitch-shifted or a woman? It just seems a bit odd all by itself off to one side like that. The juxtapostion of the super high backing and rather low lead vocal was strange for me. Some minor level adjustments on the verses perhaps? Synth down a bit and piano up? Just what I'm hearing anyway.

Really cool though - thanks for sharing.
 
heatmiser said:
Cool (happy birthday in advance).

The chorus (I guess that's what it is?) where you sing in the higher registers is just awesome, as is the guitar laden section that follows it. The vocals in those sections are really well done and the chord progression there is brilliant.

Drums sound way cool - how were they done? Guitars sound great - nothing to worry about there. Piano part is really cool.

The bass region kind of confusing me though. It sounds like there's maybe a stand up bass in there? But the piano occupies some of that area too and the bass seemed to come and go at times. I'm thinking maybe you need to clean up the low end a little? Dunno, I could be full of shit. Not listening on great monitors or anything...

On the verses, I was thrown by the high pitched backing vocal - is that your voice pitch-shifted or a woman? It just seems a bit odd all by itself off to one side like that. The juxtapostion of the super high backing and rather low lead vocal was strange for me. Some minor level adjustments on the verses perhaps? Synth down a bit and piano up? Just what I'm hearing anyway.

Really cool though - thanks for sharing.
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Thanks man. I don't know what's chorus or verse on this one as the part that is the verse repeats the same lyrics and the part that is the chorus doesn't.

The drums - the bane of my existence. Unfortunately I don't have an environment where I can have or record real drums. I have a little simmons kit I actually bought for my son and over the years triggered addictive drums, slate drums, studio drummer and really hate them all. I decided there had to be a way to get SOMETHING out of this crap so I focused on addictive drums, built up a kit myself and got rid of everything except kick, snare, ride and a gigantic floor tom. Normally I just use the stereo out but this time I sent everything to individual outs including the overheads and messed with eq, compression and verb (on the snare) and sent all that to a bus and compressed it. I played super sloppy (the only way I know how as I am SOO not a drummer haha), got into ringo pretend mode and this time made damn sure that not all the hits were at equal volume :-)

The bass is confusing as hell, I know. I use a buzz bass from some electronic library for the 'mechanical dream' part, and an upright patch for the chorus. The musical idea was a transition from a robotic, mechanical pattern to something organic. I really wanted a real upright, but couldn't find anyone to play the part. The upright patch outright disappears in the mix on certain notes and I think you are on the right track that it involves the piano. When it's soloed it's ungodly loud.

The piano is a new sample library i got from Sampletekk that I really like called 'White Grand'. I love the sound of it, but unfortunately I hit quantize by mistake on the piano instead of the buzz bass, didn't realize it till a couple days later and it ends up being pretty heavy handed in some spots - there was actually alot more nuance in the original during the chorus. I think I just need to play it over.

The high pitched vocal, well that's funny. I recorded a version of this tune a couple years ago. My then 10 year old daughter was humming the song upstairs and so I got her up to the mic and that's what she did. She's about to turn 13 now, lives in complete HORROR of my music and her singing with me was an event that's not likely to ever be repeated :-) I know it's goofy and weird and pitchy and no one seems to quite know what the heck it is, but it's now so burned into my cortex that I can't have the song without it. Maybe I don't have to stick it way over to the side though.

Anyway - thanks for checking it out and the kind words and feedback. On another note note - Paper Cup got two big thumbs up from my wife!
 
I actually really liked it - including the high pitched voice in the background haha. Great job all around. The performances were all spot on and the mix sounded great as well.
 
BurningBridges said:
I actually really liked it - including the high pitched voice in the background haha. Great job all around. The performances were all spot on and the mix sounded great as well.
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Thanks man, I appreciate it! I just noticed something for the first time - apparently I got an email while I was recording as I can hear the outlook 'deeh-doo' sound on the track.
 
Aha. I've had my daughter (12) sing on some of my tunes too. Turns out I'm actually kind of a dick with other people in the "studio"......"try again!", "you were flat!"..."Again! With more felling!"...my poor girl.

I don't think it sounds bad, just a bit odd.

Thanks for all the info - very interesting about the drums. I think they sound great. My wife has big thumbs too, but sadly she was ambivalent about my song.
 
heatmiser said:
Aha. I've had my daughter (12) sing on some of my tunes too. Turns out I'm actually kind of a dick with other people in the "studio"......"try again!", "you were flat!"..."Again! With more felling!"...my poor girl.

I don't think it sounds bad, just a bit odd.

Thanks for all the info - very interesting about the drums. I think they sound great. My wife has big thumbs too, but sadly she was ambivalent about my song.
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I wish I could keep her going on this stuff, but man I mean she HATES the music, but really - how could it be any other way for a kid who is gonna turn 13 next week. I can't even imagine a world where my dad tried to get me to sing on a song when I was 13 :-)

I actually ended up really liking the drum sound I got out of a drum plugin for the first time EVER on this one - I think it worked out for me because I finally threw the presets in the garbage, built my own and mixed it like I would a real kit.
 
I like the song enough I don't care about the mix, I think that's a good sign. Yeah maybe lacking in the bass-like when you're singing in the higher register (and sounding like jerry garcia : )). I really the progression there and the guitar swells are very cool sounding. Not much to add other than I liked the tune.
 
I really like it boss,

The piano sounds lovely,
Love the union of electronic and jazzy feels
can't really say much else my monitors are like 10 ft away and i'm too lazy to plug them in
 
Man I really like this ...I love the sound of that ride....what is it, what did you use..mic's on the drums?....

The talent on this sight make me wanna puke!
 
Stratomaster said:
I like the song enough I don't care about the mix, I think that's a good sign. Yeah maybe lacking in the bass-like when you're singing in the higher register (and sounding like jerry garcia : )). I really the progression there and the guitar swells are very cool sounding. Not much to add other than I liked the tune.
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Thanks man! I think I am going to try and get my neighbor to play stand up on this one. Man, in all my years of recording stuff I don't think anyone has ever one said Jerry Garcia. When I first read the comment I was having a serious FTW moment, but when I actually thought about it - you gotta point! :-) I've never been much of a dead fan, but I will say that I would have to be deaf or dumb not to admit there was some insane talent involved in that group...

GazEcc said:
I really like it boss,

The piano sounds lovely,
Love the union of electronic and jazzy feels
can't really say much else my monitors are like 10 ft away and i'm too lazy to plug them in
Click to expand...

Thanks! I am actually happy with the sound of the new piano sample set I got - very playable, not too bright and seems to cut. I would prefer to mic my acoustic upright, but I don't have a suitable environment for recording piano. A slight drag for me is that I mistakenly quantized the part and it gets a bit heavy handed.

dreib said:
Man I really like this ...I love the sound of that ride....what is it, what did you use..mic's on the drums?....

The talent on this sight make me wanna puke!
Click to expand...

It was never my intention to make anyone ill :-)

I'm new here, and I love this place because people actually talk about music and songs. This whole posting stuff in public for feedback is also a relatively new thing for me (outside of friends). I've hung out in other forums and it can be a mixed bag. Over on GS (which disappeard last night and turned into a **** portal!), people talk about stuff like mid range honk, muddy mixes, poor sound-staging, the pre-amp of the minute, which mic, converter, compressor, etc to use but very little talk about songs, songwriting, or music. 90% of the time people are talking about buying shit to get warmth, or an analog sound or some other intangible. I actually went on a reverse trip last year - got GDS (gear disposal syndrome) and sold everything I had that I was just 'meh' about. I learned a TON on the forums, but for the most part I was bored to tears...

As for the drums it is Addictive Drums (specifically the 'retro-pack') triggered with a little simmons kit (more detail in post above). Lots of people seem to like it but I hated the sound of it for years. I also hate wasting money so I finally broke down and spent some time building my own kit, sending the pieces and overheads to individual outs and mixing it using some articles I read about mixing real drums. I'm certainly not advocating this plug-in though. The presets sound like awesome CANDY when soloed, and I think that is why people get hooked, but it doesn't sound good in the mix to me and when I hear it where someone has programmed it with a keyboard or midi loop I want to run screaming for the hills.

Gotta go cut some code now :-)
 
Wow, yea I read your post but I guess I still thought It was an acoustic kit that your triggered and real cymbals....I may have to give that software another look/listen.
 
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