Rock Cover: Please, please, please by the Smith’s.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Flyguitarfish
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Flyguitarfish

Flyguitarfish

Active member
I’ve been wanting to make this cover for a while. It’s such a sad song and I wanted to put my own spin on it, so I added some of my own lyrics and rearranged a few things to lift it back up on the back half of the song. Added a little more balance to the sadness, if you will.

Drums are a bit sloppy so go easy on me! I went full fuzz tone on the guitars so that’s also baked into the cake. I’m more interested in mix critiques. Thanks in advance!

 
Excellent cover. Well done for doing three new things: rocking it up, adding your own vocal style, and adding a new verse. Most covers end up being half-hearted copies of the much better original. For obvious reasons: the person covering likes the song, and ends up trying to emulate it note for note and inevitably failing. Your new verse lyrics fit, but feel a bit drowned out by the music when they come in. Reminiscent of Psychedelic Furs version of Pretty in Pink, and the 90s US skater bands.
 
Flyguitarfish said:
I’ve been wanting to make this cover for a while. It’s such a sad song and I wanted to put my own spin on it, so I added some of my own lyrics and rearranged a few things to lift it back up on the back half of the song. Added a little more balance to the sadness, if you will.

Drums are a bit sloppy so go easy on me! I went full fuzz tone on the guitars so that’s also baked into the cake. I’m more interested in mix critiques. Thanks in advance!

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Great version - how did you get you vocals to sound like they do? Everything including the vocals has a lot of space around them - it sounds really cool - and the solo is very nice - really ambient but present.
 
Thekesslerboy said:
Excellent cover. Well done for doing three new things: rocking it up, adding your own vocal style, and adding a new verse. Most covers end up being half-hearted copies of the much better original. For obvious reasons: the person covering likes the song, and ends up trying to emulate it note for note and inevitably failing. Your new verse lyrics fit, but feel a bit drowned out by the music when they come in. Reminiscent of Psychedelic Furs version of Pretty in Pink, and the 90s US skater bands.
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Awesome, thank you for the compliments and feedback.

I was definitely torn on the new verse effect. I opted to let it be super wet in verb as a purposeful effect because it’s about a dream I had. I cut out the guitars in that section and left a distorted bass. I felt it was intelligible enough. I’ll give it some more thought. I really appreciate the comment!

Also, I’ll check out the P Furs Pretty in Pink!
 
Papanate said:
Great version - how did you get you vocals to sound like they do? Everything including the vocals has a lot of space around them - it sounds really cool - and the solo is very nice - really ambient but present.
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Thank you!

I always struggle to fit vocals into my dense mixes. This time I compressed pretty hard going in through an empirical labs Mike-e channel strip (Nuke). I rolled off most of the low end (very little left under 300k), compressed hard again with a CLA-76, added some Decapitator, MicroShift (only about 20% wet), and Space Blender (only 20% wet) then a de-easer. No vocal double.

I double tracked the backup vocals and panned those hard R and L to be out of the way. The backups had some of the highs EQd out to leave room for the main vocal.

The guitars are pretty scooped in the mids also leaving room for the main vocals. The R and L fuzz guitars had more “fizz” in them. I also put a third fuzz guitar in the center to thicken things up and blend with the bass, but the center guitar had less “fizz” to not compete with the vocals.

I always double track my lead guitars and panned those each only about 15 to the L and 15 to the right. Then put a stereo plugin on. My favorite is CLA Epic.
 
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Fantastic ! Awesome job on the vocals and guitar work. Everything was thick and immersive. Loved it .. mark
 
Another solid performance Flyguy
I’m not familiar with the original but will look it up for a reference listen when I get a spare moment.
 
BTStudio said:
Another solid performance Flyguy
I’m not familiar with the original but will look it up for a reference listen when I get a spare moment.
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Thanks BTS! Your feedback is always appreciated!

Definitely check out the original! You’ll hear a great song and will appreciate the differences between the two versions.

Thanks again!
 
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