A new song - Almost There

Tom Paul

Tom Paul

Member
Here is a song that is mostly acoustic. The bass is an electric bass because that is all we have. It's about the time of my life approaching retirement from a job that has nothing to do with music. I have the same feeling as I had when I was a boy heading for vacation at Lake Erie.

I put new strings on the dobro for this one. A friend named John Marsden produced and mixed it. I love working with this guy because he really pushes me to improve my writing and playing. I scrapped 2 "complete" versions of this song before we tracked and mixed this one. A lot of my problem is timing. When you layer tracks over each other it is really hard to build a groove and songs turn to shit quickly.

Almost There by Tom Paul | Free Listening on SoundCloud
 
Listened ON HPs. I m not a detailed listener, just FYI. Mix sounded clean and balanced. I thought the vocals were a little too forward, but that is a personal taste. It seemed it was missing some dynamics, maybe compression threshold was too low. Not a lot, just with all those acoustic instruments there would have been more life (personal taste again). But no mud, nice clear mix all the way through.

Other than that, really good mix, sounded pretty commercial, should play well for most listeners. Nice job over all.
 
Green Day singing lead for the Marshall Tucker Band..........This one is "Almost There".......:facepalm:

I like the overall feel, my only crit and it is small, is I feel the flute should be gone after the fiirst verse/chorus and replaced with an electric guitar to add more oomph to it....It certainly should not come back in after the 2nd turn-around...At the very least maybe add the electric to duel the flute

No timing issues for me on this final one....Dobro sounds great coming from a country dude & the harp.

But I am thinking this one is done ........Green Day meets Marshall Tucker...
 
Thanks for listening. I have never gotten compaired to Billy Joe Armstrong and I take that as a compliment. My friend mixed it and I know he did some work on my harmonies but I don't think the lead vocal was tuned.

Tom
 
Thanks for the comments. Pretty much all of my songs are guitar based. Thinking of this as part of an album or group of songs...the flute gives them some variety...and I rarely get access to the flute player....a friend of a friend kind of thing.

Tom
 
The Green Day thing was funny. Your voice does sound like Billy Joe A.

I thought the bass was a bit loud. I'd turn it down a db or two.

I didn't care for the flute. Just a personal thing.

During the verses, the drum programming was a little robotic. Sounded like a polka beat.

I might compress the vocal (harder). It fights with the guitars in spots, and it's way on top of the guitars in other spots.
 
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