A Stupid Song

  • Thread starter Thread starter TripleM
  • Start date Start date
Cool one TM!

Sounds like a 60's surfer tune,especially the lead.
Nice vocals as always.

I'm listening on headphones,but the vocals sound too loud to me also.
The distorted rythym guitar dosn't seem to fit and mushes it up a bit too.
JMHOP:)


"The melody sticks to your shoe,and I got the words all wrong."
That's a piece of lyrical brilliance man!:D

Definitly a fun tune!

Pete
 
ooo I like the production of this. Very reminiscent of old beatles. Not that I'm a Beatles expert, but that's what it reminds me of.

LOL..."repeating lines is really dumb... repeating lines is really dumb..."

I LOVE the way the verse comes in at 2:17 on the word "how." It kinda slides right in there.

Great lyrics! Very funny!

LOL. Very clever actually. Nice job. :D

I don't do this very often but this made me smile so much I gotta give this thread five stars!
 
i love your lyrics and music......i love your writing i guess, you've always got something clever to say. i especially like the line about repeating lines lol.

since this is the mixing clinic i'll just say i dislike your finished sound. that's no secret to you or me. i'm not sure what it is but it still has this overall harsh sound to it. the opening guitar sounds pretty nice, but the drums and vocal just sound real harsh and dirty. i don't know how or why, they just do. maybe the vocal is just too hot?

your singing has gotten better and better each time so that's a huge plus and damn what a range you have. fuck, that's really high up there!

the mix actualy sounds pretty right to me, it's just the individual tracks don't sound very clean.

edit......the words in this song are brilliant! 5 stars.
 
This is fun. Shower this thing in percussion and party noise makers and have a blast with it! Sounds cool! Love the "yeah yeah yeah" near the end, nice touch.
 
listening again on my monitors. sounds less asslike so that was my soundcard. sorry.

Still like the opening guitar. Vocals still hot, and that lead guitar line (which is very happy and cool) is a bit hot as well.

great songwriting! a++++++ for that.
 
How refreshing was that???

Just what I needed, very cool song!

Joe













no, no no no, yea yea yea.






















That's what I testified at the rape trial
 
Trip,

Man you can sing, you have a unique tone and delivery as well.
I like the fixation with a stupid song. Nice vox and chorus.
Stick a whistle, and a siren in this thing, WTF!
Nice cliche representation, Don't forget Hey Hey Hey

I gotta clean a hook off my shoe:D

Joel
 
vintage tuneage.. vocals are perfect.. It bought a smile to my face I tell ya! ----> :D

the only beef I have with the mix is during the vocals the music sounds too low.. I was in the other room as it was playing and I could only hear the vocals.. Then again, it made the vocals stick to my brain so I don't know man.. This music definitely makes me think of a happier time.. That's about all I can say.. nice job! more volume on the rhythms.. Maybe the song could be cut down by a minute..
 
scottboyher - it's meant to be a fun song and I'm glad you liked it.

freshears - SUPER reviewer? Glad I'm good for something huh? I appreciate your compliments. On the harmonies... Not sure if you're talking about the parts or the performance or both. But I'll tell you what I do. One thing is I study harmonies from other performers. Some of my favorite harmonies are from : The Beatles, Matthew Sweet, and the Gin Blossoms. There are probably others. ELO comes to mind too. I first record the lead tracks (usually 3 layers). Then I sit in a chair with an SM57 pointed at my mouth and try a bunch of different things. I have a guitar handy in case a note or two don't sound right. I'll probably try anywhere from 5 to 15 different things for both the high and low parts. Then I'll record 2-3 layers of those. Sometimes (like on this one) the layers are different in a spot or two. You can get some great vocal sounds that way.

Hi Pete. I'm glad you listened. I'm glad you liked the shoe line. On the distorted guit, I was trying to get something a little midrangy to fill that space in. I'm not a big fan of it myself.

SLuiCe - I appreciate the comments. I'm still far from satisfied with the sound. If you don't mind, I might PM you with some specific questions.

moskus - thanks for the listen and comments.

eric - thanks for the thoughts. The vocals sounded hot to me too, but like a lot of people I struggle with sitting the vocals right. Lately I've been trying to sit them where I think they're too hot, believing that should be about right. Maybe my ears are trained to the point where I should trusting them. I didn't think this one sounded overly harsh - but given your second post I think that might have been your sound card acting up perhaps? I'm not satisfied yet with my sound either.

fprod - hey finally someone mentioned the "Yeah Yeah Yeah". Everybody mentions a Beatles sound, but not the obvious reference. I was goofing around with the song one day and stuck that in.

Smokepole - glad you liked it. The "no no no yeah yeah yeah" stuff was all part of the stupid song concept. Glad you caught it.

jcmm - I tried to work in all the cliches I could. I ran out of time before I got to the hey heys. :D

Sam - thanks for the listen. It seems to be a consensus that the vox are too hot. That's actually fine. They eat up a lot of headroom. Maybe I can get a bigger sound if I pull them back and give some more space to the instruments. Thanks again Sam.

Thanks to everyone in fact... Trip
 
Btw, TripleM....I'm waiting for you to send me your bassless version.

If you still want my silly dutch bass playing on your stupid song that is....
 
lol...you know, just reading the song titles on your NWR page is pretty entertaining.

The Food Court Manager
_
I'm No Steve McQueen
_
My Friend Ben
_
Stupid Song
_
Time Machine
_
Say Goodnight
_
Spider-Man

What I Want

It reads kind of like a "Best Of Dave Barry" (sp?).

I like the tune. But then, I like making fun of people who are successful.

"I'll sue you back to Stone"... that's my only beef...sorta' reminds me of "bombing somebody back to the stoneage"...but not quite. Yes, I realize it's just a stupid song. It's actually a very clever song.

THE MIX - I haven't read the other comments, so if this has been covered, I'm sorry..but man, if you don't get some low end into your vocal somehow, I'm going to have to boycott your tunes...LMAO! It's for humanitarian reasons...See, you've got a really high pitched vocal as it is, so throw in the fact that it seems to be recorded with about 40 low cut filters, and well...it bothers my dog a lot, lol. She just kinda' whimpers when I turn up your tunes really loud.

I hope you don't get pissed at my comment...the low end itself seems maybe a little light, but it's getting tons better. The whole mix is just super "middy" to my ears, which (I think) is a combo of the snappy snare, kind of soft kick, and the layered vocals that don't have any "warmth"...

By way of preference testing, lol, I'd really like to hear some of your vocal work without all the doubling and tripling. I know doubling kinda' beefs up a vocal, but it can make it more blurry at the same time, and I wonder if somehow you're EQ'ing your layered vocals in a way that clears them up...I'm grasping at straws here, lol.

The important part (to me) is the tune, and it's a witty, melodic good thing.

Oh, and please tune to 440...it makes playing guitar to your tunes too hard, lmao.

Bye for now
 
Thanks chris. I appreciate the duplicate, long posts. :D

The "back to stone" thing was the biggest forced rhyme I've had to use in a couple of years. Oh well. That and the "what the hell does that mean" line were the only two that I had a dislike for. So that's not too bad.

I just listened to Sluice's latest back to back with this. I noticed a huge lack of low end in mine. You've pointed this out (correctly). I'll also bet this is what accounts for your observation of it sounding "middy." What I can't figure out is when I try to put any low end in to the mix it's starts clipping quickly. I'm stuck on that one.

I'm a sworn doubler. I don't know if I can bring myself to quit. I know... Next time I'll post a special chrisharris mix without the doubling.
 
What do you mean by "start putting low end into the mix?"

What is the source of the low end? Just bass? Or do you mean raising low EQ levels on guitars and bass? How are you adding low end? What's clipping- the whole mix, or just the offending track?


Maybe I can help with more details.

I don't know how to say this, but this is such a stupid song. :)
 
SLuiCe said:
What do you mean by "start putting low end into the mix?"

What is the source of the low end? Just bass? Or do you mean raising low EQ levels on guitars and bass? How are you adding low end? What's clipping- the whole mix, or just the offending track?


Maybe I can help with more details.

I don't know how to say this, but this is such a stupid song. :)
Click to expand...

I'll PM you when I get time (which will probably be next week). Thanks SLuiCeR.
 
TripleM said:
Thanks chris. I appreciate the duplicate, long posts. :D
Click to expand...
I have NO idea what you're talking about

stupid freaking slow BBS timing out

Yeah, your post confused me on many levels, as I can see it did Tom. I don't think I've ever "added" bass to a mix; I usually have to surgically cut huge amounts of it, and I honestly thought that's what you had done.

Now, I'll say this...if you ARE trying to add some low mids or high lows in for warmth, and it's "clipping," then you need to turn the mix down before boosting any frequencies. I should know the answer to this by now, but I have no idea how you're tracking or recording. In most software, it's a pretty simple process to just "de-amplify" a file. For me, I hit a button called "Amplitude" and tell it to cut the whole mix by some number/amount of db's. Obviously, if you've got a mix that has it's highest peaks already at 0db, then boosting any frequency or band is going to cause unpleasantness, lol.

But again, there's no reason on earth why you should be ADDING lows to a mix with EQ. On very rare occasions, when I've gotten lazy, I'll take a mix that I've gutted too much and put some of the lows that I took out back in, but I've yet to achieve a decent result. It's best for me to go back to the multi-track session and start over from scratch. My own PERSONAL rule of thumb these days is that if I've made more than 2 attempts to EQ a mix, I need to start over. Of course, each "attempt" may involve anywhere from 3 -10 parametric cuts, but if I haven't gotten close after cutting 20 bands, I need to start over, lol.

Now, if you're NOT cutting lows in your mixes, and your vocal still sounds like it does, then I'd say you have some serious deficiency either in your soundcard, or ... hell, I don't think a mic could even do that unless you're singing from 10 feet away. You got a new sound card recently, right?...Jeez, I really should read this thread.

Sorry for cluttering up your thread...but I'm really pretty interested in this now.
 
chrisharris said:
... hell, I don't think a mic could even do that unless you're singing from 10 feet away.
Click to expand...

or one inch away is more what it sounds like to me. maybe it sounds like you're overloading somewhere in the chain.
 
OK I see why I confused you two (or three). I neglected to mention that this mix has a ton of bass cut already. By "adding bass" I meant putting some of that back. I rolled lows off the guitars (both parts), lead vox, and the bass itself. I also pulled back the faders considerably on all these parts (most notably the bass).

Once I get the time, I planned to send SLuiCe (or anyone else who cares) a more detailed description of the process I use. I could use some pointers. I picked SLuiCe because: 1) he's good, and 2) I remember him saying he uses Sonar and I use HS2002, so product terminology is not as much of an issue. If anyone else cares enough I'll certainly dump my woes on them as well. I have no pride.

Sorry for crossing you up.
 
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