Been a while.... :) "Isn't It A Shame"

[kindafishy]

Thanks fishydude... I'm just uploading a new mix now after a bit more EQ / level tinkering - just too many damn tracks ... glad you liked the tune

Had to come back for another listen. Sounds really good.

 

[NotThatBright]

I liked the guitar solo. Peaceful, yet deftly orchestrated. Somber, yet energetic.

I'd lower the vocal a little. Make the listener "lean in" a little to find out what is a shame.

 

[CrowsofFritz]

That verse guitar riff is one of the best I've ever heard. I really like it!

There's a sort of Spanish kinda thing going on with the solo. That's pretty neat. The vocals sound a little unenergetic, but that sort of fits the song in a way--in a good way, I mean.

 

[Armistice]

Had to come back for another listen. Sounds really good.

Thanks fishy... I just listened to it myself via my phone for the first time... so much smoother when you get away from studio monitors... couple more tweaks but almost there I think... cheers...

 

[Armistice]

I liked the guitar solo. Peaceful, yet deftly orchestrated. Somber, yet energetic.

I'd lower the vocal a little. Make the listener "lean in" a little to find out what is a shame.

Thanks NTB... I'm deliberately trying to not just noodle pentatonically with guitar solos where I bother to do them, so I spend ages trying to break bad old habits... glad you liked it. Thanks for listening.

That verse guitar riff is one of the best I've ever heard. I really like it!

There's a sort of Spanish kinda thing going on with the solo. That's pretty neat. The vocals sound a little unenergetic, but that sort of fits the song in a way--in a good way, I mean.

I like doing those "A chord variations" with the verse riff - and I'm a big fan of chucking a C# in as well... With the solo I just happened across the first little run = and built it out from there, I was quite happy with it in the end... and I guess I was deliberately staying "unenergetic" for the main vocal because I think I probably pitched the whole thing a tone too low but by the time I worked it out, it was done... and you don't want to hear me belting it out at that pitch... gets ugly, so I was deliberately being whispery and breathy... I learn how when I used to work on phone sex lines... Thanks for listening Crows...

 

[Tadpui]

I could use a little more drums in the mix, especially in the intro. Or maybe a little less electric guitar and vocal instead.

Very nice stereo spread, and very high quality sounds all around. That electric guitar sound is pretty amazing. It's rounded off on the highs but still present in the mix. Nice playing on the solo as well.

Cool song man, thanks for posting. Keep feeding us new ones!

 

[Armistice]

I could use a little more drums in the mix, especially in the intro. Or maybe a little less electric guitar and vocal instead.

Very nice stereo spread, and very high quality sounds all around. That electric guitar sound is pretty amazing. It's rounded off on the highs but still present in the mix. Nice playing on the solo as well.

Cool song man, thanks for posting. Keep feeding us new ones!

Thanks Tadpui - I have, since you listened, nudged the intro drums up a touch, it was bugging me too and done some minor minor tweaking generally along the lines you've mentioned based on my listening this afternoon for the first time on a "real" device (aka my mobile)...

Can't remember exactly how I did the main guitar now but it's my Levinson Blade "strat", neck pickup probably, through a decent amp...

 

[rayc]

David, I'm listening to the latest mix as I type, (It's Mon evening).
The leaning stuff must've been my ears.
I like the little lyrical twists - heir ... very cool.
The vocal style is interesting - languid but slightly evil.
I like the solo & whatever is happening to the guitar at the end f it.
I just had a thought - if the song had a more filigree guitar adornment this would be a lost classic Gangajang track.
Oh, how about posting the lyrics?

 

[VomitHatSteve]

Yep. Sounding better. Nice work.

 

[mjbphotos]

Definitely got all the initial issues sorted out. When the guitar lead part comes in,, the overall volume comes up a bit on everything, and then the final chorus is overall louder than the previous ones - but the background vocals have got a little buried.

 

[Armistice]

David, I'm listening to the latest mix as I type, (It's Mon evening).
The leaning stuff must've been my ears.
I like the little lyrical twists - heir ... very cool.
The vocal style is interesting - languid but slightly evil.
I like the solo & whatever is happening to the guitar at the end f it.
I just had a thought - if the song had a more filigree guitar adornment this would be a lost classic Gangajang track.
Oh, how about posting the lyrics?

Hi Ray... 2.21AM, getting up to take some Codrals, with no intention of soldiering on tomorrow seems like a good time to type out the lyrics for you... They're pretty simple ones in my personal scheme of things...

"You were an ordinary child
Weren't we all?
We'd run around and skin our knees
We'd fight, we'd fall

Isn't it a shame etc.

You were the heir apparently
The golden child
Left so unceremoniously
Your past reviled
Such a photogenic boy
Relentlessly
Forgotten everything you knew
It seems to me

Isn't it a shame
Isn't it a shame you didn't get to say

SOLO

Isn't it a shame
Isn't it a shame you didn't get to say
Goodbye etc"


I don't normally explain lyrics too much, but there's not a lot there to go on, so essentially it's the story of the person plucked from relative obscurity to stardom who promptly forgets his old pals in his haste to enjoy his new life. Bit of a vignette from the ones left behind, who are a tad bitter, shall we say. Not a personal story. I hesitated with "reviled" but it's sort of the correct word, just not common in songwriting... in the end, for lack of a better alternative, I stayed with it.

I read the term "relentlessly photogenic" in some article in, I think, the SMH, and I noted it down and been looking for a way to use it... not much rhymes with "photogenic" so I had to adapt it.

My girlfriend's not a fan of the song. When I told her people were saying nice things about it here she said "Perhaps I was wrong..." Thanks dear!

That's one of the frustrations of doing this.... "normal" people always want to hear what you're doing, and as the creator it's nice to have people close to you like what you create, but most "normal" people are stuck in whatever musical rut/groove they fell into in their teens / early 20s and listen, relentlessly to everything through than lens.

She hasn't adapted, bless her, to my sticking the acoustic guitars in the cupboard. She sure ain't gonna like where I'm going next, then.... Given the raging sore throat I now have (thanks people-at-work!) I'm not going to be tracking vocals to the next song (called "Goodbye Mr Pills" a title I stole (unapologetically) from a sad true Cave story TAE (I think) told about one of his relatives-in-law) this week, anyway. Back to bed then...

 

[Armistice]

Yep. Sounding better. Nice work.

Thanks VHS, yes I'm much happier with it now.

Definitely got all the initial issues sorted out. When the guitar lead part comes in,, the overall volume comes up a bit on everything, and then the final chorus is overall louder than the previous ones - but the background vocals have got a little buried.

Thanks mjb... I'm still trying to balance the backing vocals a bit... getting close.

 

[PoeticIntensity]

Yo.. I didn't read all of the comments, so if this has already been hashed out, my bad.

The lead guitar seems to be competing pretty heavily for the same space as the lead vocal. In quite a few areas, when I turned up the volume a lot, I kind of lost the lead vocal, and found my ears wondering what the lead guitar was doing in almost the exact same space. Drums are programmed? Wow... Kudos. Thems some pretty good sounding canned rhythms ya got there. Good song, man. If it were me, I'd be messing with the EQ of the vocal and guitars to see if I could separate them a bit... or maybe even panning...?

Anywho....

 

[Armistice]

Yo.. I didn't read all of the comments, so if this has already been hashed out, my bad.

The lead guitar seems to be competing pretty heavily for the same space as the lead vocal. In quite a few areas, when I turned up the volume a lot, I kind of lost the lead vocal, and found my ears wondering what the lead guitar was doing in almost the exact same space. Drums are programmed? Wow... Kudos. Thems some pretty good sounding canned rhythms ya got there. Good song, man. If it were me, I'd be messing with the EQ of the vocal and guitars to see if I could separate them a bit... or maybe even panning...?

Anywho....

Thanks PI - yeah, the "drums" are a bit of a labour of love with me... always been that way, even when I had the old Alesis drum machine 20 years ago... always tweaking The things I do to get sampled ride cymbals sounding half decent... don't start me..

I had a bit of a look at the guitars panning generally and found a couple of things that I had to fix up and I ended up pushing the main guitar a bit out of the centre when the voice is happening and nudging the high EQ on the voice a bit. I get what you meant, hopefully a bit better now. My problem is always that I'm just tinkering... I really don't have the ears for some of this stuff and so I rely heavily on this place to nudge me in the right direction.

Thanks for listening.

 

[schenkerguy]

Wow I enjoyed that! Kind of somewhere between Cat Stevens and Jethro Tull...

I would say the drums could come up, and bass, and guitars down, and a bit more stereo panning perhaps?

 

[rayc]

David,
keep the codine and nasal drying drugs going!
I had a flu shot a couple of weeks back!
My wife doesn't like any of my stuff.
She's happy for me to do it but wouldn't listen to any of it by choice.
We have 3 LPs in common in a collection of about 1200 records and a couple of thou CDs.
Then again, some of the stuff I've done and has been well received isn't stuff I'd choose to listen to either.
Stuff just comes out sometimes.
I like you Cohenesque tones mate.
Though I don't think you're quite that low - saw laughin' Lenny on his last tour - brilliant and very low.
It's a cool song and you've piqued my interest re new stuff.
Lyrics - I really like yours.
Thanks for taking the time & trouble to type them.
they read as well as the sound which is a rarity.
In terms of the song they're almost clear but just buried enough to entice further listening/research.
I like 'em like that.
I'm glad you didn't subconsciously slip into the Talk Talk melody of their song of the same name.

 

[Armistice]

Wow I enjoyed that! Kind of somewhere between Cat Stevens and Jethro Tull...

I would say the drums could come up, and bass, and guitars down, and a bit more stereo panning perhaps?

Thanks shenkerguy... how did you know I stand on one leg and grind my codpiece into a mic stand whilst playing the flute... Jethro Tull? Really? I'm not hearing it myself... but hey, I'll take compliments... Agree on the bass. Disagree on the drums... still settling on final levels. And I've got lots of stuff wiiiiiiide panning wise already... Thanks for the listen.

 

[Armistice]

David,
keep the codine and nasal drying drugs going!
I had a flu shot a couple of weeks back!
My wife doesn't like any of my stuff.
She's happy for me to do it but wouldn't listen to any of it by choice.
We have 3 LPs in common in a collection of about 1200 records and a couple of thou CDs.
Then again, some of the stuff I've done and has been well received isn't stuff I'd choose to listen to either.
Stuff just comes out sometimes.
I like you Cohenesque tones mate.
Though I don't think you're quite that low - saw laughin' Lenny on his last tour - brilliant and very low.
It's a cool song and you've piqued my interest re new stuff.
Lyrics - I really like yours.
Thanks for taking the time & trouble to type them.
they read as well as the sound which is a rarity.
In terms of the song they're almost clear but just buried enough to entice further listening/research.
I like 'em like that.
I'm glad you didn't subconsciously slip into the Talk Talk melody of their song of the same name.

Talk Talk covered my song, before I even wrote it? Damn, I hate that...

So last week I had a hankering to hear Physical Graffitti while I was driving so I put it on ... and when it was over, the car player skipped straight into what was next, LC's "I'm Your Man"... didn't even know I had it. Worst album ever in terms of the dinky musical accompaniment, but I got a chance to practice my Leonard tones... he can get about a tone below me, I think - I can hit it that low but without any volume at all.. I had a good thing going doing acoustic LC covers to older women when I was younger... they all loved him...