Caramel - A smooth jazz version of Suzanne Vega's song

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glomu

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Caramel by glomu on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

After 7 years (!), I finally finished recording this song so I thought I would share it with you to get your opinion.

I recorded the drums, the guitars and the organ already in 2004, but it took me 7 years to find the right singer and flute player.

It is interesting to see how my recording habits, skills and the devices I used changed from 2004 when I started recording this with a Zoom MRS4 till 2011. If there is any interest, i am happy to share the details of how this recording came to life.
 
Drums up. Vox up. I couldn't tell there were drums until I noticed you said they were there; and I can't make out hardly a word the singer's singing. Can't hear a guitar, either...just lots of organ. On second thought, level down the organ, and everything should be swell! The flute player plays really well...a passage in there sounds just like Hubie Laws sailing through a line. Nice!
 
Hi,

thank you for the detailed feedback. Can you please confirm the system you are using for playback? I checked this mix on a number of different speakers as I usually do and I can hear the drums and the vocals perfectly well, not to mention the guitar. I checked it on my mp3 player, in the car, various headphones, the home hifi, a computer hifi, a PA system and obviously the speakers I used for mixing (GENELEC 8020BPM ANTHRAZIT - Thomann Irish Cyberstore)

I do not mean to say your judging is not right, I just want to learn what system causes you to judge so :-)

" I couldn't tell there were drums until I noticed you said they were there"

The whole song starts with drums :-) and the first 30 seconds is drums and guitars only
 
I can hear everything BUT the guitars chords (in the channel opp the organ?) sound like a vamped organ - the thing doesn't start to come into its own until it arpeggiated at the end.
the bass is a little too fat & spreads out across other parts - you may need to pull it back just a little whilst peaking a little somewhere (4db at 3Khz maybe) to give it some definition.
The leslei swirl effect at the end isn't much chop sorry.
Nice recording, nice playing, nice singing all in all a little too nice for my tastes but good work generally - just a few things to sort out.
 
you are right about the leslie but that was a must, something I had to do to cover an error in the original recording. I recorded the guitar and the organ and the drums in 2004 on 32khz compressed with a zoom msr4, not something I would really do today, but those times were different so were my equipment and options. :-)

for purely sentimental reasons, i wanted to keep as many of the original recordings as possible when I finally had the chance to finish this earlier this year, so I went for using the non-real stereo drums and the guitar even though they were far from good from a recording point of view. I polished them up the best I could, but there still was an issue with the guitar.

The last chord was cut off (the ring out part) somehow during the number of iterations through all these years. As I really wanted to end the guitar somehow, I went for the leslie, which is "OK" I think, but not nice. Still, workes well here.

You might be right about the bass, I had two final mix versions, one with more bass one with less. This shows I was not convinced myself either :-) So after showing this to a number of people, I went with the more bass version, but maybe I should have chosen the other mix with a less accented bass line.

Thank you for the input, really appreciate it.
 
I assumed the opening chords were a keyboard. And I also assumed the bass was an organ foot-pedal....thus, my comment 'reduce organ'. Non-idiomatic execution, and an overall round sound, had me fooled.

I don't recall a drum intro. I was half-way through the listen [AT M50 mixing phones] when I saw in your post that there were drums. I had to listen carefully to hear them. Nothing memorable in the intro [not good...there's the opportunity to grab attention] ...and buried in the mix under the 'bass' and combo guitar/organ mid-boom. The recording has lots of midrange power...all coming from the above combo. That group is the chordal underpinning for the flute, vocal, and whatever else...the rest...the features. The roles of the instrumentation are reversed; that is, the flute and vox should be resting on and over the thick, un-varying-to-a-fault chordal support....which support is not only stomping the filigree, but also never takes a breath and/or yields space....little melodic or rythmic variation. A big fat unbroken rope. Little in the way of thematic ideas, there. I thinks ya need that, beyond just ratcheting-down that group. But that might be another 7 years??

I think you should try eliminating the organ, bass and guitar....mix the rest, then bring up the bass, guitar, and organ to support what you hear. That might get it right. The bass and drums should, importantly, compliment. The chordal support from the guit and keys are almost superfluous: The flute and vox do an adequate job of outlining the changes. And the end result mix would breath nicely...the way a good Jobim-esque latin jazz could and should. MHOYYMV
 
thank you, that was an interesting insight to a different opinion

It might take 7 years to dismountle the big fat unbroken rope as you call it, but to be honest, I am not sure I want to do that, you see, there is a concept behind it.

This song was ment to be minimalistic from the beginning as I wanted to make a LOT of space for the vocal and the solo part. Those are airy and breath beautifully in my opinion, everything else is there only to create the smooth jazz, bossa feeling without taking any attention from the singer.

You can hear this very often in Dido songs. While the approach and the idea is questionable, your comments tell me that I somewhat succeded with my original plans.

Thank you for the long comment once again, was an interesting read.
 
The seven year thing was a joke. :^)

I have to revise my original comments a bit. I was listening in near-mono...after a full day mixing. I'm in full-stereo, now....fresh ears.

Guitar is too loud and boomy and stiff; and, like the organ, doesn't yield space. Organ...ditch it superfluous. Funky chord #2 in verse progression Yike! Needs a re-voicing, at least. The airiness is more apparent with the moo-ey guit and bass L, and the organ R. But they still overwhelm. The flute part needs editing where it stomps on the vocal....too busy in parts.

I missed the drum intro cuz I skipped the applause....went too far ahead. Sorry.


It's a nice piece of work...love the vox and flute. But I believe its potential is un-mined.


It needs editing. Acoustic bass or MIDI equivalent....more transient and less ring to get tangled in the guitar low mids...there's a lot of mush there....panned close. The funky chord might work with less confusion in the LM's left. Less guitar....thin it. Lower it. The organ...I don't like. Cheeses the mood.

My honest opinion FWIIW. I don't think you are acheiving your stated goals. Or I'm just confused at how such a thick chordal undergirding can lend to the feature parts breathing!
 
The seven year thing was a joke. :^)

I have to revise my original comments a bit. I was listening in near-mono...after a full day mixing. I'm in full-stereo, now....fresh ears.

Guitar is too loud and boomy and stiff; and, like the organ, doesn't yield space. Organ...ditch it superfluous. Funky chord #2 in verse progression Yike! Needs a re-voicing, at least. The airiness is more apparent with the moo-ey guit and bass L, and the organ R. But they still overwhelm. The flute part needs editing where it stomps on the vocal....too busy in parts.

I missed the drum intro cuz I skipped the applause....went too far ahead. Sorry.


It's a nice piece of work...love the vox and flute. But I believe its potential is un-mined.


It needs editing. Acoustic bass or MIDI equivalent....more transient and less ring to get tangled in the guitar low mids...there's a lot of mush there....panned close. The funky chord might work with less confusion in the LM's left. Less guitar....thin it. Lower it. The organ...I don't like. Cheeses the mood.

My honest opinion FWIIW. I don't think you are acheiving your stated goals. Or I'm just confused at how such a thick chordal undergirding can lend to the feature parts breathing!
 
this is in some parts really contrasts your previous posts :-) which if sine, but fun to see

i started this whole thread by explaining why certain things cannot be changed, like the bass or the guitar from a composition point of view. BTW, i like the chord progression, I wrote that 7 years ago and wanted to keep everything I had already ready for sentimental reasons. Composition wise there is nothing I would change on it but mixing wise bass and organ is something I might work on based on your suggestions. I wrote my reasons for the bass already, the organ is difficult to put in properly, once you have a cheesy click organ recorded in mono 7 years ago coming from a cheap yamaha keyboard.... not ideal...

if ever I will have a lot of time, I might redo the whole song with real drums, proper organ, with my hopefully improved guitar skills keeping the voice the flute only. Should that ever happen I will take your notes into consideration. It would be a brilliant project, to build everything around a voice and flute track. Nice challenge
 
Fun to see...but maybe instructive?

I was checking one of my mixes in near mono like I always do...cuz an awful lot of music is heard in effective mono...like outside a doorway...on a distant radio, etc. Listening in mono to your work, at that unintended setting , the organ, bass and guitar blended into a mass of mids...smothering the vox, flute and drums. Not everyone will hear the work wearing headphones, or sitting centered at some speakers. The mono mix is how half the listeners might hear your tune. Try it in mono, and see if you like it.
 
Drums are pretty dry comparatively. About every 20 seconds, I'd notice how dry they are. Add some silky reverb to em', and it'd be golden. Nicely done.
 
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