Fem Rocker #2 ... with Cello

studioviols

studioviols

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Available here, http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=3196&alid=-1 , this is Austin, Texas hometown favorite and Nationally Acclaimed former lead singer for 'Sister Seven' ... rocker Patrice Pike performing 'Volcanoes' in the Studio for her album 'Fencing Under Fire'.

I have added a CELLO track. This MP3 is primarily for user critique of my CELLO playing, recording and mixing skillz.

This has been used as DEMO to Patrice Pike, they liked it, and I'm hoping she will include me as part of her touring 'line-up', and in her studio work, as a result of my continuing demo to her, (playing violin, viola and cello). The cello in this track is highly processed with outboard gear for a smooth, compressed sound. The Cello is recorded here through a fishman bridge pickup. Volume envelopes were used in SONAR to further smooth the dynamics of the cello track throughout the song.
 
DUDE !

I have about one million songs I'd like you to play your strings on.

I absolutely love the sound of the strings on this song.

The song is nice. The lead vox is very, very good.

Although, just to be a very, very hard critic, she does "put it on" a bit.
Which I personally find annoying.

Harmonies, excellent.

Arrangement and over all performance, flawless.

Mix, Very good, I would like to hear just a little more space in it though.

Dropping 5.


Sean
 
Added Harmony Vocals

At about 1:39 in the song, at the lyric 'Deep purple iris ... ' , a section starts where Libby Kirkpatrick sings backup.

What Libby is doing there is a 'glissando' with her voice. She moves a minor third up from the note she starts on, and then using that note as a new foundation she moves up a perfect fifth.

Libby has studied and practiced this glissando method I have talked about, she moves seamlessly here from about a Major second below her break between chest-head voice, well up into her head-voice range.

There is another vocalist singing there, me.

I sing two seperate harmony lines, doing much what Libby does. I take this technique one-step further by moving from my head-voice to my falsetto.

While there is argument here, among male voice teachers and students as to what constitutes, body-voice, head-voice, and falsetto in a male, I am using the glissando method practice to move seamlessly through these elements in my voice.

Each of the musical lines I sang there is tripled ... in badass SONAR of course, they are mixed together with quite a bit of delay, a medium sized reverb, and some compression. I am mixed just a tiny bit softer than Libby Kirkpatrick, I let her 'lead' the backup vocals.

I'm very interested to see if Patrice will notice I've added vocals there.

By the way, I'm naturally a low baritone.

As to your thoughts on strings and your own music :

Listen to your songs and pick three candidates from your songs that you KNOW, that it is OBVIOUS that there is a string part in those songs, a string part that is 'yelling at you' out of the tune.
PM me the links to those songs and their threads if they are reviewed, I would love to listen to them, and we can select one to work together on. As I'm already working with a board member to produce a viola part to one of his songs, and I have not had the opportunity to post a violin part to the board, I'd like to use violin on one of your tunes, if possible.

But pick the three tunes of yours that are closest to your heart that are strong candidates for real strings, and I'll listen, then we'll decide on which one to use.

I think it will be very instructional for all of use to compare what real strings sound like as oppossed to what the person on the board with the best string samples can do with them.

Thanks for the review.
 
JUst got around to listening to "The Wreckage", I think this was the right thread,
!!!!! it just ended, it was live? :0
wow,

Great song, great performances. Vocal tone was a little boxy, but if this was a live take that explains it.
 
Yeah, cello sounds good to me. Beware studioviols! I'm sensing an impending stampede of folks here with songs that need strings (I've only got about 40...:)).

Chris
 
Hey SV,
Very cool stuff here. Your cello work is cool. Ive never heard of the chic so i cant tell ya if i think its conducive to her style.... ...but it sounds great as it is. Its mixed in nicely too. She has a GREAT voice btw. It sounds to me like the vocs could use just a hair more compression to set em back "just a touch".
Nice stuff here man... ...good luck with the gig.
 
Beautiful playing

And the emotions you are pulling out of the strings is great.

On the mix, there are a couple of places where the strings are fighting her voice to be the dominant sound. Singers generally do not appreciate this. Watch the mix in these spots.

I think your playing and interpretation are astounding.
 
Hey...I downloaded this a few days ago and am just getting around to really listening to it. I had to go to page 3 to find it :mad: Holy Happy Bumps Batman.

The Cello parts sound very cool. Very well played and mixed.

The lead vocalist has very good voice.

There are some bg vocal parts that bother me. I noticed no one else mentioned it...so...erm...well...maybe I'm just an idiot.

The first example hits me at about 1:02 - 1:20 (chorus) especially at the "London Bridge" lyric at 1:08. There seems to be pitchiness there with the bg vox & a gliss there of either a vocal or processed violin or synth part. It all kind of comes together in a wierd way right there. It didn't seems to be a problem in the second chorus although some of the bg vox didn't still turn me on there either. There are a few other spots as well where the bg vocal seems a bit loose to me.

I love this idea. It's a cool sound, cool vibe going & the whole bit. I know you just did the Cello so maybe some of this doesn't matter to you. But if you want to pass it on...that's cool.

Sorry it took so long

Nice work :)
 
background

The bgVox at 1:02 to 1:20 is done by a singer-songwriter name 'Libby Kirkpatrick' a buddy of Patrice Pike's ... the primary performer and singer-songwriter here and leader of the band 'Black Box Rebellion' which is doing this studio recording, (without my cello of course).

Yes, Libby is using a 'glissando' vocal technique, she has a wild voice and singing style herself and I urge you to visit her site and get a taste of that.

That's a guitar wailing around in a glisando fashion also.

From 01:39 to 02:00, those are my added vocals, two lines, one which doubles what Libby Kirkpatrick is doing there, (high in my falsetto). She is singing a glissando figure that outlines the chord presented there and she starts on the fifth of the chord, glissando's up to a perfect fourth above that note, (the root of the chord), and then continues up a major third to finish and hold out the third of the chord. She uses this glissando technique to present an outline of the current chord in second inversion and provides a really neat, and eeire vocal backup there I think.

So I heard this theory there ...

What I am doing there is doubling her part and also outlining the chord in first inversion, which makes for a harmony in thirds, and I start deep in my falsetto for that second vocal line, an octave below the other stuff.

It's a theory I had when listening to what was happening there.
 
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