Freshly written and recorded song in the Dorian mode

[nukeitout]

It's called, "how right"

Opinions would be greatly appreciated on any aspect of the recording. This is my first song in the Dorian mode. It actually started as me just experimenting with chord progressions and some scales and evolved into this song in a few hours:

Thanks in advance

 

[Greg_L]

Maybe I'm just musically retarded, but I couldn't really follow along too well. It's sort of all over the place. Lots of hiss and noise in the recording.

 

[The Wink Licks]

Guitar sounds good, I like it.

Vocals don't sound so good and could use some work. Recording sounds raw, which can be good, especially for guitar but not so much for vocals...Were the vocals/guitar recorded at the same time, or...?

 

[Monkey Allen]

Yeah, all the harmonica and percussion sounds good, well recorded, sounds clean

 

[nukeitout]

Guitar sounds good, I like it.

Vocals don't sound so good and could use some work. Recording sounds raw, which can be good, especially for guitar but not so much for vocals...Were the vocals/guitar recorded at the same time, or...?

Everything was recorded separately, but all the tracks are dry. A few were eq'd a little and that's all. Some reverb on the vox would probably help a little. I wrote and recorded this by myself all in like two hours, so my ears are a little fried now... I'll come back to it tomorrow and add a little 'verb and do some tweaking.

I don't understand about the hiss, though, because I'm getting practicaly no hiss/noise through my system ( jbl control 5's through a higher end kenwood receiver hooked to my delta1010lt set at 92k/24bit). It might have something to do with the fact that everything was recorded with a pair of SDC's (msh-1's) and not all the tracks had the high end rolled off with eq... I might go through and do that, too.

Thanks for the comments! If I get a chance to remix this soon I'll upload and post the link.

 

[DaSpider]

The guitar sounds nice. Harmonica too. But the rhythm seemed really jerky in the beginning and again in the middle. I don't know if you were trying to get an emotional / restless feeling in those parts or not, but I found it distracting. The vox need to be worked on too.

Neall

 

[nukeitout]

The guitar sounds nice. Harmonica too. But the rhythm seemed really jerky in the beginning and again in the middle. I don't know if you were trying to get an emotional / restless feeling in those parts or not, but I found it distracting. The vox need to be worked on too.

Neall

Thanks!

The vox aren't my normal style, I was going for a sort of effect... Maybe it sounded better in my head...

I played with a metronome on all the tracks, but some of the percussion is off beat (intentionally) during the slower parts, and the beginning is not held together by much. Maybe a constant percussion of some type would help anchor the song a little better... I think the metronome itself was a little misleading to me when I was filling out the percussion parts... EDIT: misleading because it provided a beat that I did not fully duplicate

 

[Dogman]

Odd song...not a bad thing, but very Avant Garde....It's very roomy sounding...like I'm with you in a place playing music. Again, not bad, if that's what sound you went for. Very natural sounding.

I enjoyed it as just a tune to hear....kind of like hanging with some friends and just playing. It's fun.

 

[DavidK]

Nice job. Its not doing it for me though. There is a song in there somewhere, it needs an arrangement, honing, more refinement.

The Dorian mode? Kinda. Its also just a stock minor key, there arent enough chord changes to establish a modality. Yes, technically you are in the Dorian mode, you have the F# in the d major chord. However, the song is ultimately in A minor and you merely go down to a G major, you go from I to VII. It would be more interesting if you explored the other chords as well to establish a more complex tonality.

 

[nukeitout]

Nice job. Its not doing it for me though. There is a song in there somewhere, it needs an arrangement, honing, more refinement.

The Dorian mode? Kinda. Its also just a stock minor key, there arent enough chord changes to establish a modality. Yes, technically you are in the Dorian mode, you have the F# in the d major chord. However, the song is ultimately in A minor and you merely go down to a G major, you go from I to VII. It would be more interesting if you explored the other chords as well to establish a more complex tonality.

It would be minor, but it's played with chords fitting to a Gmaj key, and also every scale used is really just Gmaj with a focus on A. There's only one note difference in the scale between being minor and Dorian (i.e. minor and major), but I see where you're coming from, too. I think there are six chords used, but only like 4 for most of the song, and the F# and Dmaj (which make it stand out as Dorian) are used sparingly...

Thanks for listening

 

[nukeitout]

Odd song...not a bad thing, but very Avant Garde....It's very roomy sounding...like I'm with you in a place playing music. Again, not bad, if that's what sound you went for. Very natural sounding.

I enjoyed it as just a tune to hear....kind of like hanging with some friends and just playing. It's fun.

Thanks . I'm not even sure what I was going for, I just started adding stuff and going with the feel it had. I didn't really do too many takes, and I wrote it as I went along, which is why it has that 'people jamming' feel (and also the abovementioned 'there's a song in there somewhere' feel ).

 

[travelin travis]

Recording wise it sounds roomy and raw. I think to pull a song off with that type of recording you have to lay out a strong vibe and solid song to make it work well. I'm a fan of raw and roomy and I think there's a song in there for developing. I'd keep chipping at it.

 

[nukeitout]

Recording wise it sounds roomy and raw. I think to pull a song off with that type of recording you have to lay out a strong vibe and solid song to make it work well. I'm a fan of raw and roomy and I think there's a song in there for developing. I'd keep chipping at it.

Thanks. I was thinking of adding a solid/simple bass line to keep the tempo... apparent. It gets lost with the syncopations and off beat tambourine in the second verse section. That and all the dead space at the beginning. I agree that it needs something to tie it together, and a good persistent bass line might be the ticket. I hope I have time to tweak this a little and add a couple more tracks later tonight.

 

[rayc]

Dorian is a grey area for me.

 

[XLR]

Vocal and harmonica sound good. The rhythm gtr is a little boomy on the low A when playing the Am chord during the louder strumming sections. Perhaps the song would be more effective if a little shorter.

 

[nukeitout]

Vocal and harmonica sound good. The rhythm gtr is a little boomy on the low A when playing the Am chord during the louder strumming sections. Perhaps the song would be more effective if a little shorter.

I agree it is a little on the long side... Thanks for the vocal/harmonica compliment. I just started the harmonica a few months ago... I did up the bass a little on the rhythm guitar to try to fill out the track; I could have gone too far with it. My monitors don't represent bass that well (but I just picked up a pair of speakers that will - they just need to be reglued). If I add a bass track like I want to, I'll take the eq off of the rhythm guitar; I wish I wasn't so busy lately... And to think I'm going to be moving soon...

have a good weekend everyone

 

[Polska_77]

Dorian is a gay area for me.


Not my pair of trousers if I can't sing along.

good Job on the recording thou.

 

[choctaw]

Just my view.............I am not a critic

I couldn't really follow along too well. It's sort of all over the place.

Same here, but NO hiss sounds on my system. That said... we all enjoy putting things together.......sometimes they really fit and other times they need some work in various places. The voice to me has something special.....be it a little off here and there is not an issue.........In time he might have a very unique sound. But that’s just my ear. I am not a critic, just a listener and when I hear something that to me has possibilities I say it. Keep up the effort, practice and time can make all the difference. I only speak here of his song "How Right" did not listen to others.

 

[nukeitout]

I couldn't really follow along too well. It's sort of all over the place.

Same here, but NO hiss sounds on my system. That said... we all enjoy putting things together.......sometimes they really fit and other times they need some work in various places. The voice to me has something special.....be it a little off here and there is not an issue.........In time he might have a very unique sound. But that’s just my ear. I am not a critic, just a listener and when I hear something that to me has possibilities I say it. Keep up the effort, practice and time can make all the difference. I only speak here of his song "How Right" did not listen to others.

Thanks for the compliments. I've never been much of a singer but I started lessons last year that are helpling (more with volume and resonance than anything at the moment, which is hard to hear on recordings).

 

[Llarion]

Nice job. Its not doing it for me though. There is a song in there somewhere, it needs an arrangement, honing, more refinement.

The Dorian mode? Kinda. Its also just a stock minor key, there arent enough chord changes to establish a modality. Yes, technically you are in the Dorian mode, you have the F# in the d major chord. However, the song is ultimately in A minor and you merely go down to a G major, you go from I to VII. It would be more interesting if you explored the other chords as well to establish a more complex tonality.

I was gonna say... the D major is really kinda just borrowed, the melody is normal minor, or you could cheat and call it melodic minor to explain off the F# moving upward.. Didn't hear any dorian...

That said, it's still a cool riff, sort of a performance art angst thing; lots of space. You're pushing too hard vocally, your voice teacher will tell you to relocate those high notes farther up than your throat, you're constricted... And support it better...