I notice the Tull thing but to me it's more from the instrumentation, particularly the intro. Vocal a little influenced perhaps, but it's in the slightly medieval feel to the instruments that I notice the influence, and appreciate very much! Agree with others that lead vocal appears and disappears a little throughout. May be my system but not much low and low-mid on this...a little top heavy.
Nice job with this one!
Thanks einstein! I'll address the intelligibility of the vocal below. Appreciate your input. I put some low end back in as a result.
It would be really good if the words were just a bit more discernible. They're halfway there now. I didn't get all of them until I read the lyrics while I listened. It shouldn't be like that. The words for a song like this that tells a bit of a story should be right out there. Parallel compression, yeah. A touch of distortion, yeah. And turn the vocal up a bit too. The space you have on 'em is about right.
Thanks for the listen dobro.
You've just listened to what must be the 6th or 7th version since the original post. On each version I have adjusted vocal automation, EQ and/or bumped the volume a bit. If you think they're not easy to understand now, you should have heard them then...
The vocals are now way out there - almost to the point of burying the music. I'm considering turning them back down as I'm quite fond of my triple interweaving guitar lines, the skittering and harmonic lines in the bridge and the bass / drums which are being somewhat lost perhaps with the focus on the singing/lyrics. If you're (I'm using the global "you" here dobro
) not getting them now, then I'm not sure there's anything that I can further do that will help the situation. I think it's two things - enunciation and the style.
I've played this (latest version) to several people who are used to hearing me and other Australians sing and they get pretty much every word, first time, despite my singing on this tune in a partial American accent, which they've noted. And some of them aren't native Australians themselves. If they don't get every single syllable, they're in absolutely no doubt about the content.
So I think it's a combination of the rapid fire delivery of certain words, the accent and the way the tracking ended up - more volume on a couple of the really short words wouldn't make a difference even if I could do it, which I can't really... and... I'm perfectly fine with it. Working out the words is part of the joy of music, isn't it?
Imagine we poor Aussies spending all our lives decoding Yank and Brit pop...
Anyway, the music existed well before I took the seed of the idea that TAE planted and turned it into this set of lyrics in about 10 minutes one night. I'm OK with how the vocals have ended up and the fact that some people can't understand them all.
Thank you all for your comments and assistance in the fine tuning. Any other suggestions, I'm all ears.
Cheers