Gospel Rock w/ Rap

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Pinky

Pinky

and The Brain...
This is a song I wrote over 10 years ago that's been dusted off and given a musical facelift. The vocalist is an old friend and we collaborated on this 3,000 miles apart (me in NY, Scott in California). I recorded the rhythm, then he went to town with some (strange) vocals. Once he called to say he was done I downloaded the project file from his PC and finished re-recording the rhythm tracks as well as adding bass, lead, and drums. He's already eager to start on the next one (but insists it be something "serious" this time).

Song is called Times Square Big Screen TV. The lyrics are included below. Other songs available on the website www.the-boogiemen.com . All homerecordings. All the time. :D

"Times Square Big Screen TV"

[Lyrics by Kevin Heckeler, spoken word by Scott Watts]

Message
as repetition
Heroes hooked on television

We find it
in their flesh
Disappointed with the rest

Nothing found
nothing returned
Products of ridicule and scorn


Faceless actors
pen names
Facing the blame won’t ease their pain

Rearranging the same’s the same
Changing the station is not a change


Modern martyr…
…chasing a
dressing room cause

Warriors…
facing the misguided
protest of applause

Nationland…
…witness to a
civilization’s fall


Faceless actors
pen names
Placing the blame won’t ease their pain

Rearranging the same’s the same
Changing the station is not a change


(if anyone wants to decifer the spoken word section for me it would be most appreciated lol)
 
Gospel scare everyone away? lol

It's not really gospel per-se. That's kinda the joke (tongue-in-cheek).
 
Kind of a fun tune.... :D

I'm listening on phones so take it with that in mind. I like it....nice vibe. Some pretty good sounds. I'd like a bit louder guitars myself, but that's a personal preference thing. I like the vocal delivery for this....keeps it interesting.

Fun listen man.... :D
 
Glad you enjoyed it. It's meant to be fun!

I'm trying to hold back on layering too many guitars and stealing the focus from the rest of the instruments or vocals. I tend to be guitar heavy as primarily a guitar player, but because I'm responsible for all facets of instrumentation I'm forced into paying extra attention to what the rest of the song is doing. I wanted the vocals to be showcased. No room for 2 stars in this song... lol
 
Wow, tough crowd... :p

I did another pass at mastering and got more volume from it. After creating a mix for the car and comparing to past recordings it sounded a little low. The production was so dead on I was able to normalize at levels I've never gotten before (-12.81db RMS :eek: ) without clipping. I may have been able to eek out more but it sounds about right. Over compressing not only causes the clipping but can also bury some instruments in the louder sections of the song. Of course I just compared my piddily 12.81db to Rush's "Far Cry" and it was at 9.8db RMS!! Holy crap. But at least it sounds good, unlike Vapor Trails which was completely destroyed when mastered. /rant

Here's a link to our 2000 recording of the same (but very different) song. This was from our first digitally recorded album "Broadway Faces". This is actually the 3rd remake from that album. The next song is going to be completely new, but we're likely to continue to tap into this well as there are a bunch of really good lyrics and melodies to work with.

Times Square Big Screen TV (2000)
 
The vocal melody, particularly the higher voice, is very Television/Tom Verlain - cool.
Don't like the ride or HH though - too prominent.
Some of the lyrics is REALLY good.
 
Thanks Ray. The ride/HH is easy to fix and will do that in my remix. I heard it but thought maybe it fit with the 'pop' feel. You mentioning it confirms my concerns... so thanks again :).
 
Interesting song. I like it. The main vocal and drumset sound very solid. The BG vox would be more effective IMO if they were a little less chant-like and more in tune, or just rapped with no pitch. Probably a lot you could do with EQ and panning to give the gtrs more clarity - they're fighting for the midrange around 1 kHz.
 
Hey Tim. Thanks for listening.

Do you think the background vocals give the song some of its charm? I was afraid to 'clean them up' (which they definitely could use) for sake of losing some of that raw energy.

I agree about the guitars being slightly buried. I couldn't figure out how to punch them through the layers of vocals without competing too much. Maybe I'll try lowering the EQ on the guitars at 1kh and bring them more front. Honestly I hadn't done much with them, so there's definitely some room for play. That's the fun of doing things digitally - changes to existing data are only a few clicks away :D.

BTW, drums are canned loop tracks/single hits programmed in Acid Pro 5. Sold the electric kit a year ago. Look forward to the day I own one again, I miss it more than I thought I would.
 
There's now an editted version posted (same link). Used many of your suggestions. Thanks! :)
 
I think the guitars/bass could be a little quieter in relation to the vocals. It seems like there are some LF gremlins running around on the vocal trax. Could be the cheap headphones tho. :D Neat song.
 
Supercreep said:
I think the guitars/bass could be a little quieter in relation to the vocals. It seems like there are some LF gremlins running around on the vocal trax. Could be the cheap headphones tho. :D Neat song.
Click to expand...

Good feedback. My remix last night lowered the vocals alittle too much in the mix. So I revisited the 3 main vocal tracks and did some EQ'ing and compressing, and it sounds better without drowning out the guitars. There WAS some LF rumbled thanks to never EQ'ing the sub ranges out of the original recordings. Not a lot, which means you have damn good ears ;).

I've since done yet another remix and that has now replaced the existing upload. Revision number 3 if you're playing along at home. This is getting more refined and thus better each time. :)
 
Revision 4 had to be done because the crappy Cakewalk EQ filter created clicking in the hotter spoken word section of the song. Used the Soundforge filters to EQ and compress instead and work much better. Previewed the entire song a few times since and it's about as flawless as I'm going to be able to make it. Thanks again for all the help, hr.com essentially remixed this song. :)
 
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