Having a Nervous Breakdown

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The Ghost of FM

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My band-mate, Doug set up a site at NWR and has posted a tune there that he wrote, called,

Having a Nervous Breakdown

It's a 128 kbs encoded mp3 so, the top end might sound a bit gritty but, otherwise, rip it to shreds! :)

This song was recorded over at my place on the analog 16 track a few weeks back.

Doug played guitar and sang the verses. I sang the chorus and played bass and a few keyboard parts.

The drums were from the keyboard with live fills by me on the Octopad.

He asked me to give it a whirl, here in the clinic as we are not completely happy with the mix yet and could use some suggestions from you guys and gals.

Cheers! :)
 
Holy moly!!

TURN THOSE DRUMS DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!

The drums are way too infront of everything else.
 
The drum part is a bit repetitive. Needs some more fills or somethin' to break it up. The guitar is a bit fuzzy sounding as well. Needs some meat.

Some cool guitar & bass parts goin' on on there.:cool:
 
Do you guys play Live?

Ghost:

I like the FEEL of this song.
I like the guitarist's approach.
He is comfortable enough to not be completely accurate.
Very good feel.
I like the groove in your bass line as well.
Just what the song needed.

I LIKE this song, it feels loose and relaxed and is not taking itself too seriously.
 
Ghost

I've heard a bit of your stuff before and I've liked it all. This is no exception. Nice ZZTop-type groove. Heh the drums sounds just like my Casio Riff Rock 120bpm beats. They can get repetitive but this song is short so it's OK. The horns filled in really well. Great guitars. I'd like to see you guys live
 
i like the horn stuff........the one guitar sounds a little to DI....was it recorded direct?...i try micing the amp on it if you have the chance.........

the horns make it for me.........i agree that the drums could go down some.......
 
It's pretty good

Drums are a little hot, everything is pretty descent. . Nice choices with the horns, etc. The vocals were well done.

The repetiveness doesn't bother me, it works with the song. I like it, well done.
 
Decent song. I like the guitar riff. Musically it had a cool feel. The two different voices/styles/effects worked well I thought.

I think the 'out front' drums are due mostly (but not entirely) to the highhat. It seemed really hot.

The guitars sound cool enough, but perhaps a bit over distorted. I've found that the distortion that sounds cool when you're in front of the amp, can be a bit "too much" when it gets recorded. I think the general tone is right for the song, the gain just needed to be turned down a notch or two.

Love that guitar riff.
 
TripleM said:
Decent song. I like the guitar riff. Musically it had a cool feel. The two different voices/styles/effects worked well I thought.

I think the 'out front' drums are due mostly (but not entirely) to the highhat. It seemed really hot.

The guitars sound cool enough, but perhaps a bit over distorted. I've found that the distortion that sounds cool when you're in front of the amp, can be a bit "too much" when it gets recorded. I think the general tone is right for the song, the gain just needed to be turned down a notch or two.

Love that guitar riff.
Click to expand...

I know this is cheap but I agree with all of Trips comments top to bottom! :)

I will add I thought the horns were cool. :cool:

Nice work!
 
I listened with a smile on my face throughout the whole song. I love music that makes me laugh, like Zappa for example. Leave this alone, it works as it is now. Nice punchy bass drum and although the vocals maybe weren't too clear in some places the "nervous breakdown" parts were clear and cuplike giving a good contrast.
 
I really liked this song. It had a lot of re-listenability to me. Great idea. I don't know if you remixed this or what but I'm not noticing the drums being too overpowering. Everything sounds pretty well balanced to me. The hook is crucial. Nice work, hope he manages to keep it together man!!
 
great sounding horns! pretty cool song.. I didn't think the guitar was too distorted, but agree the high-hat might be a bit too on top.. pretty balanced otherwise.. the lines with the horns were my favorite part too.. cool.
 
Shout outs

strat0tele - By golly, by gum, buy war bonds! I think you could could be onto something there about the drum kit being to loud. Thanks for giving it a listen! And, welcome to the clinic.

M.Brane - Thanks for the kind words and for giving the track a listen. The drum part wasn't actually intended to be as repetitive as it was as I think one of the tracks that had the fills on it, faded away in the middle of the mix-down. Not that I actually faded it but just a channel card in the 16 track was intermittent and we lost the fills after about the first minute of the track.

I will have to get that straightened out and re-mix them in properly. Thanks for your ears!

HevyD47Ca - Once again, I offer my thanks for your time to check out the track and glad that you liked it!

Doug and I both have been playing together for more then 25 years at this point and although we no longer do live gigs, we do still get a live feel from our projects when we play together in the studio.

We used to play a few clubs downtown in Toronto many years ago but, at this point, we have moved on to other realities like families and jobs that actually pay the bills! :)

Bulls Hit - Hey, glad you liked the track and some of the other stuff I have offered up in the clinic! The track is a short one compared to what we normally put out and sometimes they are the most fun to put together. We loved the horns too when we were tracking it and thought it added a nice layer to the sound.

powderfinger - The guitar was put straight into the board through a DI box. Good ears! I do have an old Traynor tube amp in the studio but it is so noisy that I often opt not to use it. Perhaps I will see if I can figure out a way to gate it a bit better and include it in future productions. Thanks for giving it a listen!

sloop - Glad you liked the track and thanks for giving it a whirl!

TripleM - I am not sure if it was the guitar that was too distorted or just the interaction between it and the horns that took away from the clarity in the mix. I will pay attention to that in the re-mix. Thanks for the listen and your time. It's appreciated!

skids - Thanks for checking in! Glad you liked the track!

Ismellelephant - Thanks for your praise and vocal comments. We did double track them on Doug's parts and I think some issues of clarity are probably there because of a lack of perfect doubling by him.

Doubling vocals is a bitch to do in the best of circumstances and is something I dread having to do, myself. Especially on tracks that are newer and not as rehearsed as we would like them to be.

Thanks for giving it a spin! :)

Khompewtur - Yeah, I think Doug will get over it eventually! He leads a pretty stressful life and is usually being pulled at in 50 different directions every day between work and home life so, it's easy for him to write painful lyrics.

Glad you like the tune and thanks for your time!

B.SABBATH - Thanks, Man. Yes the hats probably are a bit hot. I have listen to it at higher streams and there is still a problem there that should be fixable in a re-mix.

As usual, your ears are golden and I appreciate you weighing in on this one.;)

Cheers! :)
 
I love the song. Great delivery, great arrangement. Man, if you could get some real drums and real horns in there... yikes, this would be dangerous. As it is it still rocks. But turn those drums way down. And I think I'd like a little more "bite" on the guitars. I know that comment is clear as mud, but I guess what I mean is I'd like them to really BUST that opening riff, like LOUD. You know?

Good stuff here.

Chris
 
I hear what groucho is saying on the bite of the guitar. I was not liking the guitar sound on this, too "fuzzy". Vocal delivery was cool, horns could have a better sound, does sound a bit Casio-ish. Nice the tune, oddly enough, reminds of a tune I'm writing...lyrically anyway. Cool ending.
 
Heh...this is a cool song. It has a booty shaking quality to it :D.

Ya...the horns are a great addition in there. Real horns & drums would be killer on this (although can't most of us say that :D).

I guess I would agree with a lot of the comments above, but frankly, I probably wouldn't have noticed a lot of them because I was enjoying listen too much :D

Nice job!!!
 
ROCKER!

Jagular says:has a booty shaking quality to it

Yeah, but I think he means - Bouti Sheiking
Cool tune - cool horns - lots of influence, if you know what I'm sayin'

Too bad you're not playing live anymore - your gigs would be far from boring! Like it a lot - hi-hat a little much but the rest is whompin'!

Nice to hear Rock music again - it seems to be getting lost in the inner city musical miasma.

THANKX!
Latex Solar Beef
 
Listening with headphones, and the drums didn't bother me too much (level wise)...I like the arrangement you have going on here.

Panning sounds good and your vocal sits nicely in the mix. Very catchy song, and has a very nice feel to it. Some funny lyrics as well, which is a good thing to keep your sense of humor while keeping a straight face. Kind of reminds me a bit of Talking Heads in a lyrical way (not musically)...

Very good job! I love the sample you bring in at about the 2:00 mark.

I really like this!

:D
 
Ghost,

I had to listen to this one twice... It didn't "Grab me" the first time around like your other stuff has, but I caught the fever on the second pass and really dug the writing ALOT.

(Please keep in mind that my mix comments are based on Low Fi through MY cans, so there's no doubt I'm way WAY off AND
I (Perhaps annoyingly) offer suggestions in a more or less production minded direction...Sorry)

1.Guitar:
Has to "come out front" in the song and drive it a bit... (I LOVE the tone! The lick kind of reminds me of "Are you gonna go my way" L.Kravitz.... Great catchy rock n roll guitar here!)

2.Horns:
Synthy yes, but arranged so perfectly there's no way to not love'em.

3.Drums:
Great beat and tempo perfection!


4.Vocals:
The chrous vocal (To me) sounds to "Close" to the lead vocal...
My natural listening instinct had me wanting to hear the chrous vocal "further back" in the mix and secondary to the intensity of the lead vocal with A FEW SELECTIVE pans on "...I don't know what to say.." (And the final line of the chrous as well) kind of creating a random call and response "Voices in the head" effect, but not overdoing it into predictabity. (MAYBE it could be done with a few seperate vocal effects for various ambient depths with even a lyric whisper dead center on one of the final lines so that as the listener is kind of taking in where each call and response pan is coming from the whisper sneaks up dead center under their nose.... Hard to describe I guess.)


5.Piano:
I can't hear if there's one in there really, but TO ME the arrangment seems to call for that Nicky Hoppkins rock n roll piano pumping.


Overall:
Fucking awesome!
(Rock N Roll deserves you with the right live band... It would really cook.)



:)
 
Nervous Breakdown

Clinic Member who should hear this next -- King Elvis (his drum sound is a lot like this)

Great performance... something about the voc/snare tracks irritates (probably an EQ issue, but could be mic selection)

A driving, blues-flavored tune... needs some sonic lovin' adjustments, but a fun listen.


Chad
 
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