Hey Steve [are you the same Steve from TE forum?? and Acoustic Guitar Forum??...If so , we've 'met'!]
Effin great.
But at 2:26 the bass is missing the right note by a half-step. I think the vocal was put on after the bass...the singer goes a little wonky trying to find the right pitch. That whole five second area needs some editing, I think. It stands as an actual error [bad note] and also structurally weak and tonally misleading, and rythmically fishy. I'd find some notes elsewhere in the track and stitch something solid and correct...or just record it over.
This reminds me a LOT of Pink's "Who Knew" [a wonderful recording]. And , using that as reference, I can offer suggestions to maybe put this over the top.
1-Listen to "Who Knew".
Note the use of delay in the chorus...especially the way the snare expands to add dynamic meat. And the vox gets the same treatment...it just puts the chorus on steroids.
The L&R guitars are also saturated with delay, which gives a nice washed-over sound that won't draw attention from Vox ctr. It's a standard thing on almost every pop recording I hear. Because it works.
If you were really adventurous, you could redo L&R guits, and apply a little figure to allow for some space for the ambience to work in. The eighth-note chugging is a bit much with no punctuation, after a while. Again, reference "Who Knew".
It's so close to being pop hit-worthy. Just falls a little short in the conventions for the genre....especially the delay thing. And the bass around 2:26 clearly has to be fixed, or it sinks the whole ship.
The singer...O, that voice! May I have her and keep her??
MHOYMMVFWIIW
I'm not from either of those forums, but now we have 'met'.
An absolutely fantastic reply, thank you.
When we got to that little bass lead it was originally written far up on the neck, so I was like "Eff that, play it an octave down." So he did it.
I want to record it again when he's actually had the chance to practice it more than one time through, some of the timing and notes are definitely iffy, but I hadn't even noticed the part you pointed out. You're right, it does sound wonky, and I'm glad you pointed it out or I probably wouldn't have noticed for a while and then when I finally did it would haunt me forever. I'll probably have the band over in the next couple of days to retrack that part, thank you.
"Who Knew" (one of those songs you know you've heard a billion times but never knew who it was) is definitely a spectacular recording. The kind that I love to listen to because the production is so spot on but that I hate to listen to because it makes mine sound weak, haha.
I'm going to plug in and try a few takes with that sound for the guitars in the chorus (far less dirt, full chords (with a third and all) and delay and see how it sounds.
I have a very subtle delay on the lead vocal all the way through the track, but it probably wouldn't hurt to pull it up a bit in the chorus, I just haven't found a timing I like yet, quarter notes seem to mess with the intelligibility of the vocals, and half notes sounds really un-natural, and I'd rather not resort to using dotted notes or triplets.
If I end up going with any of your suggestions (I'll have at least a couple more iterations of mixing before I'm happy), I'll post the new version for review.
My main concern is that I want the chorus to be loud and intense between the verses (of course), but because there's already a lot of instrumentation in the verses the choruses don't seem to pop out dynamically the way I want them to. The Pink song has the benefit of relatively sparse instrumentation in the verses, which gives a lot more room for the chorus to explode upwards and feel big.
I did just go back and widen the stereo space of the chorus vocal doubles, and for the chorus I used a multi-band transient shaper to pull a little more balls into the attack of the snare, and pushed it up a smidge. It helps some.
If you have any suggestions or you care to expand upon your section upon delay and dynamic treatment of the chorus, I'd appreciate it a lot.
And no, you may never take my singer. She's an investment, I'm confidant that by the time she's 21 or so she'll be even better.
If you like, there is a vst plug-in version of my singer available on the internet, but unfortunately it's on a website specifically designed so that you can't find it, and even if you did the dongle is not compatible with either PC or Mac. Good luck.
-Steve
P.S. Thanks again for your great reply, I really appreciate it.
. Also at 2:28 there is a crash cymbal I feel should not be there. There is some sibilance at times (like mentioned earlier), and I feel the end guitar part needs dropped a few db's. But thats my opinion and you know what they say, "Opinions are like ass holes and eveyone has one". Hell, I could pick apart any tune, whether commercial or home done. The bottom line is "Do you guys like it" ? I do !!!!! Nice tune. But please at least get rid of that crash at 2:28 and put in a big sloppy crackin snare !!!!!!!
). I might have detected a tad of sibilance at times that was a bit much, but it was only noticeable because everything else sounds so spot on.