My 1st Love Song

  • Thread starter Thread starter dres
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dres

New member
Hi People,
here is a song in it's early phases. I've been writing songs for a little longer than I've been married (11+ years) and in all that time I've never once written a love song to my wife. Well it's overdue and on the weekend I just found myself putting these words down. It's a bit personal but not overly and I'd appreciate your help getting this to sound top notch. I know that this first bash has some distortion in places.... I think I may have to record this again anyway... in fact the guitar is just my first take.

www.nowhereradio.com/dres/singles

"My Love Song"

comments on sound, arrangement, suggestions or potential collaborators all welcome.

dres
 
11 years huh? Hmmmm........... You may even get to have sex again!

Seriously, she's gonna love it. I really loved it as is. Just guitar and voice gives it a real intimate, kinda naked feel, which is what you want, right? Perfect.


Twist
 
hey dres

nice tune. yeah.. there were some clicks in there and a little signal overload, besides that sounds nice.

11 years is a long time.... hang in there and beat the odds.

they say we've been around here for 4.6 bil years, so 60 more years with her is a millisecond in time!
 
twist said:
11 years huh? Hmmmm........... You may even get to have sex again!
Click to expand...

Who said anything about sex ? ;) LOL

It's the kinda song that makes you either reach for a bucket or a tissue... depending on whether you like this stuff. Importantly my wife thought it was great. Truth be known I have a natural aversion for love songs since they are often so overdone and there are so many on the pop scene. But I had this little rif running through my head for over a year now and I was tinkering with it yet again when I just thought... what the heck.. it's about time I broke my own rule. She's such an ace little lady and I thoroughly mean every word I sing. Thanks for listening.
 
JMarcomb said:
11 years is a long time.... hang in there and beat the odds.
Click to expand...

Yea it's scarry how many of our friends are now getting divorced. 9 times out of ten it just comes down to selfishness from what I've seen. People just take each other for granted.

Musicly speaking, do you think a little lonesome harmonica would fit well ? I've been thinking of asking muzeman to contribute ? There's plenty of space.
 
dres said:


Musicly speaking, do you think a little lonesome harmonica would fit well ? I've been thinking of asking muzeman to contribute ? There's plenty of space.
Click to expand...

It could... but I believe there are "better" tones that would be more appropriate.
For instance a piano "can be" prettier than a harmonica... in a love song.

try listening to some love songs and listen to different ideas
 
Cool tune. You have that rare gift of being able to fill up a recording with nothing but an acoustic and a voice. Nothing about this sounds "thin," and that's tough to do.

Your Aussie accent is coming through a little more on this one, but it's very cool. (I was scratching my head to figure out what exactly a "marshmellow hut" was, then I subtracted the accent and figured out you were singing "heart.") :D

My only gripe (and it's a preference thing) is with the reverb. It sounds like some kind of a "room" reverb (like a small room with wood floors), and I'm just not a fan of those settings for anything, b/c they're VERY accurate in reproducing what it sounds like to record in an open space with no sound treatment :D. I'd almost like a "bigger" verb, with a little longer delay, and with an emphasis in the 8K-12K region (otherwise known as the "expensive" reverb preset -- of course, you would have had to have read Crawdad's most recent thread for that to make any sense, but if you actually want to know what I'm talking about, you should check out his latest if you haven't).

My wife and I got married at 19 too, (amidst the clicking of shotguns :D), and I'm long overdue on a love song myself.

Take care,
Chris
 
chrisharris said:
Cool tune. You have that rare gift of being able to fill up a recording with nothing but an acoustic and a voice. Nothing about this sounds "thin," and that's tough to do.
Click to expand...

Thanks... I've had long enough to practice

Your Aussie accent is coming through a little more on this one, but it's very cool. (I was scratching my head to figure out what exactly a "marshmellow hut" was, then I subtracted the accent and figured out you were singing "heart.") :D
Click to expand...

LOL It's funny ... some of my Australian friends have accused me of sounding American when I sing. But hanging around this forum makes me realise I'm lightyears away ;)

My only gripe (and it's a preference thing) is with the reverb. It sounds like some kind of a "room" reverb (like a small room with wood floors), and I'm just not a fan of those settings for anything, b/c they're VERY accurate in reproducing what it sounds like to record in an open space with no sound treatment :D. I'd almost like a "bigger" verb, with a little longer delay, and with an emphasis in the 8K-12K region (otherwise known as the "expensive" reverb preset -- of course, you would have had to have read Crawdad's most recent thread for that to make any sense, but if you actually want to know what I'm talking about, you should check out his latest if you haven't).
Click to expand...

Thanks... I've got a Lex MPX 500 I use and I just cycle was just cycling through the presets looking for something that works ... I too wasn't exactly happy with the reverb... but it was the first one I hit that sounded anything like right. Thanks for the advice though... I definately have another close look. Anyone with an MPX-500 give me a good patch to start with ? and what's the best way to tune all those parameters ?

My wife and I got married at 19 too, (amidst the clicking of shotguns :D), and I'm long overdue on a love song myself.
Click to expand...

These days they wouldn't even let you get married at 19 !

Thanks for your comments.... much appreciated
 
JMarcomb said:
It could... but I believe there are "better" tones that would be more appropriate.
For instance a piano "can be" prettier than a harmonica... in a love song.

try listening to some love songs and listen to different ideas
Click to expand...

Good point ... maybe I can get my wife to add some piano ?... She's actually a great musician herself (far better trained than me) but she's a bit shy about recording and also a perfectionist (compared to me ;) )... a tough combination so I rarely get her recording. I shall try though.
 
dres said:
I've got a Lex MPX 500
Click to expand...
That's a really cool little unit. I use a Lexicon for live effects, and I just love it. So are you recording FX live (i.e., printing them), or are you adding the verb at some later point? B/c if it's the former, then forget my comment altogether. LOL...it's close enough!!

(oh yeah...forgot to answer the question. I use about 5 presets, and they're all ones that I made up, and they're for guitar anyway, so I don't think they'd be of any benefit.)
 
chris: no the reverb is added later so I can change it easy. Any clues what patch to start on ?
 
Right from start acoustic sound grabs my interest. I like the fx on guit not to much.

What kind of guit? and Mics? config? pre amps?

I'm thinking maybe no compression?
 
junplugged said:
What kind of guit? and Mics? config? pre amps?
I'm thinking maybe no compression?
Click to expand...

Guitar:
Taylor 310, Rode NTK through Voicemaster + 2 electret mics through minidisk (noisy equivalent of ECM 8000), no compression on guitar (all three mics)

Voice:
Rode NTK into Focusrite Voicemaster, minimal compression on voice.
 
Really pretty tune Dres!
I got married at 19 too!:)

I'd be honered to do some harmonica on it,I'm really not that good though,mabey some fills?
I'll PM you,o.k.?

I dig the sentiment,I reached for the tissue!:D

I really enjoyed it,thanks.

Happy Holidays to you and your family,
Pete
 
muzeman: Hi, I was waiting for you to turn up ! ;)
Thanks for the kind comments.

Married at 19 too !!?? This has got to be more than coincidence ?

I'll check my pm's.

All the best to your family too.

Hey chrisharris ! maybe I'm way late on this but I just realised the other day that christmas is on a wednesday this year. So according to ya song this is an ideal year ! :D
 
Gonna be a good one dres. I agree about the 'verb but I'm not sure a harmonica wouldn't be cool. It really depends on what direction you want it to take. I f you're gonna go for a sparse sort of mix....a harp might be pretty cool. A denser mix and you'll want something else.
 
Thanks Lt. Bob... I think muzeman's giving it a go (harp)... but I will tinker with piano too. As I said previously I've had this riff for over a year now just waiting for a song to go with it... it's a durable little tune that I'm still not bored with after all this time... now I finally have some word to sing with it rather than just humming ;) This isn't going to be a dense mix... but there's still plenty of room for the odd solo.

Out of interest Steve, what else do you play besides sax ?

dres
 
this would sound great with washboard and spoons......:)

nice song. i love it. i love love songs. i like your voice. very honest. on everything i've heard from you it sounds that way.

you gotta a couple of clips but i think you know that. any way you could double track that guitar? i can't double track anything so i know that's asking a lot but you could use some stereoness.

i also might like to hear this totally dry. don't like the reverb. then again usually i don't like any reverb.
 
hey dres. this song grew on my like a weed! god i'm a sucker for a good love song!

it's late and i had like one minute to tinker with it, and my voice is totally shot right now, but i think this kind of harmony might sound cool in your chorus:

check out 'dres' at:
http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=1445&alid=-1

-erichenryass, a guy who can't write music of his own so he takes it out on other homerecers.

p.s. i can do lot's more if you like it, i can shut up and go back to playing my washboard if you don't.

p.m.s. it's 1:30 am here and thanks to you i just stayed up way too late and will pay dearly when my kid wakes up at 6.
 
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