My Handsome Nell - New Song

  • Thread starter Thread starter Neeps
  • Start date Start date
What a beautiful tune "Hey Not a Day" is. Simon and Garfunkelish, Beatlish...everything nice from the 60's. One of those tunes that has a lot going on, but sounds sparse. The Cello (I hope I'm hearing right) is sooo nice, as is the harp. I don't know what kind of advice you're looking for because it's a demo, but the only thing I'd say, is that the acoustic guitar is a bit boomy. Almost sounds like the mic was too far and it's picking up a lot of the room. I like the dryness of the vocals, I wouldn't add too much reverb, if any. The occasional plosive cracks in the vocals, but that's just a matter of cutting some high's. Basically, I love the song so much, that any slight imperfections in the sound don't really matter to me.
 
Nice tune my Handsome friends. I'm going to listen a few times before I make my comments.

Handsome Tim
 
Great Song! I enjoyed it, nice production!

As for the mix, it does sound like there is alot fighting for those mid bass notes. Nothing a little eq rolloff can't fix.

Thanks for sharing.
 
Thanks for the positive reviews... I'll be sure to try out the mix tips...

Keep the comments coming...
 
Interesting song... Very organic sounding. Nice!

-Casey
 
Another great song. It's a different kind of tone than I've heard before, but very effective.

It's hard to offer much critique or suggestions to you guys, because you hit the nail on the head everytime with new sounding songs.

I wouldn't make such a suggestion, ordinarily, but here's a thought I had to throw at you: After the 3rd repeating line "I wondered if your love survived", maybe you could change the 4th one to "Why couldn't our love survive?"

I don't know if it would sound better or not, but just a thought.

Thanks.
 
Al and Dougal,

Been hearing this song two different ways. The first way is listening for perfection of details - intonation, instrumentation, arrangement, EQ balance, guitar chops, etc. The second way is to forget all that and just put myself mentally in the room you're playing in and go with flow of the feel of the music. That's what I'm doing at the moment. I'm just liking the expression in it. BTW I think this is one of your better vocal harmony combinations.

Tim
 
If this is Al and Dougal both singing, then I definately agree it is very well done. I figured it was Al singing both parts. That goes to show the quality of meshing between their vocals.
 
Yeah, it's Dougal doing the main vocal here and Al's on harmony. Guess I'm giving away the fact that I listen to their tunes a lot.

Tim
 
swatsds said:
If this is Al and Dougal both singing, then I definately agree it is very well done. I figured it was Al singing both parts. That goes to show the quality of meshing between their vocals.
Click to expand...

Hmmmm...Maybe they're the same person. Nobody's ever seen them in the same room together, and these days you can do anything with Photoshop.
 
Timothy Lawler said:
Yeah, it's Dougal doing the main vocal here and Al's on harmony. Guess I'm giving away the fact that I listen to their tunes a lot.

Tim
Click to expand...

Sorry Tim but I'm afraid you are mistaken on this one and Swatsds is right... I'm doing all the vocals on this version... but it's on the agenda to try out a combination of both me and Dougs with either dougs on the main vocal or doing the backup we're not sure yet... it's kind of good though that we don't sound too different... hopefully that will help the album hang together...

Rami - I meant to say you were right it is cello... or at least a sampled cello

Which reminds me does anyone know a cello player or a fiddle player (we need both) who could overdub real instruments to our tracks... we could probably shout them a bottle of Our Handsome Scotch... and of course there's the prestige of being involved with a Nells track... give us a shout if you have any ideas...

We're still steadily working towards completing the album... once we have 15 scratch tracks down (we've got about 8 already) we thought we might consult the home recorders to vote for the 10 songs that will eventually make the album... a kind of focus group...

Then we will set about getting the best recording of all the tracks that we can... we might go to a studio... or we've got access to a wonderful church hall that is fantastic to play in... so we might take the scratch tracks to the church for final recording...

Then real fiddles...

The mixing.... not sure how we will go about this... maybe a pro (££!!)... maybe we'll have a go ourselves... or maybe we will have a mixing contest (with prizes if we can afford it)

Hopefully we can get something sounding pretty good in the end.... cos without wanting to sound full of it... we think we've got some damn fine songs...

What do you think does that sound like a plan... or does that sound like a plan!!
 
P.S. I modeled my singing voice on Dougals... he was the first to sing with the Scottish accent... I used to try to sound like Ted Hawkins... and got quite good at the bluesy, gritty roar that he perfected... nowadays I sound totally different and my vocal chords don't sting so much...
 
I'm surprised. Al, your voice sure sounds different on this one.

EDIT: Or, as Rami suggested, this band is really just one person. :D OK, Handsome Algavougal, you've been found out.

Tim
 
Last edited:
Man, this is a fun tune. Makes me want a bit of Scotch...probably just because they offered up a bottle to someone who could play cello, but I'd take a drink :D .

Very nice recording.

Again, just a cool, fun tune.
Ed
 
A full, pro-produced and studio recorded album of these songs would be awesome.

All the songs I've heard would make the cut and they all fit very well together. The last two you've posted are straying a bit, but that's a good thing. Having different vocals every now and then adds to the freshness as well.

Look forward to helping any way I can. Got my own order of tracks going already . . .
 
Absolutely beautiful!
Nice arrangement. The cello sounds quite good for a sample.

Great job. No suggestions other than: keep it up!
 
Good sound to this one.

Reminded me of a couple of "Proclaimers" CD's I have.

Not sure if I like the harmonica and Mandolin coming in together, the mandolin playing sounded a tad rough, harmonica didn't add a lot for me, it seems to get a bit crowded in those spots.


But all in all a real good sound on this. Nice Harmony. Good acoustic playing. What I picked out from the lyrics on my couple listens sounded good as well. Good story.
 
Lovely song, its nice to hear some accents in there. Very nice website you have too
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top