New song "Nothing Less" More strings :)

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dudleys100

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This is another song that some of you have listened to. I would appreciate any ideas ya'll may have.

I feel there should be a little more oomph in the drum when it hits (there are a lot of song structure issues here that I am working on mainly with the percussion)

I am going for the orchestra behind me thing :)

By the way the vocals suck, these were done after a couple of months of not singing and didn't have time to change them appropriatly. So they are still scratch.

Thanks.


http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=2039&alid=388
 
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why do the vocals suck???

i think this sounds really good. I don't think i'd change anything

not my style of music but this sounds awesome. wicked

T
 
This is really nice - great soft rock.

Your voice is perfect for this!

I agree with the fact that there should be more oomph and accent on those two beat orchestra hit parts - ( I think you know what im talking about).

Also, when the guitar is just by itself, it just seems to me too empty. Like the tune doesn't continue to be carried from where it was going.

What did you use for the strings?????? - sounds really good - surprisingly realistic.

I must again emphasize, these vocals fit perfectly, but maybe some harmonies wouldnt go astray though?

thanks for the listen.

yiordanaki
 
Thanks a lot I appreciate it.

The strings are all real, and were recorded in my apartment living room, hence the "realness" I suppose, and I agree on harmonies. There is one harmony on one word in the song (can you find it? :) I would like to add more later when I redo the vocals.

The vocals don't suck too bad right now, they are just very raw and the intonation at times is rough, but I guess I just feel I can do better, know what I mean. You are always your worst critic I suppose.
 
Listening -

A "bit" of depth on the guitar would be cool at the beginning...

Vocal nice & clear... Bongo? High Tabla? Cutting right through the string wash nicely. Low perc on the left has a bit too much energy to be panned that hard (my opinion).

Just a little buildup here and there - Guitar Vs. Strings

Here's where it gets interesting - About half these strings sound anything but real to me... I'm not saying "bad" - I'm just saying "not human" - Only way I could explain it (and I have quite a bit of experience at this) is if a single instrumentalist played all of the parts with the (unnaturally fast) vibrato perfectly aligned in every individual take - Or if the vibrato (approx 4-5x/sec) was added post recording. Contrabass sounds pretty nice...

Starting again and thinking...

On the other hand, I would imagine a single track could have been duplicated several times and shifted over or delayed - But it has a strangely "synthetic" feel to it... A spot around 2:20 that sounds nice... Then at 2:50 sounds completely fake... Contrabass still sounds pretty real... I can't hear the bow on everything else. I've recorded thousands of strings & string sections... I can always hear the bow... Especially in an enclosed space.

Are ALL of these strings real?

3rd listen... The vocals do sound pretty good... I don't even know if I'd throw harmonies on them... Could take away from the intimacy of the lyrics.

John Scrip - www.massivemastering.com
 
Sorry Massive Master but they are ALL real. Here is what was done. There are basically two violin parts and one Cello part. The violins were done by the same girl (even though I have two violinists in my band, the one couldn't make it, so this one played both parts) and the cello was done by our Cello player. So you were right that "a single instrumentalist played all of the parts with the (unnaturally fast) vibrato perfectly aligned in every individual take". For the Violins I had The girl (Trista) play the one part 10 times, then I had her play the other part 10 times. I then had our Cello player come in and play his part 5 times. I grouped the 10 takes from each part into a group channel and aplied some church verb via the send. I didn't touch levels hardly at all in the whole song, and did no EQ or compression on the strings (hence some fighting here and there :) Also I do not know what "contrabass" is , please let me know what this is. Thanks
 
Well they sound extremely accurate for real violins - well done to the players (if thats the effect you were after).

good song good vocal

y
 
Contrabass... Double Bass... String Bass... Kind of like how "cello" is short for Violoncello. I thought the cello parts were bass - Has the nice tight tone of a 5/8. My bad.

On the other stuff, I didn't mean to offend - It just seems that some of the string parts sound great and others, maybe due to the sheer number of parts, sound very "synth-pad" like. Perhaps if all the parts were recorded at different angles and distances (as would be the case with a sitting string section) then blended and panned accordingly, it would sound more 'authentic' to my ears...

John -
 
Dudley,
Cool song. Good, clean sound. The voice, I agree, is perfect for it. The strings, I also agree, sound good, but fake -- ain't that a kicker -- you get real strings and they sound synthed!

sound very "synth-pad" like
Click to expand...

Maybe take out a few?

Ah, but what the hell -- either way, it sounds beautiful. Thanks

G
 
For the guitar I used a Soundelux U-95. My guitar is finicky on when it sounds good and when it doesn't, it changes with the humidity. It was having an off day when I recorded this (it sounds pretty good either way though). I thought I would try a large condenser on it for a change. I like the sound but this was also a rough track that I decided to keep because of time. I had to EQ the mids a fair bit and it could use some more. I would like to retrack it when I have more time with the same equipment but with better mic placment and pre's.
 
you fart

stealin old brians u95s again arnt yah?

oh well, as long as your not stealin mine.

how did those mics turn out for you last weekend? Give me a good description on what you think of them. :) Sorry i didnt make it to the session, busy times.

Anyway, im sittin home in my underwear on a computer with a broken sound card or id listen to your song.

But hearing the stuff you did at GUP im sure its a great song.

danny
 
Wow again. A Soundelux U-95, eh ? You seem to be hard on yourself with your performance. Personally I would be very happy with the sound that you got...

Maybe I'll have to break the piggy bank and try to pick up one eventually..
 
Sounds really really good. Beautiful song. Vocals are great IMO as well. I love the mix.
 
This is great. I can see what MM is saying though, but it doesn't bother me, probably because I don't have the ear he does. Sounds great either way.
 
There is one harmony on one word in the song (can you find it?
Click to expand...
0:29 "That I want to be" more than one word though?

I like it, I've listened a couple times and, I'm listening again now.
I really don't hear the "fake or synth" strings. This is a good song. Thanks for the listen. :)
 
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