Not Finished Blues - WHAT DOES IT NEED?

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F_cksia

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Here it is.. a 13-bar-blues in five-quarters.
It now consists of some piano parts, an upright bass, drums and some guitar. Oh and a little organ.

But still I KNOW something´s missing. Who´s got an idea, and where is it missing?

Thanks an awfull lot again to all of you.

Here it is (at the bottom of the page): http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/?aid=2755/singles
 
Oh and there´s also something strange in the upright bass, it doesn´t come out of the mix at all. Could be my playing, but maybe it can be fixed?
 
Hmmmm.. interesting idea.

First off, I think it needs a melody. It's a neat idea to extend the form by one bar, but it needs a hook to pull listeners in. Otherwise it sounds like a pretty standard blues jam with nothing to catch the ear except the little "what the...?" when the extra measure happens.

Terrific piano playing, by the way. But the drums kind of aren't really happening, they seem to lag here and there. I too can barely hear the bass. When that little bit of guitar comes in it sounds bad, really piezo-y and somewhat out of tune.
 
I don't think it necessarily needs anything more musically; there is something missing but it's in the recording / mixing, not the music. (Yeah, I love the music - this could be SO good.) The bass and drums are just not happening together, it sounds more like jazz than blues. Also the bass is not recorded well enough, for that "dead" stand up sound to work every note has to come through consistently. And where's the kick drum? A bit less flashy cymbal stuff from the drummer and a bit more focus on working with the bass player would make a world of difference.

I thnk if that was sorted you'd have a more solid backdrop of sound, which the rhythm piano would pad out and you'd have a platform for the tune. The lead piano was VERY quiet on my system - beautifully played but I strained to hear it. Guitar part was nice, I could hear the intonation issue that Al mentioned but to my ears it was marginal and I like the edge of slightly non perfect tuning anyway.

[edited to say that on a second listen it's the bass that's out of time - a groove behind the beat is cool but this one's dragging]

You've got something potentially really good there.
 
Garry Sharp said:
A bit less flashy cymbal stuff from the drummer and a bit more focus on working with the bass player would make a world of difference.

Hehe thanks a lot, but it´s not "the drummer" or "the bass player", in fact it´s all me so that explains a lot about the not too solid bassplaying (not very used to upright basses). I will retrack that, and remix the drums.

And yeah, I´m still thinking of another melody on top of it. Not sure if I´m gonna do that either.
 
Well if you're not too used to upright basses you did a good job - it just didn't do justice to the music. Get the kick and the bass together and you're flying.

It's funny that this is the second time recently I've made a comment here like that, to find out that it's one guy playing both parts...makes me think that you can't do everything.
 
I would definitely like to hear more of the lower frequency range. It sounds good, but there's way too much "treble" for my taste, especially with that cymbal. It kinda sounds like some of the instuments are fighting for attention, instead of helping each other out. But, overall, great job!
 
needs more bass. I'd like to hear some Sax maybe. The drums do tend to lag behind. I feel they may be just a bit behind the tempo especially towards the end when the song gets louder. The piano sounds good. Another thing I noticed is that the entire bass section including toms just does not jump out of the song.
 
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