Pop Song "Chemicals"

[SaraphTravis]

Here is a mix I did last week. The song started out as just piano and vocals, but then I decided I wanted to flesh out the instrumentation more. All of the electric sounds on the recording are from an old Yamaha Portastudio that I sampled. When I had finished the full version, I found that there were aspects of the original piano version that I liked, so I mixed the two together to get the version I have attached. Please let me know what I can do to improve it.

 

[ddrummer8]

Sounds good and catchy. In both pre-choruses the vocal is distorted or processed oddly. For me the tune is catchy there just isn't enough going on, maybe some add-lib vocals or some more elements in the chorus, but all in all good tune.

 

[SaraphTravis]

Thanks for the response. I think I might hear what you are talking about in the first pre-chorus; does it sound almost like a phaser on the vocals? I don't know if I hear it in the second pre-chorus, though. In general I like simplicity, but maybe there could be some more vocal variation in the later choruses.

 

[robgreen]

Hey, it's a strong catchy melody. I like the arrangement and I think there's enough variation to sustain the interest throughout. For me, the issue with the mix is that there are a lot of heavily processed sounds in there and nothing natural to add a little warmth to the mix. The piano is from a keyboard, the drums are programmed and there's a lot of autotune on the vocals. I don't know whether the autotune is just to correct the pitch or you were going for it as a phasey effect, but I think this is where you could really get the human warmth by either dialling it back a lot or removing it all together.

If you're going for full on 'pop' production then you need to really layer the sounds like you see in the track breakdowns listed in Sound on Sound etc where you see stuff like eight tracks of just kick drum layers to really build up a song. Pitching for that with just a small number of tracks doesn't give it that gloss and leaves the sound a little small and possibly sterile. So my advice (for what it's worth) would be to get some natural elements into the mix that weren't generated on a computer or keyboard chip, even if it's just simpler vocal processing or maybe some subtle guitar could add to the dynamics.

Hope this helps - feel free to disregard of course if it's not the direction you want to go in. It would be cool to follow how this song develops.

 

[SaraphTravis]

Rob, thanks for your input, I'm glad you like the arrangement. Yes, the vocal tuning is mostly for the sheen that it gives, but since they are my own vocals it's possible that I went overboard. Most of the heavy tuning is done on the harmony parts. As for full on pop production, it really isn't what I was going for. If I were, then I would have gone with large synths and drum sounds like you mentioned. I am alright with a slightly smaller sound because I want the song to have character and not sound like a generic pop song. I write a lot on my cheap little PSS-470 and I wanted to include that element in the song, but maybe it's appearance should be more subtle. I certainly don't want it to sound sterile, which is partially why I kept the original mix with just piano and vocals for the first verse. I was just thinking today about having some real drums included, maybe starting at the second chorus. I'll consider adding some guitar to help make it more organic as well. Thanks again for your thoughts.

 

[VomitHatSteve]

The song itself seems decent, but the autotune kind of kills it for me. Especially on the verses and other quiet parts, it sticks out like a sore thumb. You also seem to have a lot of sibilance on the vocals.

As Rob said, if you want it to sound like a "pop" song, you're going to need to layer on a lot more stuff throughout.

 

[TripleM]

Yeah I thought this was a real good pop song. I don't think you need Autotune. And if it's used as an effect, I'd prefer that you just use more natural effects. I'd bump up the harmony vocals just a bit.

Adding to what I think robgreen hinted at... I thought a lot of the snyth sounds you used would support a techno song more than a straight forward pop song like this. They're sort of a bit "cold" sounding.

Real drums would be cool too.

 

[SaraphTravis]

Thanks for listening! Steve, I really didn't think that I killed it with the tuning but since it keeps coming up I might have to try and look at it from a different angle. I used a de-esser, but maybe I need to be more aggressive with it. I know that it's a pop song, but I'm not really aiming for pop production through and through.

 

[heatmiser]

Hey - I listened to this a couple of times last night and was pretty impressed. It's not a style I'd normally gravitate towards necessarily, but I really enjoyed how you kept changing it up all the time by adding and removing different elements. Very well done in that regard. It's something that I'd very much like to get better at myself.

I thought you blended the piano parts with the busier sections very well. I rather liked the "cold" nature of the electronic bits as contrast (to the extent that did in fact sound "cold").

I didn't necessarily appreciate the autotune effect so much, but it's pretty prevalent now and I don't think I can be objective on that issue. A lot of people here just don't like it in general. Your use of it was more tasteful than plenty of other tracks I've heard.

 

[SaraphTravis]

Thanks for your thoughts, I'm glad you liked it. I thought that having some more exposed sections would make the song more dynamic. Maybe I'll have to revisit tuning the vocals so that the effect is more subtle. By the way I really like some of your tracks, especially "Defective" and "Jesus Hates You". Some awesome grimey guitar bits in the latter.