Stink Eye :) - Indie Blues, I Dunno - Production, What!?

keith.rogers

Well-known member
This is a cover of a friend's song that he's done a few times and has been over stringing some things together to try and get some ideas on arrangements. A basic 3 chord tune that's almost novelty but I really like it. This is me croaking it out, using his tempo (more or less) from his scratch recording (he actually sings it a lot better), but he's working on the click thing, so I did it to let me throw in some computer percussion, so we can try out some ideas for arrangements down the road. Anyway, long story short, I am not a producer, but it's an interesting thought process to try and figure out what might be the right route.

So, this is what I tossed together with a bass track "phoned in" from a friend. Does this hold water at all? My personal circle of folks could go more country or bluesy, even swing, but I don't have any hope of going too far out in terms of being able to pull folks in, e.g., if someone suggests death-metal-psychedelic-emo, or whatever. The writer can go in a lot of directions, from country, blues, jazz (smooth or even a TW growl).

Stink Eye (cover of Raoul Chazez song)
 
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Well, I certainly like the song. It has a great feel and lyrics sound good.

There are a couple timing issues here and there but probably not too noticeable.

If it were mine, I would try to make that bass a little more distinct, and separate from the guitar more. At times it sounds like a upright bass which would be cool.

On my monitors it sounds like everything is a little congested in the mid-frequency range. It may just be the guitar, but being a guitar driven song like this its hard to get a good balance sometimes.

Sounds really cool though man. Good job.
 
[MENTION=185027]Bruthish[/MENTION], thanks for the listen and comments.

I'm pretty sure my friend used his fretless bass on this (that's what he's been dragging to open mics lately), and the track he sent me has very little top end in it, TBH, so I probably didn't high pass the guitars like I might usually. (He asked Santa for an upright for Christmas but the Mrs scratched it off the list, apparently!)

I'll admit I did almost all my recent listening on cans and so have probably relied on that unnatural separation to convince myself I did a better job than I really did :). I'll go back and listen with monitors and in mono and try to identify the overlaps. Thanks again.
 
Generally things sound OK.

The vocal is clear, but slightly brittle. Maybe a small notch in the mid 2K's.

I didn't care for the noodling electric part on the right. I'd keep it simpler while the singing is going on. The tone is kind of cool.

I could hear someone shuffling in their chair in the intro.

There is a timing issue or two. One is right when things kick in after the short intro.

The acoustic guitar sounds nice.
 
[MENTION=12651]TripleM[/MENTION] - thanks for the listen and comments.

Honestly I was looking for some input on the arrangement, and I'll take that bit about "noodling" to heart by getting someone that can play electric for that track :).

This started off as scratch vocal and guitar tracks I sent to a couple guys I rope onto stage at open mics so they would know what was coming. It's had everything else just tacked on since then, so, yeah, some shuffling around. I can redo the intro if the acoustic track would stick. Not sure as Raoul is fond of his own style :), but it could happen!

I hear that edge in the vocal - I was trying a different mic, and I think it'll work well live, but it's not my favorite on my voice. I could tinker with it, though I know Raoul will also do his own track once we get settled on what all is going to be happening.

Rhythm, yeah... Even though I did this to a click, figuring out how to knit together some computer-generated percussion afterwards is always a challenge. I try to play the guitar to the click, but it's always a bit loose... I have half a mind to strip it down to just the bass, and tell the "drummer" to follow the bass, let it generate something new, tighten those 2 tracks up and then redo everything else, hopefully with a tighter rhythm. (Getting a real drummer/percussionist is proving hard to do, especially for my little space.)
 
I think the song would benefit from from some proper percussion instead of that random thudding noise. Brushes could be good. Your vocal is good on this, suits the material.
 
I think the song would benefit from from some proper percussion instead of that random thudding noise. Brushes could be good. Your vocal is good on this, suits the material.
Yeah, I'm going to try and get our daughter's new boyfriend over - supposedly he can do this sort of thing. Or any real person...

My usual 1/4 tone flat had to land on something that worked sooner or later :). Honest to god, I listened to it, and thought, oh, I've got to tweak some of these pitches. Ran it through Melodyne, which pronounced the vocal to be in Fm. The song is in Gm! So, I decided, I'm gonna just remove that plugin and let it ride, because there's not a thing I can do with that! :laughings:

Thanks for listening and commenting!
 
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