"Sunday" - comments welcome

  • Thread starter Thread starter alibish
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alibish

alibish

Hotrod Cadet
Happy New Year!

There's a new track available here:

http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=1715&alid=-1

It's called "Sunday".

My brother Shug wrote the song, and does all the vocals, the saxes, and the picked guitars. I did the strummed guitars, bass, tambourine and production.

We'd be very grateful for comments and suggestions on any and all aspects: songwriting, performance, arrangement, recording, production, "mastering", etc.

Thanks in advance.

AB
 
I like that. Pretty interesting. Good lead vocal. Tambourin fit in there REALLY good. Nice light, airy song that I liked.

Sounded like everything was recorded by a "room" mic? Pretty cool.

I might have changed a couple of notes in the sax lick if I was doing it :) And the picking guitar is pretty squeeky. But other than that I liked the song.
 
kjam22 - thank you very much for listening, and for your kind comments.

I'm just about to post a new mix with a bit of tweaking, and a more intimate room sound. If you have the time, I'd love to hear if you think it's an improvement.

It's at the same link as before.
 
kjam22 - thanks very much for listening. Delighted you like the song and the vocal. I know what you mean, the squeaks on the picked guitar moving up the fretboard stand out a bit in the intro, I'll see if we can fix that in a later mix.

Thanks again, this is the first time I've ever posted anything I've done and it's more daunting than I would have thought, so it's great to get positive feedback (in fact, any feedback).

Cheers,

Shug
 
I enjoyed it a lot.

The second version is much improved for the guitars, imo (much less squeek on the guitar). I like the sax sound on both versions - it really adds a ton to the song!

songwriting - quality
performance - good all around - nice feel to it, good emotion coming through (most room for improvement might be vocal pitch on the vocal jumps/starts, such as the first time he says "week" at 38sec., or "and i'll" at 58sec for example, the singer glides to the right pitch quickly after an initial stumble - the singer definitely has the ear for the pitch, and has a very nice voice, so it's just a matter of practice or a few more takes to get it perfect without any drifting)
arrangement - quite refreshing (v2 much better)
recording - everything sounds good (i like the space you paint),

I'd also like to comment that it's great that you brothers can put something like this together, together! My brother and I both play and record and have some trouble getting it together, so I envy you!

Keep up the great work!
Brendan

ps - I also listened to lost and found and liked it a lot as well. let me know how to get a copy of the cd when you finish

pps - check out www.billricchini.com - you might like his music (also mainly home recorded), as he also does some cool arrangements with oboes, brass and stuff I believe with acoustic guitars and vocals

ppps - I might be coming to visit scotland this summer. i visited edinburgh and a bit of the highlands several years back when my girlfriend was studying abroad there, and i loved it. beautiful country! i just wish the taxi drivers would stop trying to run me over
 
Hey,

I enjoyed that. Very upbeat sorta happy song.

Sounded to me like it didnt have much of a low end.

And most of the tracks are very dry, did you put any reverb on the vocals or sax?

There were a few pitch issues with the vocals but nothing to write home about - btw wheres the scottish accent aye?

cheers

yiordanaki
 
Pretty good overall, Alibish. Lovely arrangement - you've got an ace pop knack. And this is respectable home recording.

Okay, here are the nitpicks: when you start putting some real muscle into your voice, like between 1.15-1.20, the room sound on the vocal is less attractive than the quieter vocal sound earlier without the room sound. That's the easy one.

Now here's the tough one. I get the feeling that your heart isn't 100% into this one, and if you're going through what the guy in the song is going through, then I'm not surprised. It's tough to get keen about what the guy in the song is going through LOL.

You know, if I can't really get behind a song and I spot that happening, I dump it. If it's tough for me to deliver a song cuz of how it's making me feel, and if I'm not doing the song justice, then I dump it. And I'd find it really difficult to do this song of yours unless I was singing a melody against some chords that allowed me to be bitter, or hurt, or scary. I'd need emotion with real edge to make this one work. Make any sense?
 
Paco - thank you for listening and for the very kind comments.

I've toned down the squeaks even more in the third mix, which is now up. Shug is going to re-do the vocal soon, to try and sort out the areas you mentioned. Thanks for the pointers.

Re brothers - me and Shug have been in bands or doing stuff just the two of us for nearly 20 years (and that is SUCH a scary thought) but definitely as we get older we fight less!

Glad you liked "Lost and Found" - that's a favourite of mine. I'm hoping to get the last track done by end January, CD mastered Feb/March, and then get it out there come April. I'll definitely give you a shout to let you know when it's done. I really appreciate that you're interested!

Glad you enjoyed Scotland - it's a great place, as long as you don't mind the, err, interesting climate. You should visit Glasgow next time - it's like Edinburgh only better. :)

And I'll definitely give Bill Ricchini a listen - sounds like my kind of thing.

yiordanaki - nice to hear from you. Glad you like the song.

Re the low end - I think I made two mistakes. I cut too much low off the guitars, and I forgot to compress the bass end properly! Both mistakes should be (somewhat) fixed in the new mix that's now up.

I was going for an intimate, dry sound with this one, a kind of "naturalistic" room sound. But I think it's been an unsuccessful experiment - various folk who've heard it have essentially said it needs more reverb! I put a bit of delay on the vocal in the new mix, but I think I might strip out the "room" reverb and try a more traditional studio reverb for the next mix.

Re the accent - my brother Shug's singing accent is a bit more "neutral" than mine. Our speaking voices are almost identical. Hoots mon, etc. :)

dobro - always a pleasure to hear from you. Vocal/room sound - yeah, another symptom of my failed experiment with room reverb I think...

This one is actually my brother singing. Maybe he'll post about the emotions behind the song. For what it's worth I think the delivery suits the track - kind of dreamy, ambivalent, but with an undercurrent of melancholy. It's interesting that he and I have pretty different ideas of what the song is about.

Also, I really like juxtaposition - sometimes an apparently cheery wee ditty can hide some really vicious lyrics. "You're Gorgeous" by Babybird is probably my favourite example - that song REALLY isn't saying what most folk think it is...

But I know what you mean - I sometimes can't do a vocal justice. Well OK, I ALWAYS can't do a vocal justice :) , but sometimes I just can't get the emotional side right. I usually leave it for a while and come back to it. I find it VERY hard to chuck away songs altogether...

Cheers

AB
 
I heard this the other day but was in a rush going to work and didnt get to reply. I like the structure of this tune. The guitars and bass sound nice and I`d bring them up a bit more, but the mechanical noise is a bit loud. The horns are a nice natural sounding touch, as with the tamb. The voice is good and sang well but it sounds a bit up front and dry over the guitars.
 
There's a new mix at the same link. The main change is that I've removed the "room" reverb and gone for a more traditional "studio" reverb sound. I'd be very grateful for opinions on whether it's an improvement.

Toki987 - thank you very much for listening and posting, and nice to hear from you again!

Glad you like the song. I've tried to bring the bass and guitars up a bit with the new mix (v4) and I've tamed the squeaks. I've also pushed the vocal back a wee bit.

Cheers

AB
 
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