The Song Of Man

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Manslick

Manslick

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This has been a tough one to get to a point where I thought it was good enough to post.

The lyrics came after I read a book called How Green Was My Valley. Though I don't think I plagiarized Llewellyn, the theme is definitely inspired by his amazing way of describing music and singing.

I recommend the book.

In several scenes he goes into a great deal of detail about the people in the village and their singing. I was so impressed by it. Then one day it hit me. No matter how great the song, the singers, the melody, the feeling; the song is doomed to a finite group, namely humanity. That is a sad attempt to explain the essence of what I concluded, as the whole idea is very complex.

Anyway, I began to write and finished the lyrics in two sittings. The final chant is my attempt to summarize the essence of song.

I ended up with too many words and so the length originally was over six minutes as I started out with a lazy tempo. I sped it up to compress the time but then I couldn't play the drum part to my satisfaction. So I programmed the hits I actually played, only I put them in time. So the drums are less than stellar as I thought it to be a sham to add a bunch of stuff I could never do. Some of it is still out of time precisely but the feel fit so I left it. The part that challenged me the most was playing a consistent kick. Anyway.........

Here's what I came up with for lyrics.

The song of man when carried by the wind
May find the ear of sainted king or sinned
The song is sung while men work thru the day
From sun rise up till sun done gone away
If duo form a pact ye make the song
It matters not if song is right or wrong
To them the sound is spoken gods own word
The truth discovered, harmony conferred
It rises up like heat from boiling blood
And flows with power, roiling like a flood
Crescendo peaks, the clarion note is born
A sound to rival holy Gabriel Horn

But for all the songs the earth has ever heard
For all the hearts the music stroked and stirred
The song will fade and echoes lose their place
For songs will never sing thru outer space
The singer sings to a captive audience
(though) The song of man may certainly convince
But it is moot my dear and patient friend
The silence and the song will one day blend

The song of man starts
From the beat of our hearts
Thru the whole of our lungs
Ore the top of our tongues (ye e)

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All comments welcome as per usual though I doubt I will be messing with this one too much for a while now.
 

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Hey Manslick, I need to give this another couple of listens to get it fixed in my head as there's a lot going on. I like the lyrics - I can almost imagine a Welsh male voice choir singing them. The harmony section at the end works really well too - the vocal layers are cery nice.

If you go back to work on some areas of this, it should definitely be the drums first and foremost. As you say, the timing is a bit wonky - it keeps working in and out of the groove and clashing with the timing of the acoustic. I wasn't mad on the tone of the drums, they didn't seem to quite have the dynamics of drums I've heard from you before. I don't know whether it's the reverb or the programmed hits or something else? I don't know much about drum mixing, so I can't offer much in that respect.

I hope you come back to this mix after a rest. I know the feeling of just being relieved to get something pulled together on any level after it looks like a lost cause. Thanks for sharing man, I'll see if anything else comes to me.
 
Hey Rob. The drums are Ryan Greene alt drums and the kit is a Tama Superstar. I'm not real crazy about them either but next to my own recorded ones they sound monstrous. The toms especially are so heavy they just kind of take over everything. The kit comes with a very long reverb setting which I did not touch. I didn't do anything but narrow the wide wide panning it has by default. There are other kits available, too many options really. All I have to do is roll up the next kit and go.

The harmony section is my favorite part. I started another song file from scratch and did the harms first. Then got sick of it and mixed them into the first version which is really all guide tracks. In total there are 18 background tracks.

Thanks for the spin.
 
There is some gnarly compression going on the drums, which is making the snare and the toms sound super choked. Typically you compress the snare and toms and the drum bus, but you do it in stages so the net result is sharper transients without losing all the body and ring of your tones. That was my one takeaway.
 
Hey BurningBridges, I’m not getting a super choked sound, in fact the toms ring too much and are way too deep. You don’t hear tom ring at the 00:52 mark? The snare sample is primarily a rim shot with a few regular hits thrown in for variety.
Thanks for stopping by.
 
I liked the song. Especially the melody. I liked the bass line.

Seems like the low end is a little lacking though. Could use a stronger bass and kick I think.

The overall mix is just a little "crispy" sounding.

Am I catching some small timing problems? Sound like it.

Drums are a bit mechanical - each hit is "MIDI precise", especially on a couple snare fills. I *really* didn't care for that snare sound.

Not sure what effects you have on the vocal. Gave me just a hint of sounding like an alien. Like some weird reverb or delay.

OK the harmony vocals at the end sounded real good. what ever you did with layering and reverb and whatnot worked well.

Leave just a little more of the last cymbal crash at the end. I can hear a quick fader ride pulling it down. how's that for a nitpick?
 
Hey Trip, oh yeah there are little timing errors all over the place. Sometimes it’s like trying to step on a wittle bug that keeps jumping just as the foot falls.

Funny you mentioned the snare fills. What I did was took my drums audio and matched it with drawn in midi notes on all the fills transients. In doing that I found out I hit the drum harder with my right hand as the wave peaks were higher so I varied the velocity just so it was different. It was an interesting little exercise.

I’m kind of wondering where the precision is. I don’t do precision.

The vocal is three takes, two in stereo one in mono. I am sure the alien thing is phasing and comb filtering.
I don’t remember dropping the fader at the end but I might have faded the whole thing. But I like the idea of a dramatic cymbal fade.

Nice nits.
 
Check out the snare fill at 1:54. Sounds like a machine gun. That's some of the "precision" I was thinking of.
 
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