Three Songs.....looking for feedback

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ricrac47

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Ok, I'm tired of writing to each one of you personally.....so I'll just post the site and hope
that you check it out:
http://www.mp3.com/Winchester
Someone accused me of looking for "playback" $$$
I've made a grand total of $16.00 in three months!
What I am really attempting to do is sell songs. I have three at present at my mp3.com site. They are three completely different types of songs. I am interested in the opinions of other home recordists. These three songs represent my initial efforts at "producing" a demo. I want to know what people think of the melody, lyric line, vocals, instruments, eq, mix,etc.etc.etc. Thanks in advance for your input.
ricrac47
 
Nice mixes on all three, but all three need some bottom and a better drum sound......the female vocal on "Sleepwalker" is really good, except for phrasing..i.e., she tends to chop the ending of words....I really did like the mixes, but no matter how I fooled with bass/treble control, I couldn't get a bottom...the drum sound is clicky....

I think the songs you wanna sell could come over better with just a little polish in the overall sound...the people that you want to hear your stuff probably get a lot of poorly mixed stuff, and a good mix gets 'em on your side....just an opinion....gibs
 
Hi Gibs,
Thanks for your imput. A few questions....I'm a complete neophyte when it comes to recording. When you said that you couldn't find the "bottom" did you mean that there was not emough low end eq? I may have cut that frequency because the mix was so booming that is was annoying. How do you get a nice full low end without that boomy effect. I have found that getting a nice bass or low end sound is the most difficult part of the process. Is this commen, or is it just me??? My "drums" are a Casio keyboard! (I'm ashamed to say)
The one advantage is that you can play each drum live abd add syncipation. Someone must make a good drum machine thats easy to use ...and inexpensive. Any ideas. The drums sure add a lot to the mix, but I don't want to spend hours on them. How hard is it to record drums live? I have a Roland 1680....so portability is no problem. I have an Audio Tecchnica AT 4033a and two Shure SM 57 models. Is that enough to mic drums? Thanks for the info. This is a lot more complicated than I initially thought it woulf be!
 
Well more than one one, I suppose...I'm barely past the neophyte stage meself, being a home recorder, and not an engineer....the mic forum here will give you really good info on micing live drums...your mics are adequate...

Have you ever thought about using drum software?.... http://www.fruityloops.com is very inexpensive and will give you a much better sound than the casio, for sure....just program your beats on your computer, then record 'em into your recorder......check out the mixing clinic, particularly songs by cooperman...he gets just about the best sounds out of fruityloops than anybody...there should be a free demo for you to check out on the fruityloop site....

Drum machines are a little difficult to program, at least for me, and they vary in price and quality of sound...everybody here seems to really like Boss...the drums and percussion forum here will give you loads of info..the search function here works great for specifics....

As far as bottom, goes, to my ears, it's that bass sound that completes the overall mix...recorded using good monitors, the listener should be able to add or subtract treble or bass form any unit he's playing it on later....from a mix using good monitors, you kinda have to play with it til it sounds good...if I was an engineer, I'd tell you the approximate levels for instruments, but I'm not that clever, unfortunately....in this case, though, I would take what you have, lower the eq on the bass only..if it becomes muddy or boomy, add some mid range eq...there seems to be some truth in the notion that when first recording an instrument, do it kinda hot, (high recording levels, show some red) and THEN mess with the eq when mixing..whenever possible, LOWER the appropriate range of eq as opposed to raising it....ther are exceptions to this, though, obviously, because the recording's already done in this case, so raising eq can at least improve a sound sometimes....

I'm assuming you don't use any compression...that too, will put a whole different spin on things....so check out "compression" as a search in the mixing/mastering, recording forums....

Hope all this made some sense....lots of us here learn something new every day....so I might be smarter tomorrow...gibs:D
 
Thanks Gibs. You sound pretty smart to me! What you said about the bottom end makes sense....I just have a difficult time actually getting the bass sound that I can hear in my head into the recorder. I'll just keep plugging away. I checked out fruitloops. It sounds good....but all the samples had kind of a euro techno sound. I'm looking for something a little more traditional. I put a post on the drum forum...which I didn't even know existed until you told me. Hopefully someone there can help me out. Stay tuned....I'm sure I'll have more questions for you soon! Thanks for your help.
ricrac47
 
there are people here that really know their stuff, and I don't consider myself one of them.....but thanks anyway...

the drum forum is great...I think you'd be ok using fruityloops, though, no matter what your style...with it, you control the beats....if you want rock,program it like you want..if you want shuffle or bossa nova, or whatever, just count it out and lay it down......fruityloops also has a function that let's you "humanize" the sounds..i.e. making them sound less "machined".....

by the way, the rack forum has a lot of stuff on compression too.....gibs
 
Hey Gibs. Thanks for your continued interest in my "recording career"! I am looking into fruitloops. What I may do to start off is use both my keyboard, and fruitloops.
You can't beat the price of the fruitloops program!

By the way, I did use compression in my songs. The 1680 has several preset patches, ie vocal comp, accoustic comp, soft comp, etc.I don't know too much about it...so I'll head over to the rock forum and "get some learnin". If only my job didn't interfere with all this good stuff!
ricrac47
 
Enjoyed hearing all three songs. The mixes remind me of TV or movie soundtracks. Although I'm not sure if thats how you wanted them to sound. "Sleepwalker" is a great song melody-wise and lyrically. Really enjoyed Suzanne's vocal. I thought the Christmas song could benefit from a little stronger vocal performance (which seemed to happen towards the end of the song). Also I thought a string arrangement would benefit the song (its tough to find a string section so maybe some string synthesizer). "A Song For Malvena" sounded great to me as is.
 
I listened to Sleepwalker. Nice song, catchy melody. It's kind of plain vanilla pop -- I'm just a guy, but I would like to hear a little edge. Very nice voice, could use a little more sustained tone (by the vocalist, not by effects). I don't think the bass is an eq issue; you just have to record it louder. It's pretty funny that someone suggested that you're trying to cash in on 4 cents a play. The MP3 money is more a psychological support than anything else. Keep on!
 
Thanks everybody for your comments. Actuelly, I was trying for a bubble gum pop sound in "Sleepwalker" ....at the producers request. Plus the lyrics needed to match the storyline of the movie. My vocal attempts in the Christmas song were admitedly a little weak....but I couldn't find anyone from Jamaica to sing the song. It was supposed to have a Carribean flavor. As I said I am really only trying to make respectable demos for song pitches. Nobody seems to think that the recordings, or the songs are complete crap.....so I will take your responses to mean......they could be better, but they are accecptable. Is that correct????
Thanks everyone!

ricrac47
 
I listened to Sleepwalker, and I would definitely say it's not even close to "complete crap" as you put it.. lol. They are definitely acceptable and then some, with some more low end they would be a very good effort for what you are using. I'd cut that few seconds of what seems to be silence from the beginning of the track, but don't think I can add anything helpful beyond what others have already said. I do like the background "sleepwalka" vocals towards the end that are distant sounding compared to the other vocals.. very cool.
 
JON X Thanks for your reply. The songs sounded ok to me...but since I recorded them I can't really trust my own opinion. It's nice to know that I am at least on the right track!
ricrac47
 
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