What am I gonna do

Smoothin direct pop, sounds nice and sincere. If opinions have any bearing here, this song is certainly not my style. But opinions aside the mix was clear and slightly warm.
 
thanks for the comment. good thing I got the email before you edited the post. I see what you are saying about it being bare. After listening to it today, I feel like the drums are a little too crisp for the rest of the song. I'll bring that down tonight and see if it helps.

Also, the bass is doing nothing but filling in the bottom end, so I think I'll need to get a better bass line going here.
 
This is a great tune with a fab singer....a producer's dream...cuz it's so close to perfect, it's easy to add the few bump-ups that would put it over the top. This is a real contender for pop radio with some idiom-specific polish!

May I offer some suggestions? About five little things...

ps....And I don't think the drums are too crisp...just too dry. Ambience to place them further back, I think. The mix sounds good!
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Added last: Here's a 30 second snip of an old Adams classic...the big chorus. Happened to hear it, and thought of this sub...

Note how the drums..which are kinda loud...are placed back in the mix w/ verb...especially on the snare. And , also, the sweeping L$R guitars...happens to be what I was talking about below. And also note the space between notes. It's real not-busy...but very impactful.

http://www.yousendit.com/download/TzY2T205dENlM1FLSkE9PQ
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And don't busy-up the bass line until later in the song...the long notes work, and leave opportunity for a dynamic push when they start hitting with the bass drum, later!!

Oh! Re-read...you asked for arrangement advice..so here goes:

1-The opening intro and verse screams for the 'jangly' acoustic strum...simple......cut the electrics for a verse...then intro them V2 to take it up a notch. Reduce or cut the acoustic track as more instruments come in to leave some mids-space...no dingy yellow buildup...

2-the Electric guits could use a little more 'edge'. The effect of the sound put's me back to 1967 : "...to every season, turn, turn". The combined twiddlings...kind of sloppy, too...are a little busy, and take attention from that sweet vocal.

3- At the word "mind" , 1:10...and in the same spot later, there's a good opportunity to substitute the VI- chord...A-7...maybe a 9 on it , too....to lend a little variety...I was anticipating it...it'd sound righteous, I think.

4-A little differention between the A, B, and C parts...change up a backing line, rythm, feel...add big, o'driven guits L&R playing long, 4-beat chords, or something...with a lot of delay to build a full tapestry of sound ....especially on the C, Bridge...to where it should be really full and emo-evoking...something to clue the listener that a border has been passed....spur anticipation...

5-In the bridge, at 2:11, and in the same spot in the progression later, there's an ambiguous root chord. The accompanying guits throw the tonality. But, again, it's another golden opportunity to substitute the A-7...BIG PHAT, DISTORTED, SUSTAINING 4 beats.... 'lectric guits...whacks L&R with saturated delay/big hall verb. Over the top....the peak of the tune. Landscape!!


That's my best advice, wearing my wannabee 'producers-hat'.


I LOVE THIS SONG!!! I wish it, and the singer, were MINE!!
 
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Hey, awesome. Thanks for those comments. I felt like the guitars were to busy and sloppy with the piano, but I didn't know if I was just being paranoid or not. looks like I wasn't. I'll have to go in and hand tweak some of the piano parts, and probably just retrack the guitars.

I like the idea of an acoustic guitar in there. I'll play with that and see what I can come up with.

I'll also mess around with those chords. She mentioned something about some of the chords being different that what she had in mind, and I think those are it.
 
Wow, man...those are some great sounding samples!!!! [b'ground check] Super rich... And wicked guitar sounds. You're set up!
 
Great song Boz!
Wonderful singer, reminds me of Sheryl Crow and that's more than good to me. Mix sounds great to me , I would give the voice a more "roomy" ambience, not too wet, just to weld it in better with the rest, but that's just my taste. Nice listen!

Joey :):):):)
 
Sounds pretty good. It's a pretty simple sonic landscape, and it works.

My only complaint is that the vocals get a little lost in the verses. There are a couple lines where her voice starts to taper off towards the end, and she gets hard to hear. You might need to compress those to bring them up.

Overall, though, this is a pretty solid soft rock/pop song.
 
Pardon, Steve:


Wouldn't compressing a whole track to raise the level of a couple phrases be kinda overkill...'specially with the bag o' cooties that can happen with that??

One of the techniques I observed a pro recording perform on vocal tracks was volume enveloping to make heard [and also to regulate overly loud moments] , specifically, those lost [or booming...moments, that would be clipped on a severe compression routine....and maybe cause distortion?] syllables, words and phrases. He was pretty meticulous about his vox tracks.....he'd spend a lot of hours getting everything heard, or brought down to a homogeneous train of sung words: his tracks had , maybe, a hundred or more nodes and dozens of corrections. I've never gone that crazy with it...but it might be a better tool for the job???? Maybe there's an even better one?
 
Really like this song. The singer really makes it shine. I especially like her performance from the bridge to the end where she articulates much nicer than the first and second verses. Could use a little de-essing or back off on the compression.

Mix sounds good, nicely balanced. Good song, thanks for sharing.
 
Hey guys, thanks for the listen. I've decided that I'm going to scrap the guitars as they are and completely redo them and make them less busy. The piano is busy enough it doesn't need the guitars to compete with it. Hopefully I'll have that up in a few days, but every time I sit down to do it, I feel uninspired (It's my playing that uninspires me, not the song).
 
jeffmaher said:
Pardon, Steve:


Wouldn't compressing a whole track to raise the level of a couple phrases be kinda overkill...'specially with the bag o' cooties that can happen with that??

One of the techniques I observed a pro recording perform on vocal tracks was volume enveloping to make heard [and also to regulate overly loud moments] , specifically, those lost [or booming...moments, that would be clipped on a severe compression routine....and maybe cause distortion?] syllables, words and phrases. He was pretty meticulous about his vox tracks.....he'd spend a lot of hours getting everything heard, or brought down to a homogeneous train of sung words: his tracks had , maybe, a hundred or more nodes and dozens of corrections. I've never gone that crazy with it...but it might be a better tool for the job???? Maybe there's an even better one?
Click to expand...

Well sure, if you wanna do it the "better-sounding" and "labor intensive" way. :D
 
Lovely voice and melody - loping jangle country pop is how I hear it - needs more jangle though.
The bass line could use some reworking - it works as it is but could use some dynamics added in terms of runs or riffs.
Nicely captured piece mate.
WHAT, NO ORCHESTRATION? Terrific job Boz.
 
Ha, yeah, I fought the urge to put strings to this one. And yeah, I'll redo the bass. Sad thing is, it looks like I'll be redoing pretty much most of it. Oh well, this one has the potential to be good, so I should probably put the work in for it.

The mic setup was pretty basic. MXL 990->behringer preamps to a M-Audio Delta 66. I did some slight EQ (high pass and slight dip at about 10kHz to take away the harshness of the mic a bit) and added some compression and then a tape sim (which I overdid). I think she could have been singing into pretty much anything and it would have sounded fine.
 
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