Ok that's great Philip, at least I took the stuff as you intended it. So no brother, no shreaks or anything out of place on your vocals at all. I thought everything you did had a purpose and the effected male vocals were a nice change and fit spot on.

Totally with you on the backing vocal comments as well and understand perfectly. Me personally, I just try to be careful with octave type vocals especially when it's a male/female thing because if you Melodyne them or V-Vocal them, they sort of sound strange even if you just use it lightly. It's really subjective when you think about it. Some tunes, the octave is the way to go...in others, I like a simple harmony especially when it's male/female at once because it's not such a drastic tonal change. You figure, the female voice is going to have a brighter, higher tone just due to there being a female singing unless it's one with a deep soul sound. When we octave the male voice with a higher voice female, the space in between can sound a bit drastic. Again though, all subjective and just my take. I thought you did a great job on all those parts. Just a few things were slightly wavery...but again, one voice is using vibrato, the other is not so that adds a bit to the waver as well.

At the end of the day, you did a pro job on this mix and you should be quite proud. I really didn't know what to expect. You somewhat painted a sketchy picture to me when we were talking about all this stuff...but hearing it really surprised me. Not that I didn't think you were a good engineer or anything, I just didn't know what to expect from hearing you talk about the issues. Isn't it amazing how we hear something that may bother us, and others just don't notice it? It's good to be hard on yourself though...as long as it doesn't deter your progress. That's one of the bad things about doing lots of stuff by yourself. You get so close to things, you either beat yourself up or sometimes miss the obvious due to being too close to the material. Sometimes we just can't win, ya know? LOL! Safe to say you have a "winner" with this one Philip. Again, excellent job. I'm not just telling you that either...if there were blatant issues I felt were important to you, I'd not be doing you any justice letting them slide on by. So no worries there....you did really well with this. Total thumbs up and worth submitting to the songs part of this forum for others to enjoy your work if you see fit. :)

Good post there Philip and well said on your comments. The only thing I might slightly disagree on (which you'll understand once I explain it lol) is with the country music comment. Unfortunately for my old, 80's rocker mentality, the new country of today (whether it be considered cliche or boring, repetitious, familiar or even predictable) to me it's the new sound of commercial rock. (This post may get a bit off topic...but it's worth explaining it a bit I feel.)

They use all the big drum sounds, well produced instrumentation, and the greatest of all, they aren't afraid to use effects. The appearance of more modern sounding distorted guitars are popping up as well. Take a tune like "She's Country" or that Rascal Flatts cover of "Life is a Highway". The production in those tunes blow me away. As an engineer, producer, I'd much rather record and mix bands like the aforementioned than any hard rock or metal band of today because all they really use is over-compression, loud volume and the stuff at times just doesn't say anything to me. The musicians are great, but the songs and production don't really speak to me like the stuff I hear in the more modern country music of today. Some pretty incredible vocalists as well as guitarists, fiddle players etc too that I enjoy.

Though I would agree that musicians and a few other people may be disgusted with it for whatever reason they feel, I'm a sucker for a big hook no matter what form of topping may be on it. I of course would never push my opinion on anyone else and totally respect the feelings of others regarding stuff like that. I'm just so into hooks and production, nothing else really matters to me.

To go off topic even more lol, what I'm really sad about is how music no longer takes us on a journey. Remember when you bought a classic rock album like the Doobie Brothers or Boston, The Who, Led Zep etc, it took you on a journey and kind of told a story? Like the music was deep...it was often times (other than the hits that may have made airplay) unpredictable and it just...man, you'll be able to probably explain it better than me because you're a much better writer. LOL! You know what I mean though. I just miss that whole thing we had with vinyl, classic rock and how the tunes really spoke to me.

As that stuff sort of faded away, I got totally into the whole hook thing. So much so, that part of my musicality has suffered because of it in my years and I've attempted to do something about that with the current stuff I'm working on. I still try my best to include the big hook, but I'm trying not to bubble gum it and make is so predictable while adding more musicality behind it. That's probably the main issue most musicians have with country music. It's the same arrangement done over and over...cookie cutter type tunes that just follow the same formula. Though that can get old, that stuff does sell really well because the majority of buyers will always be common folks that don't listen to music as we do, ya know? I've come to respect anyone that can make a honest buck at this no matter what style they do. I used to hold grudges against artists who I felt got a bit too much acclaim that really didn't offer anything other than being "unique". Though "unique" is a good quality to have as an artist, I feel the word is now in a sense the replacement for the word "great" and is also a cop out at times. "So and so is so unique" yet when you really analyze that person, (kinda like Bob Dylan as a singer) the performance is really bad and "unique" is the scape-goat.

Anyway...sorry to go totally off topic...I just felt that was worth mentioning. Yeah, I'd say you're done with this tune and all the comments and changes you made as well as your explanations, are completey justified. It sure is a great feeling to listen to one of your songs and say to yourself "wow, I can't hear anything wrong with this and there's nothing I would change!" That there, is success. :) All the best to you Philip...thanks again for this awesome conversation.