I'm scared - my first song post!

hi leee,
alright! .. gets easier after the first one ..
my only comments ... organ is too up in the left
channel .. is the bass a bass or a synth? .. i wish
it had more definition on the attack. the vox has
lotso verb .. i'd cut that back and bring it more center
channel and up. the lyrics at 2:46 i'm not sure about
at all .. maybe you could post 'em and i can see
how it fits together ...

other than that ... i liked it.. finished right on 4:00 ;-)

jeff

I liked the song. As a guitar player myself, I have to gripe about the guitar sound. Lemme guess, you ran it direct, right? IMHO, you just can't get a decent tone running direct. Sure, maybe with one of those magic pod's or something but for me, SM57 in front of a tube amp is the best. Otherwise it was good.

Good luck with the next one!

Andy

Hey Andy,
Which guitar are you talking about, the accoustic rhythm or the lead?
The accoustic is from a Sonic Implants soundfont, played on my keyboard. (I really like this soundfont because it has up and downstrokes sounds , so you can get that strumming sound by playing two octaves back and forth on the keyboard...not bad for a non-guitarist) The lead guitar is just from Edirol VSC using the much dreaded AmpSim.

I really dig the groove of the tune, and the idea you're getting at. I'd just be echoing what others with more insight have said if I were to discuss the mixing, which unfortunately, limits a very cool tune. Also, that guitar solo is begging for a tube amp. But, congrats man, the chorus is singable, and catchy, its a nice groove.

I thought this was very good for a first attempt. You also have more guts than I do using Ederol as a guitarist, especially lead! I used the jazz guitar patch on my latest, but it was only way in the background stuff.
One thing I did notice was that the instruments all seemed to have a definite pan point, and it sounded a bit artificial as far as a soundstage goes. SOmetimes a little digital reverb blurs those boundaries a bit and makes it sound a little more "live" sounding.
I also agree the vocals were way in the back. It's scary to put your voice up front though, kind of like standing naked in front of a magnifying glass. But I thought on the whole this was pretty darned good for a first one.

Leee, only one. Collab with a guitarist. I honestly don't think there's any way to get a real good guitar sound out of keyboards. I've only heard one guy come close in all my years of synth programming, and he did it with a yamaha motif, but he spent hours getting the pitch bends and the feedback effects down. I think it's more in playing technique than the sound, and there are some things that are undoable when a pitch bend wheem bends everything at the same time, where 6 independent strings will give you a totally different sound with distortion.
COllabs are pretty much fun and pretty easy to do by just sending MP3's and inserting them in your cakewalk.

I am looking for that Santana, sustained,

there's a Mexican, Spanish looking guy named Carlos that plays really well. Seriously, I have to agree with den on this one. THe only time I've used guitar from a keyboard is the Hans Zimmer nylon and that was just doing arpeggios to fill out the back. Even my guitarist liked it. But the rest, I don't think there is any faking. You'll thank yourself for it in 5 years.

Michael

Nice work leeee....You have broken that nerve barrier and that is good. No time for wasting on issues that have no bearing on what your song will ultimately sound like. Leee remember, through the kind and generous support you will always recieve here you CAN get your songs sounding great.
OK so a bit of a tough job for me here to comment on what I am about to, so please understand it comes from my desire to be honest and offer suggestions that will ultimately be of some good.
Your singing. It has emotion and is acceptable in its delivery,however you might want to (just like alot of folks do including myself) look into auto tune. It takes some people years to get the pitch thing down and with technology as it is we may as well use it. You are a bit out of pitch throughout. No big problem it can be corrected without auto-tune in time, but for now, well you may want to have a look at antares. They are the creators of useable pitch correction software.
Very nice otherwise and I cant believe the acoustic guitar sounds are so real sounding. Kudos with this ability.
All the best.....now lets get some more up..
Mark

Leee

i dont hear all the song as im bsy...but...
let me tell you some.....

you are the one or the few ones newcomers that make a proper
fade out.....

You EARN the 2 thumbs UP for that....
on the Reverb side....i think that its subjective....
if you like it leave it that way....

i was listening to WHAM "wake me up befor you go" and
mannnnnnnn.....that was recorded with i think excesively verb on the VOX...
but so what.... its WHAM....nobody blame them.... well in the 80's

i think that today standards are more STRICT on the VERB area...... but anyway
if the top 40 dudes.....do this or that...why we dont...

USE your creativity and use whatever you like....its your music....
its your feeling...its your soul...

Greets
ROlo.

Hi Lee

Welcome to the fold.

No need to be scared about posting your new material here. I am a new member myself (joined only a couple of days ago) and like yourself I posted my first orchestration shortly after joining. I listened to your song and, as said before, the feeling's there. My humble offerings are generally two-fold.

IMHO...

1. Lift the rhythm guitar a bit, and tone down the bass slightly. I believe that will help fill the void and keep that rhythmic undertone which is probably lacking a little.

2. Try a bit of pitch bend on the lead, including double-notes or note harmonies. Also, don't be shy about exploring the whole "neck" - and drop down occasionally to the lower frets and work up or down, it will make it more interesting to your listeners. You shouldn't over-doo it though for fear of sounding like a frustrated rock lead guitarist!


Unlike the cold competitive "big bad world", you'll find a very supportive musician community here that kindly provide a wealth of expertise and friendly advice. We all know what it's like starting out and we're ALL learning all of the time from each other. That's what these forums are all about.

Good effort Lee, and very best of luck with your compositions and performances that will definitely develop with the help of others here.

Very best wishes,

Brendan.

a couple things i noticed:

too much verb on the vocal, and probably too much in the mid-low frequencies. a cut around 100-200hz might help bring it out more, but i'm not an eq expert (yet) so you might want to try dipping anywhere between that and 800-900 and seeing if it brings out the mid/high of the vocal more. it really depends on the voice. also, once this is done, the vocal may not cover the other instruments, espcially the drums, as much.

the instruments seem "small". of course they are samples so it can be harder to get a large sound out them. the other side of that is that it seems to fit the style. i really like the simplicity of the song, has a vibe to it that is really cool. the lead guitar isn't very convincing though, but sampled stuff never is.

the composition itself is really good. i've been working on recording one of my songs for about seven years now, and it's about to go through its final home recording (now that i can do 24bit). between that time i've learned a lot of stuff and a good portion of it has been here. the guys here know their stuff and they're generally careful to let you know what's up in a nice way. =)