Hey folks, wanted to make my first post over here hoping for some feedback.  I've got a piano/songwriting student who writes some pretty decent material with just the piano and her voice, and I've been taking her songs and giving them the Sonar treatment.  This uses a couple instances of Addictive Keys, AD2 using the NY Compression technique I just discovered, Anderton's Multiband Compression on bass Tip #164, and a few instances of Kontakt for some strings and ambient sounds.  Oh, and some quirky little background noise loops from an old sampling CD called Chemical Beats.  I found the CA2A does wonders on her voice, along with various EQ, delay, and reverb.  Verses and chorus hers, bridge, arrangement and production mine.  Hope you all enjoy!
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Pz9jwvjKM8

There's a nice insouciance to her voice.  Also, you get a lot of mileage out of those chords, it's not especially complicated (which is good)  It sounds good.

Been there many times. Cool spot.
 
I'd say her vocals are "telephoned" for too long. Cut to the chase a little sooner maybe.
 
Peppy little mix though, and she has a decent voice aided greatly by the bgv's she laid down.
 
cheers,
-Tom

Thanks for the feedback! Tom, your bgv comment made me chuckle a little; she was only over here for 15 minutes, just long enough to lay down the main vocal. Later on, I got the idea that those sections should have a harmony, so I copied them to a separate track and Melodyne'd them up a 3rd. Oh yeah, it's cheating big-time, but I'm a big proponent of the "if it sounds right, it is right" philosophy!

Mix sounds reasonable here, the intro with the affected vocal is a little too long for me.  If she was only there for the initial vocal take you did a good job of exploiting the tools in your arsenal.  I read somewhere about a song that made it to number one here in the UK that the vocal was a comp of 30 takes, so you did good from just the one or two you got.

Well played!

One take. She's a student with homework and all that so I'll tell her to make sure she's good and warmed up and have her sing 2-4 songs for the 20 minutes or so that I have her here. Usually she'll just sing to a scratch piano track that I throw together just as a guide. Than after she leaves I'll spend the next 2-3 weeks with Sonar's magical tools and turn it into something along the lines of what I posted here. I'll thow some others up here once I'm happy with the final product. Appreciate the feedback from everyone!

That was quality stuff-good job.  I liked the lead vocalist.

Well done!

You and she did a very fine recording!  I hope you two keep at it and give us something new every so often.  Congratulations.