I'm 99% finished with a cover of Dobie Gray's Drift Away. I recorded it after my band's guitarist rejected it for consideration for our songlist, dismissing it as "karaoke". I'll show him, I thought, and knocked this out later that week. It's still not on our set list, but my demo at least got the rest of the band onboard.
 
In the process, I stumbled onto a new technique: recording the lead vocal at 5:00 AM, no coffee. It was meant to be a run-through but the early-morning grit I got sounded too authentic to waste, so that rehearsal turned into the final take. You can hear where I'm struggling to hit some high notes, but I decided to leave those the way they are. 
 
Note the trumpet melody near the end. That's Indiginus' new Blue Street Brass library that I'll be reviewing in next month's SoundBytes. I love it! You may notice that the trumpet melody is lifted from Hey Jude which is the same chord progression as Drift Away. Hey, you don't have to be original in a cover, right?
 
[EDIT: added link. Thanks, James.] 
 

Super great vocal, and the mix is kind of burying it in many parts of the song. First chorus, the piano and the strings are both crushing the vocal.
 
I haven't heard one of your tunes before, and this mix is really really clear, well thought out, well panned, effects are so tasteful. And the lead vocal is one of the best I've heard around here. You fill it out with the bgv's - those are some brilliant parts.
 
Clearly you know what you are doing, but if you ever are listening to this song, and you say to yourself "hey, that's a cool string part!!!" then that means the strings are too loud!  Particularly while you are singing.
 
If you took half a db away from everything else except the vocals, and pushed the vocals up half a db - something like that?
 
 
really, really good work.
 
-Tom
 
 

bitflipper
 
 
BTW, anybody know a way to link to the SoundClick player in a post? 
 
 

 
Just copy the url at the top of the player.
 
https://www.soundclick.com/html5/v3/player.cfm?type=single&songid=13602977&q=hi&newref=1
 
Very nice vocal Dave!
 
 

I really enjoyed this, especially your vocal and the trumpets.

Reading Tom's post above, I think I probably agree with his point about the levels at the start. I did feel that the vocals were competing with the other instruments in verse 1.

I hope you persuade your band with this. I think I'm going to suggest it to my band too. It's a great song!

Dave,
 
The vocal sounds good, nothing to add to above suggestions.  
 
One of the greats, Reggie Young, played guitar on that track.  Maybe that bit of trivia will sway your guitar player:) 
 
Regards

After listening to the 128 kb/s MP3, I have to agree that the vocals are getting buried in places. Curiously, they sound much clearer and on-top when I listen to it as a FLAC or WAV.  You naturally expect to lose something when you downgrade to 128 kb/s, but I'm often surprised by just what gets altered in the process. For example, sometimes the reverb disappears while at other times it becomes too pronounced.
 
Great bit of trivia re Reggie Young, thanks! Those guitar licks are the main instrumental component that makes the original recording work. They sound simple but then the best licks usually do. Come to think of it, we took Brown Eyed Girl off the songlist because our guitarist never got those crucial licks right. That may explain his reluctance on this tune.

Nice to hear something from you Dave, other than the slightly buried vocal this sounds nice here.

Very expressive vocals. Well done tune with a big ending!
As others have mentioned, I would showcase your voice a little more and
shave a little reverb.  I would want to hear this in your set list too.
Thanks for posting this.

Hi Dave ,
 
I never upload a 128 MP3 to my free Soundclick acct I send them  a 192 MP3 and for some reason they take it .
More important ,I really like your singing and voice a lot on this song very good .
 
all the best,
 
Kenny

Wonderful singing Dave. Really nice production. Perfect song for you!
I think the drums are too soft. My only crit.