2014/01/19 10:35:50
lostandconfused
Hi,
Listened a couple of times - usually a good sign - and agree with Brian the drums at the 50 mark do sound a bit 'clipped'.  On an absolutely personal level and not as a critique, I would like to hear the vocals on the verses delivered a little lower (quieter) and slower (a longer pause between each line) but presented how you want it is more important, so well done.
 
Regards,
 
Vincent
2014/01/20 10:05:44
michaelhanson
Leadfoot, 
Thank for listening man; glad you liked this one.  I have the same issue quite often, in that the only time I can find to listen is often on my iPhone when I can find a quite moment.
 
Ralph,
Glad you liked this one and thanks for the listen.  Hopefully...not to much of a drag.
 
Chasmcg,
Thanks for your comments on the Lead guitar tone.  I went back an forth on the amp choice and tone.  I am using an Amplitube Orange sim on this lead and it seems to come out fairly nice and convincing.
 
Oleman,
Thanks brother for listening.
 
Rebel,
Thanks for giving this one a listen.  Yes the snare has a bright punchy tone to it.  Hopefully it is not too much, but I wanted to kind of emphisise an acoustic "woody" sounding snare for this song. Incidentally, the preset for the AD drums had the snare even more pronounced than this and I toned it back a some.  The only effecs on the vocals are reverb, PC LA2A compression, and PC Quad EQ; everything else is just me.
2014/01/20 10:15:06
michaelhanson
Brianb,
Thanks for the listen.  Yes, the lyrics are ...breathe for you.  I have listened to that area of the drums a couple of times and I have check to see if anything snuck by me and clipped.  No, clipping.  I assume that you are talking about the timing of the drum fill then.  I can listen to it a little more and maybe I can go with a different fill if it sounds off.  They are premade fills in Addictive Drums that I just dragged and dropped in place.  
 
Lostandconfused,
Thanks for listening and commenting.  I can still throw SPAN up and see if it shows a clip at that :54 time spot as well, just as another check.  Thanks on the vocals.  Your suggestion for changing the delivery is interesting, but I think I will stick with what I have.  I like this arrangement pretty well.
2014/01/21 17:12:15
clintmartin
Good song. It should be a nice gear change when set in with some of your other songs. I don't have any suggestions...It sounds fine to me.
2014/01/23 13:18:15
bapu
The song is good.
 
On the production side; I'd vary the snare hits. A little too robotic for my tastes. The last snare hits seem out of time. The lead vox is a bit too buried and seems to have too much compression. 
2014/01/23 19:54:34
Wayne Joseph Kington
Good work I thought, overall could have more bass frequencies in the mix? 
2014/01/24 00:33:50
theguitarplayer
Nice song and well played. Being that I like drums they don't sound that bad at all. A tweak here and there maybe needed, but overall it sounded good on my system thru my Truth monitors. Nice instrumentation, vocals and lyrics and as for the mix, you may want to consider what Bapu had to say, as I tend to agree.
 
Peace and Blessings, John
2014/01/24 13:46:08
michaelhanson
Clint, Bapu, Wayne & John,
 
Thank you very much for listening and commenting.  Sorry, I am just getting around to responding, but work has been eating my lunch lately.
 
Ed, I will get back into the drum midi files and do a little velocity randomizing.  It's tedious to do it by hand, but that seems to work best.  I am liking this song myself and think that the song is probably worth the effort to do what ever touch ups might be necessary.  I agree that the vocals need to be just slightly louder or more prominent.  I might try a couple of things there.  
 
Ed, I am not sure on the snare hits out of time if you are talking about some of them at the end of the song?  I will overall, check the midi hits again and see if anything looks drastically out of time.
 
Someone mentioned above about the timing at the :54 mark.  That is right where I have my first fill into the Chorus.  The fills in Addictive Drums seem a little strange to me.  Many of them start out with the drum sticks clicking together, almost to find the beat, and then proceed into the fill.  If I only have a 1/2 or 1/4 measure to fit a fill into, I am trimming them to fit at what seems to be an appropriate spot.  I am not sure that I am doing a very good job with that and it seems like sometimes, I am messing up some subtle timing when I do this.  I reworked that fill at :54 this morning and it sounded better, but ran out of time to do much more before work.
 
Hopefully, I can do a little more tweaking this weekend. 
2014/01/25 09:36:59
michaelhanson
I have uploaded a newer version of this song. 
 
  1. I started by replacing the fill before the first chorus and I think this one sounds like a smoother transition. 
  2. Then I varied the snare hit velocities through out and chose some different random hits as well. 
  3. Worked on the bass a little to make it more even through out. 
  4. Lastly, I raised the vocal levels slightly by grouping them together and moving everything just a tad up.
If any of you guys that made some of these suggestions gets a chance, I would greatly appreciate if you could give this one another listen and let me know if it made an improvement.  Same link above.
 
Thanks for everyone's help.
2014/01/25 11:51:26
Rimshot
Just listened.  Really nice vocal and song.  Arrangement sound very good.  I think overall mix is distorting.  Did you check your busses and master out to make sure it wasn't clipping?  I really like the presence and guitar playing.
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