Feedback on original song

[the_skezz]

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1366588741' post='2054665']
Sub, I wish I'd have ...
[/quote]

Easily the best post I've read on BC in a long while. 10/10, A*, top notch.

[BassTractor]

[quote name='Sub_Drop' timestamp='1366585402' post='2054639']
I hope that all of your comments will show up in my future songs
[/quote]

In that case, I have some comments too:

[i]"A seasoned witch could call you from the depths of your disgrace[/i]
[i]And rearrange your liver to the solid mental grace[/i]
[i]Achieve it all with music that came quickly from afar [/i]
[i]Then taste the fruit of man recorded losing all against the hour [/i]
[i]And assessing points to nowhere leading every single one [/i]
[i]A dewdrop can exalt us like the music of the sun [/i]
[i]And take away the plain in which we move [/i]
[i]And choose the course you're running" [/i]


[color=#000000][left]Be careful though. Some of the other comments make for mediocre lyrics at best, and some are a bit airy fairy treehuggery to be honest.[/left][/color]


[color=#000000][left]best,[/left][/color]
[color=#000000][left]bert[/left][/color]

[steve-bbb]

Hopefully without sounding too harsh ... The acoustic guitar is a bit 'distracting' The rhythm of the strumming pattern doesn't sit well with the vocal for me . In particular the very opening bar, I didn't get the rhythm and timing until the second to third bar. The acoustic strumming almost sent me to the stop button but the overall effect was very listenable and kept me there till the end

edited with smilies as original posted with stoopid iphone

Edited April 22, 2013 by steve-bbb

[skankdelvar]

Okey doke. Found the headphones and listened four times.

General impression - really good song, needs remixing, murky low end, structure needs some tweaks. Singer has right voice for genre and uses it right, IMO. Lyrics fine but need a teeny bit of editing / simplifying.

Don't take this the wrong way, but it's a [i]perfect [/i]song for Radio 2 at those times of day when they're trying to kick the audience profile a bit younger without scaring the 35+'s. Wogan would have been all over this.

Plus, it's a grower. Third time round, I thought - [i]yes[/i] - sh*t hot little song that needs a bit of TLC

Detail.

[b]Mix / EQ[/b]

Opening acoustic guitar - nice quality tone but far too much low end. Cut some bottom out of it - it'll leave room for the bass later on. Needs widening to the edges and some frequencies cut from the middle when the vox comes in to give her some room. Again, occupies a bit too much space when the rhythm section comes in and masks the electric guitar fills.

This is all about cutting some frequencies for the other instruments. The song is generally murky in the low end, plus there's some conflict going on generally - each instrument is getting in the other's way to a certain extent.

Everything needs some low end taking out then put back in selectively when needed. Then get to work pulling low mids out of the acoustic during verses, choruses.

(Rearranging the 'pedal steel' lines a bit might help. Many of the fills recur in the same range- also sounds quite 'round' and dark rather than 'singing' - maybe the same notes on different strings in a different position - IMO)

Vocals sit on top of the backing rather than in it, thus 'seeming' too loud. Cutting some of the murk and eq'ing her some space in the instrumentation would help. Ducking the backing with a multiband compressor might help (?), but more experienced people than me would know best about this.

Drums far too murky, boxy sound. For a song like this, snare needs to 'chop 'in the verse and 'whip' in the chorus. Toms need to sparingly used, but sound 'full' when they are. Reverb issues?

[b]Performances[/b]

Vox - I think her voice is bang on for the material and the genre. Just lovely, and there's some thought going into selling the song and the lyrics. Maybe needs to go emotionally darker in the verses, emotionally higher in the chorus.

Bass - too obscured by the murk and the other instruments. Difficult to tell, but possibly a bit over-busy when following the acoustic guitar rhythm. Nothing wrong with laying back when everyone else is charging forwards.

Drums - need work. As others have said - simplify the fills and get that snare in exactly the right place.

Guitars - As with bass, mixed too quiet. Fills getting squashed by mix and competition with everyone else. Pedal steels can go higher, can swoop and dive. The fills here are OK but recur in the same range too often. Very, very difficult to get right and might not be improved unless you hired a steel player to do a remote session in the US (gasp).

[b]Song structure[/b]

YES! YES! YES! You get to the hook in 28 seconds, which is the approved duration for any good hit song in this genre. Spot on, Sir.

Hook needs more lift. Two things:

First - Vocal strategy. Single voice vocal [i]much [/i]too exposed on first line of chorus. Seemed to me that she comes off the back of a doubled verse into the single voice chorus. That's then supplemented by a doubled vocal on the second line of the chorus (sorry if I'm mistaken). This impedes the dynamic. Maybe try doing the last line of the verse solo (pull some of the doubling) then back into doubled vocals and support with big, big harmony backing vox. Which brings us to...

Second - Chorus content - needs much more oomph. More harmony vocals. More stuff. More swoop. Snare whipping, audience rising up, etc. At this point, she should be cutting our hearts out with a tear-stained razorblade while the entire f**king world goes up in flames. Which means creating some EQ space for all this additional sh*t that's going in. And pull the acoustic guitar back a bit. Chorus needs to glide.

Basic structure - like I said, it gets to the hook fast. Great. Second verse - OK. Then it all flattens off and we wait much,much too long for the outro chorus. Get to that last hook quicker - halve the verse.

Then we only get it once, ya cheapskate. Double the number of choruses at the end. Give us [i]a[i]t least two choruses [/i]a[/i]t full beans then drop the song off the cliff as you (sort of) do. But lose those string squeaks, external noise, whatever at the end. Last thing we should hear should be her voice - so that it follows us around all day.

[b]Lyrics[/b]

Very close to right for this sort of song but verses need some standout images among the quite wordy cerebral sentiments / aspirations (not that that's a bad thing in itself).

The meaning of the song is a bit oblique for me and there's nothing wrong with banging in a very 'soft' or very punchy line here and there. I'm thinking of commonplace words sort of like 'dreaming', 'yearning', 'skin', 'bitch', 'cut', 'bleeding'. Which for all I know may have been in there, but didn't get through.

Very much like the way the lyrics stay off the conventional rhythmic pattern.

They suit her voice too. I can imagine meeting someone like her and imagine her saying those things. She's got inside the character of the song's protagonist, but I think she might need something a little bit lyrically grittier or more 'desperate' to support some of her vocal punches.

Keep writing, keep recording, keep doing stuff, then come back to this with fresh ears. It's good. Well done.

Edited April 23, 2013 by skankdelvar

[lojo]

[quote name='Sub_Drop' timestamp='1366585402' post='2054639']
First off, I am sorry to see that my 'feedback on anything' has created a little bit of drama 'for one of a better term'.
[/quote]

Mate, on most forums a "drama" can be started on a thread on how to spell "drama"

Personally I'd love to see more threads with people's originals in , good luck with the writing

[the boy]

The song itself is a good song. The production is average. The problem for me with the lyrics is that they are too distinguishable. By that I mean they don't blend with the mix. I find these days as much can be achieved on an iPad with garage band and some cool apps as can be achieved in a lot of studios. All you would need is a simple interface and you could easily achieve much better results than on this track. I like the song though, you can definitely write a catchy song. Not sure why people didn't like the girls voice sounded pretty good (albeit a little safe). A friend of mine years ago told me when you are writing your first songs you should write about a fight. Apparently it's quite difficult and whilst honing your skills it helps you to avoid all the typical cliches and stereotypes that love songs typically attract.