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My Tunes

PostPosted: Thu Oct 27, 2011 8:36 pm
by dylanger
Hey Folks, I recently recorded a couple of tunes for one of my groups Farrelly Green. Check them out and let me know what you think of it from and audio perspective.


www.myspace.com/farrellygreen


If you like what you hear go to our FB page and "like" us! I just made these two pages last night and I'm trying to get the FB one out there a bit


http://www.facebook.com/pages/Farrelly- ... 2702219600


Thanks

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 10:09 am
by Mathieu Benoit
I'm trying to listen but the myspace player isn't working at the moment.

EDIT: "The music player is temporarily unavailable."

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 10:28 am
by dylanger
Seems like a weird way to market music........haha

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 10:30 am
by Mathieu Benoit
dylanger wrote:Seems like a weird way to market music........haha

Send via email. I'm bored at work and I want to hear it.

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 10:34 am
by dylanger
I'm at work and don't have a copy here, the player seems to be working now

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 11:14 am
by Mathieu Benoit
dylanger wrote:I'm at work and don't have a copy here, the player seems to be working now

I've tried everything, no go. I can't access Myspace at work, but I tried on my phone (android) and on my co-workers iPhone and it does the same thing. I updated Flash Player to make sure but still nothing. I've always hated Myspace though.

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 11:20 am
by Malcolm Boyce
Mathieu Benoit wrote:... I've always hated Myspace though.

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 11:44 am
by dylanger
I'm trying to figure out how to post them on FB. Even the player on Facebook is kinda glitchy. I was listening to Feedbacks stuff on Facebook and it made me listen to the songs in order so if I wanted to listen to the 9th song on the list it made me go through the 8 before it

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 11:58 am
by Mathieu Benoit
Have you looked into SoundCloud?


A key feature of SoundCloud is that it lets artists upload their music with a distinctive URL. This contrasts to MySpace, which hosts music only on the MySpace site. By allowing sound files to be embedded anywhere, SoundCloud can be combined with Twitter and Facebook to increase its audience reach. Soundcloud distributes music using widgets and apps. Users can place the widget on their own websites or blogs, and then SoundCloud will automatically Tweet every track uploaded. SoundCloud has an API that allows other applications or smartphones to upload or download music and sound files. Apps are available for the iPhone and Android platforms and a Symbian App is also thought to be on the way.


EDIT: It also allows users to make comments at specific points of the wave graphic.

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 1:35 pm
by Christian LeBlanc
+1 for SoundCloud. You get 2 hours' worth of space, in any quality you want...so you can upload a wav file that will sound better than an mp3 would. Adding comments is great for collaborating with people online (you can set your tracks to "private," meaning only people with the link can listen to it), getting feedback, etc. I really advise giving it a trial run, at least.

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Sat Oct 29, 2011 12:13 am
by Malcolm Boyce
I hate to generalize, but pretty much everything I've heard on newer services has made myspace sound like the shite it is. There has to be a better option that's easy to set up these days. What are other folks using these days beside SoundCloud? I'm not saying it's bad, but what are the good options for new artists?

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Sat Oct 29, 2011 12:17 am
by Malcolm Boyce
Reverbnation? Where does it fit in?

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Sat Oct 29, 2011 11:45 am
by Christian LeBlanc
I'm listening to these on headphones instead of speakers, so that may affect my perception. Also, I'm hobbyist, not pro, so as I say to Steve, take my advice for what it's worth.

Sway: I feel like the lead vocals are way too up-front in the mix, like I'm struggling to hear the stringed instruments, especially the strumming on the left. Maybe tweak the higher frequencies on the instruments to increase their presence? As for taking the vocals down a little, maybe try a touch of reverb to see if they sit better that way, before adjusting eq or volume.

Never stopped loving you: There's something cool happening in the right-hand channel early on that I want to hear better.

1:14 - 1:38 = awesome sauce! I'm vaguely aware that the slow strings on the right sound undefined, but the two guitar melodies sound so great together that I don't care :)

The female vocals sound great, but like Sway, they overpower the rest of the music. I'd maybe experiment with some compression to put the dynamics under control, as well as some reverb to help them sit better. Not a lot, just a little. Purely as an artistic choice, how would a tiny bit of slap-back delay sound instead of reverb? Bad idea? Maybe.

Overall, I find that the instruments all need help being more pronounced, while the vocals need to sit back a little more, but that's just me. Tell us a little about how everything was recorded?

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Sat Oct 29, 2011 1:13 pm
by dylanger
Thanks for the reply :-D

Most of this stuff was recorded in bits and pieces, Randi (violin/vocals) lives in Halifax except for summer so we get together when ever we can and take what we can for tracks.We recorded her tracks for Never Stopped Loving You, the last day she was home this summer, so we quickly did it and the vocals were recorded a bit sketchy. A lot of my parts were recorded at my grandmother (A spot on salmon river, over looking 1/2 km of river, in the middle of no where. Most peaceful place on earth IMO) The solo probably took me 3 hours to figure what I was going to do, and once I figured out what to do it took me about a half hour to record it. I wanted it perfect and I think were 27 takes.......I think it was worth it.On Sway the cello was recorded by Emily Kennedy, a really good friend of ours who's going to school in Ontario. She's the only person I never give direction too because I always love what she does. She has made me keep some of my tunes that I probably would of thrown out (ex. One Day). The Classical was the last touch on Sway. One day I heard my first demo of that song when I wrote it and I completely forgot that I wrote it on a Classical so I decided to put some in there.

I really appreciate the Input. I really need to get some Reference monitors, I think thats why the mixing was not all that great. There will be more to come. Randi and I are really getting the bug to write, record and play.


P.S.

Don't forget to like us on FB!

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Sun Oct 30, 2011 6:33 pm
by Mathieu Benoit
Emily on cello = Fricken awesome. Sway has a very Damien Rice flavour to it.

One Day is still one of my favorites of yours and I've been saying that for a while. I don't know what you have against it.

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Sun Oct 30, 2011 6:53 pm
by dylanger
It's not that I have anything against it, I just wasn't huge on the tune until Emily put cello to it. Now I like it a lot more.

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Sun Oct 30, 2011 11:12 pm
by gamblor
SO you didn't mix these on reference monitors? Crazy! What did you use?

I think they both sound great. Never Stopped Loving You is a better sounding mix.

The two things that stand out to me are the acoustic guitar tone and the vocals. The guitar tone in Sway was a bit too tinny and forward. It wasn't too loud, in fact it may have been too quiet. It just needed a bit more gentle application of reverb, perhaps something roomy. I think that and some eq'ing to cut the ultra-highs will go a long way. Did you use any compression on the acoustic guitar? As for the vocals, they were just a bit too loud for my liking.

Really though, I am impressed! I like your sound a lot. Production quality won't accomplish anything unless you develop and understand your sound. It's clear you've done that.

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Sun Oct 30, 2011 11:20 pm
by gamblor
Malcolm Boyce wrote:Reverbnation? Where does it fit in?


I second soundcloud by the way. I'm currently doing mixes for a band four timezones away from me. I can't even begin to express how valuable soundcloud has been for allowing the artist to give meaningful feedback despite the distance issue. As far as an online media playing/music sharing tool goes, it's the best. Hands down.

As far as reverbnation goes, it's more of a promotional tool than anything. It has a music player with far less features than soundcloud, but what it does that others don't do is serve as an all-in-one promotional hub. You can update your shows, news, music, and apply for festivals just to name a few. I'm sure I've barely scratched the surface.

The most crucial feature from what I've seen is its ability to efficiently update all your other online promotional resources with one click. It will send any updates to the band's facebook, twitter, webpage, myspace, and all the other crap that the kids are using. Much easier than doing one at a time!

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Sun Oct 30, 2011 11:41 pm
by dylanger
gamblor wrote:SO you didn't mix these on reference monitors? Crazy! What did you use?

I think they both sound great. Never Stopped Loving You is a better sounding mix.

The two things that stand out to me are the acoustic guitar tone and the vocals. The guitar tone in Sway was a bit too tinny and forward. It wasn't too loud, in fact it may have been too quiet. It just needed a bit more gentle application of reverb, perhaps something roomy. I think that and some eq'ing to cut the ultra-highs will go a long way. Did you use any compression on the acoustic guitar? As for the vocals, they were just a bit too loud for my liking.

Really though, I am impressed! I like your sound a lot. Production quality won't accomplish anything unless you develop and understand your sound. It's clear you've done that.


I used $40 AKG K44 headphones and the speakers coming from my Mac.

Its funny you mention the acoustic guitar tone on Never stopped Loving you, When I wrote the song I came up with the little riff and chord progression on my dads 79 Takamine EF340 and the tone off that guitar is super warm and mellow. I was really just admiring the tone of the guitar and thats what came out. I recorded it with my D28 though because it was the guitar at hand when I did these sessions. After listening to these songs on another source I can agree with the statement made about the guitar being too quite and too bright and the Vocals being too loud. I listened to this in my car (horrible sound system......) and the violin and vocals are too overbearing while trying to listen in on the acoustic. I did use compression on the guitar, but I've been mixing a lot and the last week or so and I've been leaving out compression. I did some drum tracks for a guy and I initially put a lot of compression on everything and as I was mixing and eq'ing I ended up taking most of it off. I'll post the drum tracks within the next couple days. I'm curious what you guys will think of them.

I really appreciate the input and the compliments. I've learned a lot from this forum and the people that are involved. I would of been completely lost if it weren't for being able to call on certain people on the forum.

I just signed up for reverb nation by the way so there will be some higher quality stuff to listen too soon!

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 7:50 am
by dylanger

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 9:35 am
by Mathieu Benoit
From the technical side of things I think the thing that gets the most in the way here is the room the source was recorded in. It's farily easy to re-mix something like this but it would be harder to remove the room from the recordings. It's not that there is anything bad about having the sound of a room in a track, but it depends on the room. If the room you are recording in doesn't work well then sometimes it's best to just kill it (figuratively speaking.)

Otherwise, as far as your mixing goes... Its' not bad for demos, but you should really get into some automation to keep everything where you need it level wise. That being said you need a better listening environment to be able to make those assessments as well.

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 7:37 pm
by Malcolm Boyce
The only thing jumping out at me about either of these two tunes is the female lead vocal on "Never Stopped Loving You" not blending tonally as well with the track or your vocal. It sounds like something added after the fact to an already finished recording, and not well done.

None of your lead vocals sound seriously out of balance level wise, or tonally to me. The same goes for any of the instrumentation. All very decently done IMO. This based on my casual listen, not any serious forensic analysis.

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 5:37 pm
by macrae11
Did you do any changes to the mix on soundcloud? They sound very different.

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 6:31 pm
by dylanger
That is a new mix, Eq'ed the acoustic and brought down the vocals a bit, I played a little bit with the cello's volume too.

Re: My Tunes

PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:13 am
by macrae11
I think you might have overdone it with your vocal level change. Vocal level is a very subjective issue though, and I didn't really think it was very much out of place on the original, except in a few spots. Overall I think the cello and vocals need much more stringent automation riding because they're stepping on each other at different times. They're both very dynamic which is great, so I don't think you should compress them any more, but just ride them to keep them in their place. This might have been why people were thinking the vocals were too loud. Another thing is everything is very ambient which is cool and sets a great vibe, but maybe try either significantly reducing the verb on one or two instruments, even just a few spots with automation. This will make them really pop out and have some great contrast. My first thoughts would be vocals in the verse and/or bridge, or changing the amount of verb on the violin from section to section.

For Never Stopped Loving You I think some of the same acoustic EQ treatment you did on sway would help as well. I always find large body rosewood guitars tough to sit in a mix without some processing. They just never seem to have enough mid range definition, all top and bottom. You've got lots of room to play with, so you should be able to have some fun. I think you should either sing farther from the mic, or have Randi sing a little closer. I can hear the ambiance difference which makes her seem like she's in a different space. Or maybe you just have a different reverb on her, but I'm pretty sure it's the room coming through.

Great job though, really love the feel you've captured.