Satan v Santa (first full song with new interface)

[oddestmoose0]

I've been playing around with my firepod and midi keyboard that I got in a couple of weeks ago and finally felt confident enough to try and record a whole song. Me and some friends of mine wrote the core idea of this song a while back. I play and sing everything except the lead guitar tracks. This song is definitely the best thing I've done in terms of audio quality and is one of my better songs IMO so I hope you enjoy.

 

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pageartist.cfm?bandID=691165

[oddestmoose0]

one more try

[eeglug]

Your material is quirky in a good way. I enjoyed it. Like your other stuff, this song is begging for a fleshed out arrangement with a full band. Even some sort of percussion might've helped.

 

I thought the wordless vocals were fun. The oo-wee-oo-wee-oo's could use a bit of reverb. I wanted the vocals to be a little more on pitch, especially since they are carrying a lot of the weight of the song. Also, I couldn't hear the words very well and I'm on the fence as to whether I wanted to, given the title...lol.

 

Nice synth at the end. The end is a bit abrupt but then I think your other songs may not have had well-defined endings either, which leads me to think that's not part of your style.

 

Good stuff - keep it coming.

[oddestmoose0]

lyrics

 

satin's in a satin santa costume now (4X)

 

Please child listen to me and spread my christmas cheer

things will be different this year

 

don't choose satin over santa

 

oh no, wake up satin's in your chimney

oh no, wake up satin's eatin your cookies

 

 

Ha ha, I guess I might see why nobody listened to it considering the title. It was a very playful song not meant in any satanic sense by any means. It actually was a lament of Santa and Christmas being distorted from what it meant. Being a Christian, it kind of means to me, the distorting of Christmas by commercialism and by Christians themselves retaliating in a way that I don't agree with. So this is kind of my light hearted way of tackling the subject.

 

Thanks for the comments Eelug, I'm working on figuring out the drums using Cubase and Reason. I really haven't even touched Reason because I'm trying to figure out how to use Cubase adequately enough to record. I'll have to work on the vocals staying on pitch more. I think I was trying to deny to myself that they were off pitch but I'm glad you pointed it out. Could you be a little more specific where it is off pitch so I can work on it. The reason I couldn't end the song like I wanted to is because I couldn't figure out how to lower the volume on the midi synth part. I wanted it to fade out with that but I could only change the volume on the vst so it wouldn't I didn't know how to fade it out. It's not my intention for my songs to not have well defined endings so be sure to mention it in the future if I do that again.

 

thanks again for listening

[eagle1]

Hi oddestmoose0!

 

I listened to the song and I found it really cool and toe-tapping... but just

for the first minute. After that the song went into kind-of a surprising "emo" turn with the acoustic guitar. It took me by surprise, I didn't think it was going to shift gears. It's not bad (that shift) though, I love acoustics .

The clean acoustic sound is really nice and so is the arrangement.

 

The synth at the end sounds kind of weird (maybe it's just too loud for my ears?!?).

[Dubb]

I thought the wordless vocals were fun. The oo-wee-oo-wee-oo's could use a bit of reverb. I wanted the vocals to be a little more on pitch, especially since they are carrying a lot of the weight of the song.

I agree with all the above statements. At first I thought the oo-wee-oo's were just plain annoying, but now that I listen to it again I think they could be made a little more palatable if softened up by some reverb as eeglug suggests. Overall I thought it was a pretty catchy song, but IMHO one of your weaker efforts in comparison to some of the other songs you've posted (which I like very much).

[eeglug]

Could you be a little more specific where it is off pitch so I can work on it.

 

This is a tough one. I hear a bunch of off pitch stuff throughout. The wordless backing vocal stuff at the beginning has moments of pitchiness right from the start to the end of the oo-wee-oo's. It's like every few notes are a little off - but it's not at any consistent spot. The most prominent off-pitch moments (for me) are the "oh no, wake up..." lines - quite specifically the "oh no"s. It's probably the harmony vocal that's off.

 

If you're ok with the sound of it, double-tracking can sometimes alleviate things like this.

 

I'm terrible with pitch as well and have always struggled with it in my singing. One odd thing with me is that I can never judge my pitchiness over headphones. I have to listen over speakers...for some reason I just don't hear any flaws in my own singing with headphones. I don't why this is and I've never heard anyone else say anything like this. It's a personal thing I guess. I'm not sure if that is worth considering for yourself. Having good monitors for reference always helps.

 

I don't know if you followed my collaboration with mekke in the forumite cooperation thread. I sang backup on his song. One thing I asked him to do was to play the melody he wanted me to sing on guitar. You might want to consider doing something like that - play your vocal lines on an instrument and try to follow the pitch when you sing. Note that there's lots of italian opera that have this kind of thing: the singer's lines are doubled by some instruments in the orchestra during arias, no doubt to help the singers stay on-pitch.

 

Hope some of this makes sense and good luck. I enjoy your music and you have great ideas...looking forward to hear your progress.

[dbd1963]

I enjoyed it quite a bit, though like eeglug I'd like to hear a full treatment of it too. It almost started out as a powerpop song, then it diverged into something different, but not far removed from powerpop, so if you fleshed it out you'd have a radio-ready hit. Well, except for the whole Satan thing, maybe..

[oddestmoose0]

Dear eagle1

 

"surprising "emo" turn with the acoustic guitar"

 

That's an interesting take on it, I don't think it's what I had in mind but it's cool how people can hear totally different things in a song. The synth part is probably mixed terribly. I'm pretty bad at getting volumes right for all the parts but I'm going to keep working on it and get better. Thanks for the comments.

 

Dear Dubb,

 

palatable

1. Acceptable to the taste; sufficiently agreeable in flavor to be eaten.

2. Acceptable or agreeable to the mind or sensibilities: a palatable solution to the problem.

 

Impressive usage Dubb, I learned a new word:thu: I'll have to throw in some reverb on that vocal part after the double suggestion. Thanks for the comments.

 

Dear Eeglug

 

Thanks for answering my follow up question, I really appreciate it. I was kind of afraid you would say that a lot of stuff was off pitch everywhere but I think you're right. I think I have experienced what you were talking about with the pitch sounding right in headphones then not on speakers. I was actually letting one of my friends listen to the song through my speakers and he was telling me that some of it didn't sound quite right and I defended myself saying something like "oh that's just the harmonies, they sound good, you just don't know"(hopefully it wasn't actually that pompous but you get the idea) but I think you've confirmed the pitch problems. I don't have studio type monitors, i just have regular logitech computer speakers, but I do most of my mixing and listening in my headphones because I live with other people. I'll have to try writing out the vocal parts on piano or guitar and singing with that, it sounds like a really good idea. Thanks again

[Dubb]

I'll have to throw in some reverb on that vocal part after the double suggestion.

I would do that and also perhaps very slightly reduce the volume of them... the sonic equivalent of having them farther away from the listener as opposed to right in their face, if you follow.

 

By the way, I just wanted to add that I've had your song "Troubles of Mr. Meeget" stuck in my head for days. It's so catchy. I love it!

[bluesway]

this was fun as hell. i dug (really, really, really, dug) the oo wee oo wee oo. so quirky and cool.

 

i'd love to hear this in a 'bigger form'.

 

great stuff.

 

 

ps - the firepod's such a kickass piece of equipment. i love mine.

 

g