Members rsadasiv Posted March 22, 2007 Members Share Posted March 22, 2007 A piano, a microphone and a great song. What more do you need? The End of a Love Affair well, maybe a bottle of scotch and a nice compressor... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Chicken Monkey Posted March 23, 2007 Members Share Posted March 23, 2007 The piano sound isn't great, but that might just be a fight we have until the end of time. Your keys usually sound good as part of a mix, but we're a little trebley and artificially reverby (or something) here. I like the piano line, though. The vocal melody sounds good. This has that familair-but-not-recognizable feel to it, which is a good thing. The vocal is mixed really low, so I can't make out the lyrics; no comment there. It might be the sparse arrangement, or the low vocals, but I'm having a hard time following the structure. Is there just the tag line for variation? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rsadasiv Posted March 24, 2007 Author Members Share Posted March 24, 2007 Thanks for the feedback CM. The vocal is mixed really low I thought that there was no way that I could screw up a mix with just two tracks, but I see that was a false assumption. The piano sound isn't great ... we're a little trebley and artificially reverby (or something) here. I wanted to go for a "vintage" sound on this, so I used a Reason Pianos patch labeled "Vintage Steinway D" and chose a "vintage" preset on the master EQ and vocal channel strip. I've since come to the realization that "vintage" as a sound design marketing term really means "high-passed at 75 hertz and bit-crushed the rest of the way". I can't make out the lyrics; no comment there. It's a Frank Sinatra song. No charts, so I improvised some chords underneath the melody (as well as I could remember it). I did find some lyrics on the internet. So I walk a little too fast and I drive a little too fastAnd I Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Chicken Monkey Posted March 24, 2007 Members Share Posted March 24, 2007 I thought it was an original--good thing I didn't say it was a bland piece of frozen airline jettison with no commercial potential. Come to think of it, it's pretty Larry Frickin' complimentary that I gave you credit for that one, huh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rsadasiv Posted March 28, 2007 Author Members Share Posted March 28, 2007 If just five more people from the forum listen to this song today, I could push some joker named gschmitt off of the top of the soundclick jazz-vocals charts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members eagle1 Posted March 28, 2007 Members Share Posted March 28, 2007 If just five more people from the forum listen to this song today, I could push some joker named gschmitt off of the top of the soundclick jazz-vocals charts. hehehehehehehehe The nerve on that guy!!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Swingfinger Posted March 29, 2007 Members Share Posted March 29, 2007 I liked it.. it sounded like Randy Newman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Christopher Kai Posted March 29, 2007 Members Share Posted March 29, 2007 Glad I could help you bump someone on the charts. I love those lyrics, BTW. Sinatra was a man who surrounded himself with geniuses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rhat Posted March 29, 2007 Members Share Posted March 29, 2007 The piano sound isn't great, but that might just be a fight we have until the end of time. Your keys usually sound good as part of a mix, but we're a little trebley and artificially reverby (or something) here. I like the piano line, though. The vocal melody sounds good. This has that familair-but-not-recognizable feel to it, which is a good thing. The vocal is mixed really low, so I can't make out the lyrics; no comment there. It might be the sparse arrangement, or the low vocals, but I'm having a hard time following the structure. Is there just the tag line for variation? It sounds like raindrops keep falling on my head. rat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Floophead3 Posted March 30, 2007 Members Share Posted March 30, 2007 Indeed, I agree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rsadasiv Posted March 31, 2007 Author Members Share Posted March 31, 2007 It sounds like raindrops keep falling on my head. rat Not trying to be argumentative here, but outside of being piano solos these references don't seem to have much in common. Burt Bacharach usually writes some sort of hard to navigate tempo/meter/key change into his songs, while Randy Newman plays a pretty consistent boogie-woogie/swing (especially in his left hand) and writes melodies which fit into his (limited) vocal range. I enjoy both these artists, and I appreciate the feedback - I am just a little bit confused about how I can apply (both) these responses towards improving my songwriting/performance/production. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Chicken Monkey Posted March 31, 2007 Members Share Posted March 31, 2007 Not trying to be argumentative here, but outside of being piano solos these references don't seem to have much in common. Burt Bacharach usually writes some sort of hard to navigate tempo/meter/key change into his songs, while Randy Newman plays a pretty consistent boogie-woogie/swing (especially in his left hand) and writes melodies which fit into his (limited) vocal range. I don't think the BJ Thomas (was it BJ Thomas?) version of "Raindrops..." really fits your description of a Bacharach tune. Raindrops and the typical Newman song have a jaunty piano feel, which is what I think folks were getting at. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rsadasiv Posted April 1, 2007 Author Members Share Posted April 1, 2007 Raindrops and the typical Newman song have a jaunty piano feel, which is what I think folks were getting at. Fair enough. Thanks for clearing that up. I can work with "jaunty". I don't think the BJ Thomas (was it BJ Thomas?) version of "Raindrops..." really fits your description of a Bacharach tune. I haven't listened to it in ages, so this is from memory, but IIRC "Raindrops ..." has both a tricky melody line ("like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed") and tempo change (the transition from the legato "Nothing's worrying me" back to the staccato "Raindrops keep falling"). These are both, to me, signature Bacharach moves. Check out the similarity to "Say a Little Prayer" - the tricky melody line ("and all through my coffee break time") and tempo change (the uptempo "Forever and ever I say that I love you" chorus sliding back to the slower "I run for the bus dear" verse on the line "It only brings heartbreak for me", which in addition to being the tempo pivot is also a major/minor harmonic transition). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Open Posted April 19, 2007 Members Share Posted April 19, 2007 Can anyone say Bryan Ferry? Nice job but the piano sound didn't do justice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tullsterx Posted April 21, 2007 Members Share Posted April 21, 2007 Hey man, is this your new direction? Yeah, I guess the piano's a little weak. But, the song is really good. It did a good job a creating a picture in my head, of rainy streets through car windows or something. I like the sentiments of the lyrics and they fit well with the vocal delivery and the melody. Cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted April 21, 2007 Members Share Posted April 21, 2007 Hunh. I didn't recognize the song until I read the lyrics. Yours is certainly an idiosyncratic reading of the song. I'm familiar with he Sinatra version from Close to You and More... and I put it on just now as a reality check and... yeah... you really, uh, reinvented the hell outta the sucker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tullsterx Posted April 21, 2007 Members Share Posted April 21, 2007 ' complimentary that I gave you credit for that one, huh? Wha?!? A Larry Frick mention!?!?! You know I play with Larry Frick and we're discussed Larry Frick. I didn't know that his name had been turned into part of the cultural slang of the Songwriter's Forum. You didn't get "Munsoned" recently did you CM? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members eeglug Posted April 21, 2007 Members Share Posted April 21, 2007 The Ferry comparison seems appropriate. I think the thing that makes the sound seem a little strange is that the vocal and the piano aren't occupying the same acoustic space. Yes, it's jaunty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rsadasiv Posted April 21, 2007 Author Members Share Posted April 21, 2007 Hey man, is this your new direction? Not really, the recording is a year old - I just revoiced the piano from the one I was monitoring with when I recorded it. I finished recording and mixing the songs I was working on, but I wasn't totally happy with the results. I decided that I needed better instruments, that I needed to play those instruments better, and that my instruments and performances need to serve the song instead of the other way around. So I am kind of woodshedding right now - educating my ears, training my fingers, hoping to take another crack at recording this fall. Welcome back - hope you are "frickin" well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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