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Back and Forth (Updated post 103)


bee3

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Martin must be smoking the funny stuff while his family is away. :)

 

 

Oh man...what's wild is this is one of those things that would take 10 seconds to communicate in person. I originally thought the drawn out 4-bar break after the chorus (2 bars F, 2 bars G) was kind of turgid. Just get back to the groove. Not sure how you solve the F - F progression, but you can. But I like the F-G after the 2nd chorus...I love it when the chorus grows a little every time.

 

Just so we're clear I think this song is awesome as is - I'm just throwing out what I would tweak. It's nothing mission-critical.

 

I'll have to take a picture of my living room recording studio. It's frickin' awesome. 2.5 more weeks, let's see how many songs I can finish!!!

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It's a good idea to nix the double time chorus. Step away if you want, but please don't hate this song.... or call it finished until I can pass along my idea. :)

 

I'll be in my office around 10 this morning, so you can call the office then if you want.

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OK. I've almost come full circle here. I've nixed the double-time chorus. I've focused on the drums. I haven't yet shortened the first chorus and don't know that I will. I need to get away from this song!

 

http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=12859130

 

Stepping away from this for a while. I'm growing to hate it.

 

Any other comments on this last version before I put it to bed for a few weeks?

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I think this is freaking great. The only thing it needs is a little time away from it. And honestly... just get a drummer and great rhythm player to come in and bash on it. It's that kind of tune. You gotta pull in the ringers on this one. You need Keith and Charlie. Your work is fine, but this needs some very confident swagger and 'tude.

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I think this is freaking great. The only thing it needs is a little time away from it. And honestly... just get a drummer and great rhythm player to come in and bash on it. It's that kind of tune. You gotta pull in the ringers on this one. You need Keith and Charlie. Your work is fine, but this needs some very confident swagger and 'tude.

 

Oh yeah... I plan on getting my buddy Zil on drums and Avery on guitars... and my brother on bass. Maybe I just need to get to that point as a next step.

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Alright, Justin, I got tired of waiting and recorded this at work with my mp3 player. It is pure audio crap and there is a loud noise at the end when I'm turning it off, but I thought waiting any longer to illustrate the idea would probably lead to you just moving on.

 

http://picosong.com/PMZn/

 

Two things.

 

1) In my head, I hear an echo of "driftintoeachother" at 0:11 and 0:29.

 

2) I think it would be cool if you had an instrument, maybe an electric guitar, playing your current vocal melody under this melody. So the vocal breaks things up a little, but the music keeps the motif running. Best of both worlds. :)

 

Take it or leave it, it's your choice.

 

Edit: Now I'm wondering how it might work with both vocal lines going. The lead taking my approach and the backing vox doing yours. In my head it sounds awesome!

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Thanks Os... haven't given it a good listen yet. My wife is away and I've got the three kids. I'm currently sitting poolside watching them swim. But it's kind of noisy out here and I can't hear well through the laptop speaker.

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Alright, Justin, I got tired of waiting and recorded this at work with my mp3 player. It is pure audio crap and there is a loud noise at the end when I'm turning it off, but I thought waiting any longer to illustrate the idea would probably lead to you just moving on.

http://picosong.com/PMZn/

That's nice, reminds me of the Willy Wonka World of Imagination song.

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Alright, Justin, I got tired of waiting and recorded this at work with my mp3 player. It is pure audio crap and there is a loud noise at the end when I'm turning it off, but I thought waiting any longer to illustrate the idea would probably lead to you just moving on.

 

http://picosong.com/PMZn/

 

Two things.

 

1) In my head, I hear an echo of "driftintoeachother" at 0:11 and 0:29.

 

2) I think it would be cool if you had an instrument, maybe an electric guitar, playing your current vocal melody under this melody. So the vocal breaks things up a little, but the music keeps the motif running. Best of both worlds. :)

 

Take it or leave it, it's your choice.

 

Edit: Now I'm wondering how it might work with both vocal lines going. The lead taking my approach and the backing vox doing yours. In my head it sounds awesome!

It's interesting... but I'm not sure I'm sold though. It eliminates one of my favorite parts, which is where 'consciousness' ends on that 9th in the Am chord. Thanks for the suggestion though.

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Well, you could bring that bit back like so...

 

Back and forth we driftintoeachother

Each other's consciousness (this would sound exactly as it is right now)

Back and forth we driftintoeachother

 

I dropped "consciousness" because it didn't feel necessary to me, but neither is "the world is pushing us together" when you get right down to it, since that is conveyed with or without it.

 

Of course, you could do both by having the backing vox do the original lyric and the lead do this one (or vice versa).

 

I like this idea because it gives it strikes me as a good balance between leaning on your motif while offering a touch of texture. But it's your tune, so do whatever works for you. :)

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I think this is freaking great. The only thing it needs is a little time away from it. And honestly... just get a drummer and great rhythm player to come in and bash on it. It's that kind of tune. You gotta pull in the ringers on this one. You need Keith and Charlie. Your work is fine, but this needs some very confident swagger and 'tude.
Real drums have been commissioned... along with two of my other songs (Too Much & Skin and Bones). They're being done in a pro studio by my friend Ron: http://www.forgerecording.com/

 

Avery has been contacted as well.

 

 

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Sounds great! About the snare... are you compressing it yourself? Or is that all his processing? If it's yours, try a longer attack time. Your transient is being smooshed. Actually, even if it his processing, try a compressor with a longish attack time to bring some transient out! Or... if you're looking to spend some money... go over to Softube and buy their Summit Audio TLA-100A compressor. WOW! And it includes a wet/dry knob to leave in the unprocessed signal as well. Or... set up and parallel compression scheme yourself and blend in your heavy compressed snare with the untouched.

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Sounds great.

 

The snare is still a little flat to me, I'd try combing two tracks, on completely clean and one with an envelope shape on it that emphasizes the attack.

 

I've listened a few times and I think you could easily get rid of that "in THE whitewater" issue simply by cramming "inthe" together so "white" hits the beat "the" now occupies.

 

inthe WHITE...water

 

Oh, and I have to admit to preferring the bang! bang! lead in to the chorus that you used on your last midi drum than this current take. I don't like the roll at 1: 00 at all.

 

Otherwise I'm just a jealous listener. :)

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Thanks Os. I've got a slew of different takes I can explore to replace the fill. I'm at peace with the prosody 'issue'. I kind of even like it. The snare... I may try the parallel compression thing and see if that helps. Never done that before. How's the mellotron sounding? That's new and I really like what it does for the second half of the bridge and that last chorus. I considered doing it an octave lower, but thought it may get lost.

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