Water - Comments?

Maybe it's not crystal cool, but I also have a song called "Water".

Colorless, odorless, tasteless, pure

My life flows down like water

My eyes are filled with color

Swatches of pigment and shimmering dye

Spectra absorbed and reflected

Careening throughout the luminous world

But my life flows down like water

My nose is filled with smell

Of sandalwood idols and freshly washed sheets

Aromas perceived and remembered

Bringing me back to my childhood days

But my life flows down like water

My mouth is filled with taste

Breathtaking heat and searing sweet

Syrupy peaches

And stiff whipped cream

But my life flows down like water

One man may be a droplet

Humanity a raging stream

Hope and possibility a shack

Built on delta silt

All of life becomes part of the river

Flowing into the sea

But my life flows down like water

mp3 is up on soundclick and myspace.

This is clearly the most rocking song to feature freshly washed sheets, syrupy peaches and whipped cream. . . ever!

I definitely like it. The vocal gives this track a kind of "techno Clash/punk" feel to me. I would comment on the production, but, I'm listening through some crappy computer speakers so I'm not getting a good picture.

I like this song, I listened like 4 times. A hypnotic groovy track.

water -

the lyrics are clever and there's some good imagery in there for me. the energy of the song was constantly driving and strong and the ' goes down like water' hook was presented well enough.

now, i'm not a huge fan of the vocal inflections you use, but that's more a taste issue, so that's to be disregarded. BUT, in regard to that brazen style you sing with, it's very important to record the voice more clearly, which i don't feel you did a good enough job at.

that being said, let me start the critique by saying that i think the overall production undermined any qualities that were to be found in the tune. and when one mentions poor production quality, the first to pop into anyone's mind would be bad equipment/bad sounds. i wouldn't say this is necessarily the problem and i don' t know if it's human error with functional enough equipment, but to me, the whole production sounded too hot; like everthing's level was just exploding in the red and clipping as a result - something that's easily corrected with even moderate equipment.

besides that, the first thing that really stood out for me was your pad/synth playing. it was consistently trickling in and out of meter; with some distracting timekeeping issues in various places. for me, that's a real pet peeve.

also, the rhythm guitar seemed to have a lot of the same problems as the pad. very mechanical strumming at times. the lead, i felt, was in the groove, though.

a quandry: is the use of the drum machine purely out of the lack of a real drummer or do you prefer that? either way, i'd try and vary the drum programming a bit more than you did. you could really do alot for your hook by marking it in the drums better.

i think that's all i have to say right now. if you re-record, do me the favor of getting my attention about it - as i would love to know if i've contributed any help whatsoever!

pray for peace,

g

Ram, I think that you and I have the same problem, in that we like our IDEAS so much that our PRODUCT suffers. Your drum machine is a case in point. I love that you've got the repetitious beat clanking throughout the track, but, yeah, it would sound better if there was some variation, or maybe just a more interesting pulse. You've cited Gram Parsons in the past--do you have the Grevious Angel tribute album? The Mavericks do a version of Hot Burrito #2 with a drum machine, and it works really well. Might be worth looking into for someone who wants to attach an obviously inorganic sound with an otherwise organic beast.

The vocal appeals to me WAY more than on your other tracks, but it distorts for me--maybe too hot.

I like all of the instrumental ideas going, but when they're all going at once, I think it gets a little busy.

Dangit, this sounds just like the last review I did on one of yours. Maybe we just have different tastes. I'd go for more subdued, open arrangements, but I'm OK with you dismissing that as personal taste.

Tullsterx -

I hadn't been thinking about "techno Clash/punk" but that is actually a good description of what I am trying to do. I usually use Blur/Gorillaz as an example when people ask me who I am trying to sound like (although for this song the reference point was early Prince), but maybe Sandinista! era Clash is a better fit. I certainly like the Clash better than Blur - my summer of 1985 was pretty much devoted to working in a crappy restaurant, snorting cheap cocaine and listening to London Calling over and over again.

Bluesway -

I suppose I should have included the "tracking vocals/tracking mix" disclaimer. There were several posts about water (maybe it is the summer drought?) and I put the song up without changing anything from the tracking mix.

Yes, the vocals have a problem. I put the mic signal through a tube amp setting on my POD and I wound up recording way too much tube. Overall levels may be too hot as well - I put a compressor on the master bus and picked a limiter preset, if not totally at random, at least without a lot of thinking/listening beforehand.

Not sure about the meter point - although I don't quantize heavily, I do usually check my keyboard playing against a time grid. There are definitely a lot of weird phase things going on - is that what you are hearing?

And finally -

Chicken Monkey and Bluesway

The drum machine (well, Dr. Rex if you want to be technical about it, but I don't think the actual program is important). An idea that I like (and that I am trying to incorporate into my PRODUCT) is that advances in computer technology have radically changed the act of making and recording music. The White Stripes have enough money to make music without computers, but for everybody else computers are a fact of (creative) existance, and if you really want to be authentic you need to acknowledge this fact, explicitly, in your music. I am old enough that I don't need to pretend to be something that I'm not - and I am definitely not playing along with a live drum kit in my basement while my kids sleep upstairs. I play with a drum machine, and as a philosophical point, I want the drums to sound like a drum machine, not a simulation of a human who doesn't (and logically can't) exist.

However, I am not sure where technique ends and artifice begins. I pan instruments around a non-existant stage layout, the amp simulator I use (POD) generates most of its sales by imitating vintage tube amps, my piano is just as synthetic as my (possibly out of phase) synth patches. So I guess the point I am trying to clarify is this: do you fault the drum track because it doesn't sound like a real drummer, or do you fault the drum track because it sounds like an incompetently programmed drum machine. If it is the latter, I will rework the drum tracks (just after I finish re-recording the crappy vocals and just before I start fixing the crappy mastering).

on the drum question, i would use the latter option you gave, but i absolutely REFUSE to use the word incompetent. with a musician's mind like yours, based on the strong points of the tune and your prior comments on others' work, it's inaccurate and does you no justice. but like i said, marking the change would be a welcome addition.

about the synth pad, i don't want to hear a quantize, but the groove on the synth pad is a bit sloppy. you're playing organ-like comps without the organ-like grooves to go with them on the synth. that's how i heard it, anyway. i'll comment again later w/ a specific place that i'm referring to. (i just can't go there without closing this reply.)

Yeah, it's cool to embrace the drum machine, but the present track is not right for the song. I don't do much work with drum machines, but it seems to me that no matter how good your beat, it's going to sound like a drum machine, so there's no need to worry about that.

bluesway - good ears. the keyboard parts were all originally written and recorded with a grand piano patch. when I was putting the tracks together I assigned some of the piano parts to different synth patches.

i'm glad to know that other people notice these things. a lot of virtual instruments are based on the premise that anything can be rerouted to anything else. besides this midi example, my POD allows me to record dry guitars and then reamp them later. but what I have found - especially with the guitar - is that the way that I play is totally linked to the way that I sound while I am playing. so although I can (and it seems like a major feature of the product) I almost never reamp - if I need to change the sound I need to rerecord the whole part.