Help with mix-quirky pop song

[pyairmusic]

Definitely captured the feel well, snares a bit overpowering, and vocals in the verse could be a tiny bit louder, but man that's a really good song! The chorus made me think the Beatles sooooo much!

[stephent28]

Agree....overall very nice and catchy tune.

Personally I like the snare to have a bit more pop to it (Liberty DeVito from Billy Joel's band would be an example).

[john caldwell]

Clever indeed. Recalls the late 70's era of 10cc quite neatly.

The backing track is too heavy. In the chorus sections, in particular, the wide-panned accompaniment, all of which is well played and well written, is too much. Some of this is a mix issue, meaning the brass carry too much low and low mid energy (and it's just too loud), and some of the congestion lies in your arrangement, meaning sparser phrasing with fewer long-help notes would be better.

But the track is great fun and off to a really good start.

John Caldwell

[suzzymackenzie]

Hey JL

Enjoyed listening to this. A few comments:

- wanted to hear the vocals up a bit. You have a very melodic voice and it needs to come up front some more.

- it's brilliant that you can play all those instruments, but I have the sense that there is maybe 10% too much going on at the same time sometimes. Without getting into specific sections, perhaps have a think about that single most effective arrangement tool that is the mute button, or the fader. There's so much vying for attention, it might be good to let each part feature a bit more each in turn by removing a part that's already had its day. Or it might not. Worth thinking about?

- couldn't hear the fish promised on your instrument list, and not sure what to expect - tons of scales?

Nice one.

Suzzy
innit

[macle]

pyairmusic-Thanks. I love The Beatles, so I appreciate that.

stephent28-Any thoughts on getting the snare to pop? I have so much trouble mixing drums. I know that my gear and room are not great, but even just the sm57 close up mic doesn't seem to have the same sort of sound that I notice in samples. Thanks very much.

john caldwell-I do always have a problem with my kitchen sink approach to arranging, and it definitely makes my inability to mix that much more difficult to say the least. Thanks very much for the feedback.

suzzymackenzie-I very much appreciate the voice comment. I agree about using mute more. I think what happens is I spend so much time trying to get the basic sound going, the drum mix and bass and so on, that by the time I get to the rest of the junk, I'm sort of burnt out and just through it all in there. Thanks very much.

Oh, the fish is one of these, although mine is an old broken beat up one. I guess the technical name is guiro. I realized I forgot to mention the castanets and of course the almighty cowbell.

[suzzymackenzie]

Originally Posted by macle

Oh, the fish is one of these, although mine is an old broken beat up one. I guess the technical name is guiro. I realized I forgot to mention the castanets and of course the almighty cowbell.

Aha - I've got a guiro too and never even recognised the fishiness of it! I noticed your castanets, and you can never have too much cowbell.

BTW I have been listening through some of your other songs and notice that they seem somewhat slow to load before the 'play' icon appears. In fact when I first visited to check out your song, it took so long to load that I couldn't see how to play it and nearly gave up. Could just be me and my system, but other websites are behaving nice and fast for me. I like your handwritten lyric photos, but they are a bit slow to unfurl too.

[macle]

Originally Posted by suzzymackenzie

BTW I have been listening through some of your other songs and notice that they seem somewhat slow to load before the 'play' icon appears. In fact when I first visited to check out your song, it took so long to load that I couldn't see how to play it and nearly gave up. Could just be me and my system, but other websites are behaving nice and fast for me. I like your handwritten lyric photos, but they are a bit slow to unfurl too.

Thanks for the head's up on that. On the songs, I decided to have it load the whole thing before playing because I find it so frustrating when streaming stops constantly to buffer, but maybe having to wait for the whole thing is more annoying?

What did you think of the other songs?

[MikeTSH]

I love Phineas and Ferb - try and get it on there. Would TOTALLY fit. So catchy

[macle]

Originally Posted by MikeTSH

I love Phineas and Ferb - try and get it on there. Would TOTALLY fit. So catchy

Thanks. That'd be great. How do I get it on there?

[suzzymackenzie]

Originally Posted by macle

What did you think of the other songs?

You have a well defined sound and mood. Maybe a little less tambourine

[macle]

Originally Posted by suzzymackenzie

You have a well defined sound and mood.

Thanks.

Maybe a little less tambourine

Hence my switch to castanets, cowbell and fish.

[macle]

Did a remix on this. Any better?

Sorry if it takes awhile to load the 2 songs in, I'm looking into that.

Thanks.

[macle]

Anyone? Any thoughts on if the remix is any better greatly appreciated.

she's in love

[suzzymackenzie]

It sounded (a) brighter (b) louder and (c) overall better to me :-)

[macle]

Originally Posted by suzzymackenzie

It sounded (a) brighter (b) louder and (c) overall better to me :-)

Thanks very much Suzzy, I appreciate it!