I've just been critiquing other peoples work and I felt it was only fair to allow others to tell me how inadequate and irrelevant and technically uninformed I am.Plus I have an unpleasant personality and i don't shower often enough. Oh, and I pick my nose.

 

Well done, it's not my cup of tea (no enough talk about taboo anatomical parts) but I can recognize that it is well done.

Cheers.

 

Thanks for the well done. I can understand that it's not your cup of tea and I suspect it's not many peoples cup of tea. Which brings me to the fall from grace of the "song"....ie, a piece of music with lyrics, melody, chords, verse, chorus and all that stuff. Now we have tracks. People produce tracks. Or worse, beats. Why has the song form become a lesser musical expression than the track? I am referring to quantity here, nothing else. Tracks, which I consider musical beds are, in a way, unfinished songs. Ideas not followed through.

 

I agree. I find contemporary R&B to be overly spartan but I also find contemporary pop is overly complex and the omni-present vocal track annoying. I don't miss the mandatory unnecessary 80s guitar solo but I do miss musicianship in music. This is probably more of a symptom of the demise of the band and rise of the bedroom solo artist than a targeted dislike of music in general. It is what it is.

By the way the reference to WAP was a joke. I am just not a fan of wispy sibilant female vocals and that's not an indictment I know that's how she sounds and she sounds wonderful. I also am not a fan of country blues rock hybrids, though I will say this is mostly blues rock and the country part might just be in my head. It's just happenstance that it turned out that way.

We are all people of different tastes and that is a good thing or else there would never be so many delicious flavors of ice cream.

 

This Track is Dope. You are awesome. little comment: the vocal needs to come front. the instrumentation is great. have you used a reference track in this genre, in the mixing process?. I love her vocal but i don't think it is processed. Generally i listened the track three times and it becomes my favorite.

 

Last edited: Sep 10, 2020

This song is 22 years old. I didn't have much in the way of plugins so it's just compression and reverb. Surprise reveal: No guitars were used to make this song.

 

Love the song... Well done!

It would be better (in my questionable opinion) for the vocals to be more upfront and some instruments need eq as they're overshadowing the vocals. Drums could also be punchier (again, by my mostly erroneous judgement).

Please share more.

 

https://www.reverbnation.com/stephenlayton/song/9839698-the-sigh-that-brings-the-rain

Song from same sessions. Similar style. Remember these are very old mixes.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Sep 10, 2020

great track. thanks for posting

 

Of course... Love the song in any case...

 

great song I like it alot , I wish everyone who post their original work to talk a little bit on how its done , the daw they use , the instruments they used and stuff like this , I mean without spilling any secrets just the basic stuff

 

My God this is wonderful!!!MY only complain would be sometimes i dont hear the vocals enough,maybe the drums a bit too loud who knows but this is totally professional work

 

It's just an OK song to me, nothing special lyrically or musically that kept my interest although your musicianship itself is of course superlative. I listened to it a three times to internalize it in order better express my take on it. The production is what it is, a demo, nothing more or less. Of course a real guitarist would help make it more interesting. The vocalist also didn't interpret the song very well. I'm sure she is a nice person but not a wonderful artist. I'm sure you've done better.

But opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one, including me.

 

I like(d) it, it's a nice one. Not a pro mix, but 22 years ago I couldn't even reach the console (jk).
Who came up with that stop-crash idea at 2:17?

-> this:

And probably because it's easier and faster, just the evolution of composing.

 

There are still great songwriters writing great songs even if we're now doing it at home without a band.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by evolution of composing, @No Avenger

 

I think it's just the contemporary way of composing (in terms of quantity). I mean, some decades ago no musician would've come into the rehearsal room and said 'Look, I made a beat' because the others would've stared at him and asked 'So what?' But nowadays ...

 

from a producer to a producer
we all not expert all mix will sound different.

but still u can do justice to the vocal just do this

1 pitch correct (autotune n co)
2 virtual Eq ( clear up to 100hz)
3 compressor (3db of gain)
4 compressor (12bd of gain)
5 desser (till it becomes dark
6 eq anytype to add brightest
7 stereo wide or doubler to widen dont do too much

send

delay add eq after that
reverb bright reverb add eq after that

done

 

I don't have the original files from 1998. And as noted above these are just demo's. Often worked up and composed on the same day, same session. I put them up here because "songs" don't seem to get much of a mention such is the dominance of EDM. I'm sorry Lois I don't have anything more interesting nor do I recall great singers falling from the sky in vast numbers that I had much choice about with whom I worked.

 

I liked it mate.
Interesting mixing the straight with the swing there, too.
That's a sellable song demo right there.