Hey there everybody, long time Ardour user, first time song-poster.
Back in the early days of Covid, a guitarist/producer friend of mine invited me to join a songwriting circle with some pro/semi-pro friends and acquaintances of his. As strictly a solo, basement player, it was a bit intimidating. At any rate, the writing prompt for January 2021 was “coffee and spite”, and the style was supposed to be “anything well out of your wheelhouse” (which for me has historically been singer/songwriter, 3 chords and a cloud of dust). After a particularly long day of television, I came up with this:
Between tinnitus, asymmetric hearing loss, and a sub-optimal monitoring, I hope the mix is adequate. I tried to tame the sibilance in the vocal, but would probably be better off re-recording. Constructive criticism on mix, music, structure (e.g. where is that confounded bridge?) are welcome an appreciated.
Peace,
-Manuel
PS - the title is metaphorical and the style is not death metal
Hey, very enjoyable! Great song and lyrics, you are no basement solo performer any more!
I also am dealing with tinnitus which has become pretty severe in the past year so I empathize, it steals your quiet moments… That said, the mix is quite good and I admire the up front vocal mix and the relatively modest-to-none reverb usage, it makes the vocal story very intelligible and that is often missing in peoples early recordings, well done!
If you are seeking input, I wish the turnaround ‘shots’ were better anchored with a kick on the downbeat and a snare on the upstrokes (along with the cymbal you already have). They sound a bit flyaway and the song loses a bit of mass where it should gain some power IMHO… My personal rule whether playing drums or recording drums is never hit a cymbal without a Kick underneath it… just my 2 cents!
Hey, thanks Glen, it means a lot coming from someone whose work I’ve long admired. Regarding the drums, that is an excellent point. I usually do put the kick under the cymbals and didn’t even notice that I hadn’t done that. Probably too busy making sure my virtual drummer had no more than two hands
Thank you, Vincent. I sure wish I had your chops on the sax/aerophone; I’ve been trying to replace programmed/keyboard-played horn sections on some of my other songs with an EWI, and it is slow-going
I sympathize … Being a (real/analog) sax player, I’m always frustrated with horn/brass electronic sounds … The Roland aerophone I own (which is not the high-end version) is far from behaving like a real sax … keying’s the same but besides that, it’s a completely different instrument …
That said, the mix is quite good and I admire the up front vocal mix and the relatively modest-to-none reverb usage, it makes the vocal story very intelligible and that is often missing in peoples early recordings, well done!
