[The Ocean Machine]

Hey everyone,

This is my latest demo effort. I'm still struggling to get to grips with my recording equipment. On some earphones it sounds fine and others muffled. Let me know what you think. Thanks for listening as always.

You say you don't love me anymore,
That's for sure.
Don't need my bullshit lines anymore,
I could do with less of yours.

You've gone walking out my door.
Expecting me to follow you home.
You'll be back tomorrow with more.
Expect me to swallow it whole.

But you can't paint your green eyes
Paint your green eyes, paint your greens eyes blue
And you can't paint your green eyes
Paint your green eyes, paint your greens eyes

I say I just want to be yours.
Can we click restart?
Wana hold you in my arms.
If you'll only have me back.

I've been down your road before
Many times to make amends.
You've come looking down your nose,
My dear, I fear, this time's the end.

Cause you can't paint your green eyes
Paint your green eyes, paint your greens eyes blue
And you can't paint your green eyes
Paint your green eyes, paint your greens eyes blue

You'll be expecting me to follow you home.
You'll be expecting me to follow you home.

Can we click restart

[S.T.C]

Didn`t sound too bad on my HP`s....stylish video..not sure it fits the story line of the song?

[ABeautifulVirus]

beautiful song; poignant melancholic lyrics. like this a lot.  as i mentioned to you earlier, i think i am hearing the muffling you are talking about; possible the uTube encoding depending on what file type conversion it is doing.  my choice for uTube uploads are .mpg4 or .mov in h264

( won't give away the video footage here lol )  aptly used.

[Kafla]

I could listen to this all day - absolutely beautiful lyrics and delivery

The fingerpicking sounds very loose at times but in all honesty it only adds to the tracks charm.

Outstanding 

[montydog]

Very easy to listen to. Lovely fingerstyle guitar, beautiful & memorable melody. This sounds like a hit record to me.

I'm getting the muffling as well on my hi-fi speakers - not sure what's causing it. I don't think it needs the train at the beginning and end and you could maybe cut back a little on the tambourine but these are minor niggles. It's a lovely song. So much talent on here!

[nooms]

lovely track
and another really strong movie
you guys are sorted
vocals and backing perfect
again be nice for another musical colour to enter the mix but no matter
found myself singing along to it which is key really..
well done guys..

[James Nighthawk]

Quote
This is my latest demo effort. I'm still struggling to get to grips with my recording equipment. On some earphones it sounds fine and others muffled. Let me know what you think. Thanks for listening as always.

Everything sounds pretty clear except the vocals. The seems to be missing some high end and likely some "air". Try this:

Boost the high shelf of your vocal channel at around 5K. Soft rise, a few DB will do.

Then,

Try inserting a parametric EQ. Select the top parametric shelf, and insert a small Q bump (Q of around 0.7) at 13.5KHz, with a small DB bump of 2-3notches.

This will open up some air on the vocal. But, ONLY if it is there at source.

I do this on some of my vocals as my dead booth for vocals rounds off a little at those edges. My mic still picks them up, but muted on the spectrum.
If, however, your mic is substandard, all you will be boosting is hiss. So USE YOUR EARS!!

Yes, that phrase was shouted at me through academia. I feel obliged to continue the trend!

The song

Very pretty

Perhaps my favourite of those you have posted
The paint your green eyes refrain is lovely, CRYING out to have been sung on two channels for the purposes of recording. Live it works like this, but having the "eyes" overlapping to the following line would have been top.

And in general you have stopped clipping your levels! Huzzah!!

Well. Mostly. There are some digital pops in here. But a huge improvement in only a few months!

Thanks for sharing x

[Boydie]

The song...

Just lovely - I did really like the track

If I am being ultra picky the refrain is a little repetitive but I think this is a very fine line

Production - I am hearing the muffled sound, which does sound like clipping to me - although I am sure JAMES would have mentioned it if it was 

There is definitely something going on and I doubt it is the YOUTUBE encoding as it is not something I hear often? - perhaps it is clipping in the Video editing software when you put the song and pictures together?


I also didn't like the constant tambourine - it is slightly out of time in places, which was a little distracting

All in all very minor things but most importantly it is a lovely song so great job!

[James Nighthawk]

Production - I am hearing the muffled sound, which does sound like clipping to me - although I am sure JAMES would have mentioned it if it was 

I think there is still work to be done on mic levelling. The vocal sounds squashed at the top of the dynamic range which is of course not great. But you are definitely improving, as until now there was square wave clipping on your songs. Here it is more "lack of headroom" issues. Perhaps compression settings are to blame?

[The Ocean Machine]

songsthatcry, thanks again for the comment. I know the individual lines of the song dont match the vid. I wrote the song and then starting looking for some visuals to put with it, so it was impossible to find an exact match. The songs about wanting to restart a long term relationship and go back to when things were better. I thought the vid was similar here, in that at the end the guy wanted to restart the evening with the girl. That was my hope with it anyway.

ABV, glad you enjoyed it and thanks for taking the time to comment and to give me your feedback on the muffling. Yeah, the vid is an italien short movie i came across. Its been used in a few songs aparently, first time i've seen it. Its a great short story.


Kafla, thanks for your great comment. Appreciate it. I thought your last song was amazing, so I'm glad you have something positive to say about mine.

Montydog, thanks also for your great comment. I only have the train sound on the video. Its the same at the start as it is at the end. One fades from black and one fades to black. Just liked the way it bookended it. I'll hold back on the tambourine next time! I had only bought it that morning so maybe went a bit overboard!

nooms, appreciate your comments as always. I love the video also, it was great find. I'll think your right, I might add something else in.

James, thanks for the great detailed feedback. I'll have a go at tweeking the vocals later on. Hopefully it will sort and improve the sound. I dont have a clue about compression/dynamic ranges etc. I apprecite you taking the time to go through the steps, thats great! I'll give them a go. Also, nice to hear this is your favourite of mine so far. Thanks!

Boydie, thanks for your feedback. I might re-record the tambourine and reel it in a bit! Just trying to add some percussion to my songs. Still, glad you liked the song, thats the main thing, I can hopefully clean up the rest.

Thanks again everyone!

[Kafla]

Kafla, thanks for your great comment. Appreciate it. I thought your last song was amazing, so I'm glad you have something positive to say about mine.

I have been impressed with all your songs mate - you write very poetic lyrics that are still direct and you create an awesome atmosphere in your songs - keep going with it

[bewarethisboy]

I loved the look of the video - but not so much the animation FX on it. But I hope you don't mind, I switched the visual off - I wanted to listen to the song which was really grabbing my attention and I didn't need the vid.

The song is real class - I was astonished when I discovered that is was nearly two minutes over the '3' it didn't feel long to me at all. I think you are really good song writer. You are also a really good singer. Another winner from you - congratulations. Looking forward to hearing more. BTB

[MarkQuinn]

To me it strikes me as the kind of song that would see a massive surge in popularity after it's been used in some sort of tv advert (a la Jose Gonzales - Heartbeats).

It's just seems to have that extreme 'gentleness' that advert companies seem to be looking for.

I think the song also goes to show that you can use the same chord progression used in millions of other songs, but if you can just stick 9-10 words over the chorus that no ones heard before and that conveys a clever idea (you can't paint your green eyes blue) you can breath new life into it.

Really good work