Seven Hills of Santiago

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mickyplankton

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« on: March 28, 2018, 11:00:39 PM »
Hi All, would love some help getting this song to achieve its potential. Muscially, its one of our more ambitious and nuanced numbers. In particular id like advice about how to treat the vocals. At present the vocals are intended to be quite dreamy and etheral, and i would love to know if this works, and any advice about mix, effects or any other aspects of the song. In terms of backing music, im fairly happy but would also love feedback on this.

Heres the demo on soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/mickyplankton/seven-hills-of-santiago-demo

Edit 26th April.

Following feedback from Pompey, Paul ads and Cowparsleyman I've attempted a crude EQ by adding more treble to the drums.

https://soundcloud.com/mickyplankton/seven-hills-of-santiago-demo-2

Lyrics:

Seven Hills and Twelve Tain Men. What I had seen ne-ver again.
keepsake me, in your locket, picture of  you in my wallet
That’s all that remains of a fire, that burned so bright, giving warmth on a dark night

My Wallet is now long  gone. Stolen on, the Los Heroes.
A question do you mind if I must, if the fight is to be won,
 then who is to be lost?
And you become a living husk,  your shit out of luck
« Last Edit: April 26, 2018, 10:01:17 PM by mickyplankton »

pompeyjazz

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« Reply #1 on: March 28, 2018, 11:50:53 PM »
Micky.  This has so much potential.My humble critique is that it's maybe a bit too muddy or low end dominated. As this is such a great song I think that a lot of stuff could be done on eq and panning. I would be more than happy to have a go at doing that for you guys as I think it's a great number. Get in touch dude  :)

mickyplankton

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« Reply #2 on: March 29, 2018, 05:47:14 PM »
Hey Pompey 3 massive thanks for replying, analysing and offering practical help! I'm planning to redo the lead vocal in the next day or two (couple of minor melodic tweaks) then it's all yours....subject to me getting my Mac and Dropbox and Garageband  to synch up. Will PM you!

cowparsleyman

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« Reply #3 on: March 30, 2018, 08:20:59 PM »
Hi Mickey

I listened to this on my laptop, sound my comments are from those tiny speakers.

It's really not my cuppa tea, but that doesn't matter, you asked for a critique about mix and prod.

I guess you know about the Lead Vox being a bit off beam...

The organ is a bit loud, so the rhythm section can't be heard clearing, it alkso sounds that some thing is compressing the drums, I guess it could be a sidechain from the vox.

The song to me Mickey doesn't really have to much structure, and being a bloke that loves songs that have an unstructured feel but in an organised very carefully put together, structured way, i understand where you are coming from.

To make Vox Ethereal, you might put a quite a bit of plate verb on, but you'll need to watch the levels of all the other things as the vox might get lost, or use Chorus, but that will probably sound awful, as too much will distract from the words and melody, folk will be saying what's that on the vox, rather than what great words. If you go the Verb route maybe pan more stuff outward, leaving the Vox uncluttered -ish but not exposed, Mid Side might help, if the drums are recorded in Stereo, that pushes some stuff outward, and leaves some stuff in the middle, which you can then adjust the levels accordingly.

Bass was very wooly, this roll off some of the top, and some of the bottom from the Vox and and a bit of both from the Organ.

Hope it helps Mickey.

cpm




Viscount Cramer & His Orchestra

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« Reply #4 on: April 02, 2018, 12:29:08 PM »
My input probably won't be of much help. I'm not any sort of expert on eq so I just cut the bottom out of everything but the bass stuff to try to get more clarity. Another thing is to eq out the low (and maybe high) from any reverb. (Cheeky but I'm partly saying this so that somebody with more knowledge might chime in and help us both out!)

Yeah agree the organ (although this is kind of the thing that sets a stamp on this) is a bit too much.....try cutting the levels on stuff and you might find it still doing its job but not overpowering. Levels are a fat pain in the arse to get right and even when I think I've finally got it, later i still think it's crap.

Yeah basically it gets a bit crammed sounding so you want to unclutter it somehow, either by dropping something or cutting out frequencies somewhere or maybe experiment with the panning.

Not much help but I'm no expert.....just spend a long time working on my own stuff to try to get it right and these are some of the things I do.

Hopefully somebody with more knowledge and better explanations will chime in and help.

Song sounding fine though.
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PaulAds

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« Reply #5 on: April 02, 2018, 12:49:54 PM »
Hi Micky

Good song...

yeah...it was a little muddy to my ears...I thought that using the floor tom instead of hihats for most of the drum part was partly to blame...when it picked up with the ride cymbal it had a quite different and much better feel I thought.

good luck with it...its quite a big and ambitious number...but you can pull it off!
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Katie Wilson

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« Reply #6 on: April 03, 2018, 09:10:42 AM »
Hi I quite like it - obviously it needs tidying up and I know it's just a demo but it has a certain rawness to me and I wouldn't want it to become to clean - it's a bit cult , anthem , marching - with an underlying defiance which I like - I think it's got quite a good melody and I like the organ as well .

Will be interested to see the finished article xxx

mickyplankton

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« Reply #7 on: April 03, 2018, 08:02:38 PM »
Hi Mickey

I listened to this on my laptop, sound my comments are from those tiny speakers.

It's really not my cuppa tea, but that doesn't matter, you asked for a critique about mix and prod.

I guess you know about the Lead Vox being a bit off beam...

The organ is a bit loud, so the rhythm section can't be heard clearing, it alkso sounds that some thing is compressing the drums, I guess it could be a sidechain from the vox.

The song to me Mickey doesn't really have to much structure, and being a bloke that loves songs that have an unstructured feel but in an organised very carefully put together, structured way, i understand where you are coming from.

To make Vox Ethereal, you might put a quite a bit of plate verb on, but you'll need to watch the levels of all the other things as the vox might get lost, or use Chorus, but that will probably sound awful, as too much will distract from the words and melody, folk will be saying what's that on the vox, rather than what great words. If you go the Verb route maybe pan more stuff outward, leaving the Vox uncluttered -ish but not exposed, Mid Side might help, if the drums are recorded in Stereo, that pushes some stuff outward, and leaves some stuff in the middle, which you can then adjust the levels accordingly.

Bass was very wooly, this roll off some of the top, and some of the bottom from the Vox and and a bit of both from the Organ.

Hope it helps Mickey.

cpm

Hi Cowparsleyman. Thanks for the comprehensive feedback, especially given this isn't really your preferred genre. I have to admit, some of this feedback is a bit baffling to me on account of my technical ignorance. Some of the terms you use I have no idea what you mean. Eg "off beam", "side chain from the vox" "bass was very woolly" "this roll of some of the top"
Can you translate in laymans terms. I have no experience of the the more technical aspects of production so apologies for being such a dummy!

mickyplankton

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« Reply #8 on: April 03, 2018, 08:04:03 PM »
My input probably won't be of much help. I'm not any sort of expert on eq so I just cut the bottom out of everything but the bass stuff to try to get more clarity. Another thing is to eq out the low (and maybe high) from any reverb. (Cheeky but I'm partly saying this so that somebody with more knowledge might chime in and help us both out!)

Yeah agree the organ (although this is kind of the thing that sets a stamp on this) is a bit too much.....try cutting the levels on stuff and you might find it still doing its job but not overpowering. Levels are a fat pain in the arse to get right and even when I think I've finally got it, later i still think it's crap.

Yeah basically it gets a bit crammed sounding so you want to unclutter it somehow, either by dropping something or cutting out frequencies somewhere or maybe experiment with the panning.

Not much help but I'm no expert.....just spend a long time working on my own stuff to try to get it right and these are some of the things I do.

Hopefully somebody with more knowledge and better explanations will chime in and help.

Song sounding fine though.
Hi Viscount. Thanks man. Appreciate the feedback. Understand your language too!

mickyplankton

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« Reply #9 on: April 03, 2018, 08:05:11 PM »
Hi Paul Ads and Katie. Thanks also for feedback. I'm liking this section of the forum. Feels a bit more honest than the completed songs!

Darren1664

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« Reply #10 on: April 07, 2018, 10:10:46 AM »
Hey Micky P

Well there definitely is a unique quality to your music so my only worry with EQing is that you lose this quality. It probably does need a little tidying, as others have said, but just to clear out a bit of muddiness.

It'd be good to hear a couple of versions of this. Well worth the tinker though because it has a great vibe and is really bouncy toward the end.

Great stuff

Darren


mickyplankton

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« Reply #11 on: April 26, 2018, 10:02:09 PM »
Ok chaps I've tinkered and put more treble in. Does this help?

https://soundcloud.com/mickyplankton/seven-hills-of-santiago-demo-2