konalavadome

The End

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cowparsleyman

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« on: June 28, 2018, 08:37:11 AM »
This song was inspired by a dream I had about something MASSIVE (the size of 10 suns but not hot), being spotted coming towards Earth, and what people did about it once they knew...

The intro is all about songs about space, the next bit is about panic, the vocals explain what happens, and the end is the sound of bombers trying to do something futile to stop it (the old Vulcan XH 55 something or rather)

It's very much unfinished (and unproduced), and I'm open to all ideas, critique etc.

The fact is that the thing does not hit the Earth but sits about cloud level, everything can be seen very clearly, but it casts a huge shadow over the USA, hence  'America is Dim, just like it's always been' The Earth slowly dies, and people don't care to much about anything anymore, crime is rife, what do you do when you know everyone is affected? Bowie got it right with '5 years'

Anyways, here it it please excuse the wobbly guide vocal.

I recorded this about 3 years ago.

cpm

« Last Edit: July 05, 2018, 02:52:17 PM by cowparsleyman »

cowparsleyman

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« Reply #1 on: August 11, 2018, 10:16:55 AM »
I'm really curious about this, it has 79 views (which seems quite a few) but nobody listened to it, I just wondered what put you off, if you were one of the 79.

Or if you're not one of the 79, what would put you off?

I really don't mind, just curious that's all. ???

cpm

Mella

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« Reply #2 on: August 11, 2018, 03:26:56 PM »
I had a really hard time hearing the vocals, they were super muffled and I couldn't understand it. The intro was interesting but I skipped ahead a little because it was kind of long. Other than that it's a cool concept and I'd love to hear the finished version!

cowparsleyman

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« Reply #3 on: August 11, 2018, 04:57:11 PM »
I had a really hard time hearing the vocals, they were super muffled and I couldn't understand it. The intro was interesting but I skipped ahead a little because it was kind of long. Other than that it's a cool concept and I'd love to hear the finished version!

Hi Mella

Thanks for your comments, what did you listen to it on? Any ideas on how to finish it?

cpm

Skub

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« Reply #4 on: August 12, 2018, 08:08:40 PM »
Yo CPM.

I haven't been blessed much with time to check out stuff on the forum of late.

My thoughts,relevant or otherwise,yanno stuff is just opinion.

I can relate to the 70s pastiche in the intro it works well enough for me,folk younger may be more puzzled. The vocals which come in about 1.16 lose it for me. I can't make out a word of the repeating phrase. Very muffled EQ. I will say,my ears ain't what they used to be,so you maybe need other opinion on that.  ;D

At 1.57 the vocals stand out plain as day and I'm now feeling included.

I think this is the part of the song you need to target. Were you aiming for 'Ashes to Ashes' meets 'Five Years',meets 'Major Tom'? This part gets in the groove and involves the listener.

Perhaps another consideration. Do you intend to be oblique lyrically,or literal? The piece seems to have an uncomfortable mix of the two,which doesn't gel.

It's a fine idea and while opinion from others is good,if you can get it!  :D I think you need to have a clear idea yourself where you'd like the piece to go.

Anyway man,all the above is just my opinion and you know the saying about opinions and stern tubes!  :D

I hope some of this tripe helps,because I do think the idea is worth pursuing.  :)

pompeyjazz

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« Reply #5 on: August 12, 2018, 09:24:24 PM »
Hi CPM. So many songs and so little time to review them.  Apologies that I missed this earlier. As a conceptional piece this is extremely promising and there was lots to like about it. The chugging guitar is great and the rhythm is hypnotic. The main vocals are delivered well but maybe need to sit in the mix more. I personally thought that you could drop the Bowie / Elton bits out as it's your song. As you say, a bit of work on production but I think it's a great idea that could sOundle extremely good with a few twiddles  :)

Break.thru

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« Reply #6 on: August 12, 2018, 11:59:15 PM »
Digging the intro soundclips going from left to right.  This kind of reminds me of ASMR.

Bass that enters around 0:58 I’d center more and center bass more.  Though, I definitely dig that bass sound - nice dark and driving.

Effects on the vocals might be cool to try.

If you have the time, I’d go through and edit the drums to be sure everything is as on time as possible.

Overall, very creative - I really like the use of samples.

-Break
https://soundcloud.com/user-90522040-133647842

cowparsleyman

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« Reply #7 on: August 13, 2018, 08:35:38 AM »
Yo CPM.

I haven't been blessed much with time to check out stuff on the forum of late.

My thoughts,relevant or otherwise,yanno stuff is just opinion.

I can relate to the 70s pastiche in the intro it works well enough for me,folk younger may be more puzzled. The vocals which come in about 1.16 lose it for me. I can't make out a word of the repeating phrase. Very muffled EQ. I will say,my ears ain't what they used to be,so you maybe need other opinion on that.  ;D

At 1.57 the vocals stand out plain as day and I'm now feeling included.

I think this is the part of the song you need to target. Were you aiming for 'Ashes to Ashes' meets 'Five Years',meets 'Major Tom'? This part gets in the groove and involves the listener.

Perhaps another consideration. Do you intend to be oblique lyrically,or literal? The piece seems to have an uncomfortable mix of the two,which doesn't gel.

It's a fine idea and while opinion from others is good,if you can get it!  :D I think you need to have a clear idea yourself where you'd like the piece to go.

Anyway man,all the above is just my opinion and you know the saying about opinions and stern tubes!  :D

I hope some of this tripe helps,because I do think the idea is worth pursuing.  :)

Whato the @Skub
 ...good to hear from you again. I haven't been on here either of late.

Thanks for the considered comments, really useful...

The repeating lyric is 'America is dim, just like it's always been' - a split reference to the fact that this monsterous huge cosmic thing is now hovering over the US and consequently is casting a massive shadow over it. The other reference is really about Mr Trump.

With the EQ...I can sort of see this, I melodyned the Vox part to make it out of my range both up and down, to thicken and give it some range, to be honest it sounds fine in the cans and in the car, but I'll revisit it.

I get the oblique references, and can see why they could be tricky for the listener to engage, but Skub, that is intentional, I want this song to make the listener work a bit, as you say, like Bowie did.

You're right, it's tricky to get feedback sometimes, but I really do appreciate all of it, and the more constructive (like this) the better (the earlier posts in this forum about that very subject were just great to read)

Rather like like 'does my bum look big in this' doe my voice suit the vibe, or would a different vocal style make it come across better?

The idea is crystal clear, the direct maybe is ocluded by the very thing I'm singing about...


Thanks again The Skub meister.

cpm









« Last Edit: August 14, 2018, 08:33:50 AM by cowparsleyman »

cowparsleyman

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« Reply #8 on: August 13, 2018, 08:40:54 AM »
Digging the intro soundclips going from left to right.  This kind of reminds me of ASMR.

Bass that enters around 0:58 I’d center more and center bass more.  Though, I definitely dig that bass sound - nice dark and driving.

Effects on the vocals might be cool to try.

If you have the time, I’d go through and edit the drums to be sure everything is as on time as possible.

Overall, very creative - I really like the use of samples.

-Break
https://soundcloud.com/user-90522040-133647842

Hi @Break.thru

Thanks very much for the listen and comments, really appreciate them.

Yeah, it does rather lend itself to Vox fx, might just give that a try.

The bass was an Arp 2600 bass seq. with a modified cutoff filter...

You sussed my drumming out, guy... that's always been a thing for me, it's soooo hard to keep cock on with drumming, sometimes I like it, as it sounds real, but sometimes it trips up the song, as in this case.

Glad you dig it.

cpm
« Last Edit: August 13, 2018, 08:47:21 AM by cowparsleyman »

cowparsleyman

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« Reply #9 on: August 13, 2018, 08:46:35 AM »
Hi CPM. So many songs and so little time to review them.  Apologies that I missed this earlier. As a conceptional piece this is extremely promising and there was lots to like about it. The chugging guitar is great and the rhythm is hypnotic. The main vocals are delivered well but maybe need to sit in the mix more. I personally thought that you could drop the Bowie / Elton bits out as it's your song. As you say, a bit of work on production but I think it's a great idea that could sOundle extremely good with a few twiddles  :)

Wotcha @pompeyjazz  nice of you to review it.

You are a real stalwart of this forum, you give so much, and also create so much, I'm forever seeing new songs by you, nice work Man.

The samples at the beginning are supposed to set the scene, all about rockets, major tom and the rather fragile hit-and-miss world of space travel in the 70's

I'll get my twiddly kit out and put my best production hat on, once I have more reviews then I can make a better fist of it.

Thanks PJ

cpm
The guitar bend in the beginning was inspired by 'no son of mine' by Genesis, a band I really don't go for, but I liked that sound.

cowparsleyman

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« Reply #10 on: August 13, 2018, 07:34:45 PM »
Whato

Incorporated most of what you guys suggested into this...

EQ'd the middle Vox to bring it up in the mix
Lead Vox has some verb, comp 1176 and brauer motion to give it a tad of wierdness, I did try other fx, such as distortion, pre amp drive, but they didn't do it for me...also whizzed it through Melodyne, in an attempt to sort the out of tune-ness, so I tried another take, but I realise now that it was out of my range...
Left the drums as they were.

Let me know if it improves matters or if this version needs re recording..just be honest.

https://soundcloud.com/cowparsleyman/the-end-13082018/s-lur7d

@pompeyjazz,
@skub,
@Break.thru,
@Mella


Thanks in advance...and thanks again for the advice. Oh yes, and I haven't yet done my usual Car test listen...so it might actually be worse ....

cpm
« Last Edit: August 13, 2018, 07:46:02 PM by cowparsleyman »

pompeyjazz

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« Reply #11 on: August 13, 2018, 09:54:14 PM »
Hi @cowparsleyman .Just took a listen. Big improvements made. My only crit now would be to tighten up the chug guitar. Now I know that's a difficult one to get right with the wrist action etc etc... but you know enough about production to fix that. I'm really enjoying this song now and reckon you should go for it  :)

Wicked Deeds

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« Reply #12 on: August 13, 2018, 09:54:40 PM »
A very engaging intro.  When the vocal arrives, it is initially difficult to understand the words.  I found this to be quite an uncomfortable listen through headphones - perhaps you wanted to create this kind of soundscape. I think the constant pounding of the  synth bass is responsible for this. This is really difficult to appraise. It's more experimental than a recognisable structure.  Perhaps this could be one piece of the jigsaw to a concept album. 

Paul

cowparsleyman

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« Reply #13 on: August 14, 2018, 08:37:36 AM »
Hi @cowparsleyman .Just took a listen. Big improvements made. My only crit now would be to tighten up the chug guitar. Now I know that's a difficult one to get right with the wrist action etc etc... but you know enough about production to fix that. I'm really enjoying this song now and reckon you should go for it  :)

Hi PJ..

Thanks for the advice, but there is no chug guitar, it's a combination between 2 synths:- Synclavier and Oberheim chugging away. Maybe you mean something else, I only play a semi acoustic right at the beginning bending up.

Regards

cpm

cowparsleyman

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« Reply #14 on: August 14, 2018, 08:54:51 AM »
A very engaging intro.  When the vocal arrives, it is initially difficult to understand the words.  I found this to be quite an uncomfortable listen through headphones - perhaps you wanted to create this kind of soundscape. I think the constant pounding of the  synth bass is responsible for this. This is really difficult to appraise. It's more experimental than a recognisable structure.  Perhaps this could be one piece of the jigsaw to a concept album. 

Paul

Thanks for the listen Paul, There is a concensus about this, I never heard it (maybe it's me age!) but the re-engineered version (yesterday's post) has tried to address the blurriness.

Paul, you are right, I did want it to be uncomfortable, It's an uncomfortable topic, I wanted people to get bored of the siren, and just at that moment the LVox starts, I wanted the vibe to be (from the beginning) Airy fairy plastic space travel, with lots of hope, happiness and that vibe from the lunar projects that everything was possible...then panic as the news broke (as @Skub said 5-years ish) then the various ways folk came to terms with knowing their end is nigh, some go on holiday, some are really happy that this has happened in their lifetime, I could have made it darker, but the twist is that the thing does not hit, but just sits there, and slowly kills the Earth by casting a permanent shadow on it.

About the structure, sometimes I have had enough of  recognisable structure, I've put drum fills in where they shouldn't be, or solos where you wouldn't normally put them, and that makes me smile, I've played enough songs in conventional formats from Bach preludes to Jazz and lots of stuff in between, but I'm now at the point when I choose to go my own way, no chorus, no verse, leaving the listener stranded from his safety of everything that's gone before, some of my stuff recently has been heading down that road 'Casa Delirious', 'Don't try this at home,'About Bees' all have a whiff of this going on...When I fill in the Soundcloud genre, I just don't know what it is, so I made my own up 'Parsley-o-rama'. The only risk here is that I leave me stranded from the listeners, I wouldn't be the first...

Thanks again for the real advice, much appreciated. It's given me a boost of inspiration for this song again.

cpm



Have you got any ideas?

Regards

cpm