[Dave Bradley]

The lyrical ideas are fairly straightforward - life, death, ageing, human rights, freedom...usual stuff...heheheh.

https://soundcloud.com/sciencebase/too-old-to-die-young

Too Old to Die Young

I don't want to leave
Don't want to pass it by
I think about it every single night

Too old to die young,
Too free to belong to anyone
Too right to be wrong

I know that I can face it
When I think about your rights
I know that I can take it
All the way up to the fight

Too far have I gone
Stepping miles without a smile for anyone
Stand beyond the sun

Too young for not trying
Too old to cry over dying
Staring back at me is that old setting sun

We'd live forever in the spring
The summer's moving on, And, everything
leads back to a fall

Too old to die young,
Too free to belong to anyone
Too right to be wrong

I don't want to leave
Don't want to pass it by
I think about it every single night

[theLostLad]

Nice one, good solo and the bass underpinning it. I'd like to hear more rhythm guitar, not just higher in the mix, but more sustain, more bite or something! What's there is good, I just want more!

[Dave Bradley]

The pre-demo mix was way over the top with overdrive and distortion, but I think you're right it probably needs to match the solo sound more...what do others think?

[Dave Bradley]

Okay...given the guitar a facelift and remixed the vocals a bit.

https://soundcloud.com/sciencebase/too-old-to-die-young

[seriousfun]

I like the song and the vocals are great but I do feel you have mix problems here not just with levels but some eq tweaking is necessary as I cant really distinguish the separate instruments very well, and that's a crying shame and this is a really great song.

Still, its nothing that cant be remedied.

If you want to, you can zip up the individual wav files and send em to me and I will remix it for you and see if we cant get a good clear sound for you.

Allan.

[Dave Bradley]

I'll have another play myself, this was the heavy mix. Maybe overdid it with the guitar overdrive/distortion and muddied everything. But, thanks for your offer! ;-)

[seriousfun]

Okies, FYI main points I noticed were:

1. Your forum avatar has hair, your soundcloud avatar does not. 

2. Vocal buried in the mix
3. Drums all but disappeared at the 3 sec mark
4 Bass hard to hear
5 Rhythym Guitar overpowering

Hope that helps, verb sounded good and sounds of the guitars sounded appropriate.

Allan.

[Dave Bradley]

Okies, FYI main points I noticed were:

1. Your forum avatar has hair, your soundcloud avatar does not.  
2. Vocal buried in the mix
3. Drums all but disappeared at the 3 sec mark
4 Bass hard to hear
5 Rhythym Guitar overpowering

Hope that helps, verb sounded good and sounds of the guitars sounded appropriate.

Allan.

Point 1 (Hint...it's a wig folks ;-)
Point 2-5 - I think in bringing up the guitars from the original mix other stuff lost

I've done a bit more to this in terms of mixing, hopefully balanced better, much still to do, no doubt.

Any critique on the words and music itself?

https://soundcloud.com/sciencebase/too-old-to-die-young

[benjo]

hey,

WOW I really enjoyed it,  I was amazed when it was pointed out that you had a wig on
I had to take a second look,  I really thought you were a young band
that's how good I thought you sounded, I do think allan has offered some great advice
but apart from couple of little things I loved it good piece mate well done tony...

[Dave Bradley]

Hah! Yeah, it was a photo snapped at a wedding a couple of years ago, got one of my 18 year old son with a clown wig and nose, daughter and the missus pulling faces.

I'm definitely not a young band...not a band at all...just me on vox, guitars and bass with virtual drums and a virtually bald head...

[benjo]

HEY,

well credit to you very nice take care man tony...

[Dave Bradley]

Thanks Tony

[Dave Bradley]

Have been working on using James' tips to remix this song a little...not sure what I'm going to do when the FabFilter trial runs out, it's excellent, but costs ;-)

Tip #2 is here - http://forums.songstuff.com/blog/186/entry-1391-how-to-make-your-songs-sound-better-in-3-easy-steps-part-2/

[Dutchbeat]

allright, another cool song on this forum!!! nice song

mix sounds harsh and not balanced, volumewise and stereowise, to be honest (but, hey look who is talking  )

but a great song

[Dave Bradley]

allright, another cool song on this forum!!! nice song

mix sounds harsh and not balanced, volumewise and stereowise, to be honest (but, hey look who is talking  )

but a great song

Glad you liked the song. That's the important bit for me. I'm learning with the old mixing lark, but would actually prefer to do the singing-playing part and have someone else mix it perfectly ;-) That said, it doesn't sound harsh or unbalanced with my studio headphones...I think a lot is lost when one mixes down from the DAW to mp3, or even ogg, and then again when SoundCloud compresses our files and again when they're rendered by the listener's system. Not making excuses, but there seems to be a big difference between what I hear when mixing and what SoundCloud pumps out for me.