Something Happened

[Time Waster]

This is a remake of a song I co-wrote sometime around 1982. After listening to Neu and Can, I was playing around with the krautrock motorik beat and thought it would probably go well with this particular song. I couldn't remember all of the lyrics, so I rewrote it to some extent, using the 2014 Lindt Cafe' seige in Sydney, Australia, as the inspiration. The original lyrics were based around an imaginary industrial espionage incident, but I think the siege scenario is a good fit.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18S0...ew?usp=sharing

[msundh]

I really do like your voice and singing style, but here I hear a real good hit song and somehow your singing don't fit.
I see some real potential, but I can't really pinpoint it.
I need some serious relistenings.

[Time Waster]

Thanks @msundh, I will be interested to know if you can work out what is wrong. It might be a bit late for a hit song for me, but never say never

[msundh]

I might got carried away regarding the hit potential
Still, the chorus at 2:00 is really great and very 80'ish.

[ivansc]

Very David Byrne. But without his sense of urgency, which is prolly all it needs.

[tspring]

This is much more of a standard song than other tracks you have posted. As a result, it does not have as much of the interesting quirkyness that is characteristic of your other tracks (especially the lyrics) and I think that means that the listener will demand more of other musical qualities. As this track is more melody-driven, attention shifts to vocal pitch. You might experiment with using some pitch correction in places where your melodic intent becomes a bit uncertain. Also, it seems to me that you have EQd the air out of the vocal. I would be curious how the voice would sit in the track if you did the opposite, and emphasized the airiness of the vocal. Last suggestion: Experiment with bringing the bass-line forward in the mix. This might give the recording a little more punch.

T

[Time Waster]

@tspring, thanks, I will look at your suggestions. I don't think I did cut any of the highs out of the vocals. Usually I have to cut out some of the lows, which I think I did in this case. If I boost the highs the result tends to be very nasal, but might be worth a go (I use a $15 mic that I bought from Aldi, so the response curve may not be that great). I will also look at pitch correction. Happy to boost the bass!

I have been moving away from standard songs, but I was keen to remake this one. I remade it from memory as the old tapes are no longer playable after nearly 40 years. It probably sounds better in my imagination than it did in reality.

[maxdembo]

Boosting frequencies on a shit mic with room sound is potentially a hiding to nothing.

Close recording, quietly, might help negate any room sound, and could be interesting. Leaning into the issues might help too and just degrade the vocal more with distortion or something. Delay instead of reverb, or a reverb with pre delay so the vocal isnt swamped in the mix.

I love autotune personally. I dont really use it on my voice much, but on noises and drums n stuff, but yeah, it can be really helpful when controlled and not just left on auto, controlled via programming or midi.

Eno's recent talking voices, not singers, as vocals, on some recent albums has been really helpful to me in learning how to process some vocals samples too, from old films where theres a lot of noise on the soundtrack as well as the vocals, or at best, less than appropriate mics and dubbing

[Time Waster]

Originally Posted by tspring

...where your melodic intent becomes a bit uncertain.

Lol, it took me a while to get that.

[Time Waster]

Originally Posted by maxdembo

I love autotune personally.

I did use ReaTune on my song 'Andrew'. It was a lot of work as my melodic intent was uncertain throughout most of the song. I guess I should give it a go on this one.

[maxdembo]

yeah, its much easier if your melodic intent is dictated via midi, its a fucking tedious exercise I find tho

[Time Waster]

Originally Posted by maxdembo

yeah, its much easier if your melodic intent is dictated via midi, its a fucking tedious exercise I find tho

Sorry, I meant ReaTune. Maybe ReaPitch is an option? ReaTune is pretty tedious too.

[maxdembo]

They're all tedious if your doing it by hand If you have keyboard skills and can play what youre singing, then youre probably golden. That just adds more complications for me tho.

The only one I've found slightly less tedious is Melodyne, as its detection of what i think im trying to do has, at times, been fairly spot on, easy to save out as midi, and the interface wasnt a confusing nightmare

I can see why some employ people to do this stuff

[tspring]

Originally Posted by maxdembo

They're all tedious if your doing it by hand

Well let me tell you about tedious... I'm doing spectral editing of a live Jazz performance to trim out buzzing from a loose brace in the upright bass. I have manually added and tweaked over 300 spectral edit windows, and I am only half through the performance.

time waster, you owe yourself a new microphone. You could get a Nady SP-1 mic for less than $20 US on Amazon if you want to keep spending at an absolute minimum. They are fragi!e but have a reasonably good sound - at least the one that I bought years ago does. In a live setting, It is difficult to differentiate from an SM-57.

T

[maxdembo]

Originally Posted by tspring

Well let me tell you about tedious... I'm doing spectral editing of a live Jazz performance to trim out buzzing from a loose brace in the upright bass. I have manually added and tweaked over 300 spectral edit windows, and I am only half through the performance.

time waster, you owe yourself a new microphone. You could get a Nady SP-1 mic for less than $20 US on Amazon if you want to keep spending at an absolute minimum. They are fragi!e but have a reasonably good sound - at least the one that I bought years ago does. In a live setting, It is difficult to differentiate from an SM-57.

T

Wow, yes! That sounds astoundingly tedious! One of my musical stumbling blocks is the amount of tedium I pile on myself, along with everything else already being a chore. I wonder why I want to do this sometimes?

Also, you are correct about time waster owing himself a mic

[Time Waster]

OK, here's a new mix as a private share. Bass is more prominent but with an additional lowpass filter applied. ReaTune on the vocals using autocorrect, but I also sifted through the takes a bit to find more in tune sections. More high pass filter applied to the vocals as well and some highs boosted. More reverb applied to the vocals. I've been trying to keep vocals dryer recently but in this case I think it makes it gel a bit better with the rest of the mix. What do you think?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kw8...ew?usp=sharing

[maxdembo]

Whoa!

Thumbs up from me!

Its a hit!

If it were me, entirely subjectively, I'd maybe thin out the backing vocal a bit, just to differentiate it or something (maybe a tiny bit of delay?), and pan one of the backing takes, or a different one to the opposite channel, to give it of back and forth, width.

Aural girth!

EDIT: Then go back to 1983, give it to your old/young self to give to John Peel, and unite the multiverse. Easy.

[msundh]

Yeah, this is so much better.
I agree on the backing vocals, maybe put them further back.

[tspring]

Wow, great work. The reverb really adds a lot (from a peron who usually doesn't like much reverb on vocals). Good choice on filtering out some low frequencies on the bass line too.

For some reason, your vocal is now even more reminiscent of David Byrne than it was before. The track has it all now: Good vocal, good instrumentation, and good melody. I would be proud of this if I had created it.

T

[Time Waster]

Thanks everyone for your help and encouragement with this track. I will definitely look at the backing vocals issue.

I'm a draftsman by trade and one thing we know is that you can't see your own mistakes, so we always get another draftsman to check our work. I think this forum works in the same way with music. Thanks again.

[Time Waster]

Here's the final version, I think, as per the previous version but with aural girth in the chorus - https://soundcloud.com/thewastersoft...-happened-2014

[tspring]

Time to stick a fork in it. It is well done. And very enjoyable.

T

[Time Waster]

Thanks @tspring, consider it forked.

[Dream Of Sleeping]

I really like the song and vocal performance. I'm only listening on little speakers, but the bass is barely there and the vocals are too loud. I like the keyboards and synth sounds. When there are saliva noises, but no singing, you should cut those out. Just a little thing but easy done and adds a bit more polish.

[Dream Of Sleeping]

Just realized I commented on the original mix. The one on soundcloud sounds much better. I would add a deesser to the reverb though.

[Time Waster]

Originally Posted by Dream Of Sleeping

...I would add a deesser to the reverb though.

Thanks, I wondered about that.