I love how you used touches of compression and subtle eq'd reverb decay on the drum samples. The vinylizer you ran on the samples also helped knock off a lot of that "OMFG PROGRAMMED" sound the various fruity loops faggots seem to have.
The track still sounds extremely keyboard driven to me, however, and the vocals sound a little over wrought (yeah, I fucking said it. OVERWROUGHT. The american idol style is NOT to be emulated; it's to be ridiculed) For example, I couldn't hear the supposed "guitar track" in the mix, either because I'm deaf, OR because the guitar sounded EXACTLY like a key board, which I consider a bad thing.
This is still a fucking excellent track though, no doubt. And that's coming from a guy who is definitely not a fan of the whole "soulful ballad" concept.
Well that's awesome, because I didn't use FL, giving me an excuse not to make it sound like FL, and this is an awesome review in that it gives me a bit more time to explain the track, style, etc for the sake of people who have likely never heard this sort of music before - i.e. anyone outside the UK.
The track was written for a big college project, in which we had to closely emulate any style we wish. We got free choice over what style we could do, however, we get more points depending on how close to the style your track is when completed.
The style you're hearing here is called Trip-Hop. It's a sort of ambient acid jazz originating from south-west England, around the Bristol area, and started off with key bands such as Massive Attack and Portishead in the early 90s. It was extremely keyboard and loop driven and almost all have a breathy female vocalist.
I'm not one for using loops, so apart from the very subtle guitar which I recorded and looped myself (you can hear it most after the end of the first chorus, about four bars into the middle 8), everything here is sequenced, but written in a way that adds the essence of what sampled music is. Everything flawlessly loops, there isn't much variation in any of the individual loops and the grungalizer (which you sort of correctly recognized as a vinylizer, though I've never heard it called that before) was used to not only cover up loop imperfections but to add another little bit of depth.
I didn't have as much time to work with my Vocalist as I would have liked, but when compared to Massive Attack and Portisheads tracks, the vocals seem more or less spot on to me.
Oh and trust me, that isn't a touch of compression, the whole track is compressed to the drums - another trip-hop sound, but it creates such a subtle boost that it's perfectly enjoyable :D
You have my 5 and 9 (since it's a great song, but there's room for perfection).
My nitpicks/suggestions:
- Check the vocal pitch at 1:05 and 1:08. It seems off to me.
- At 3:01, the drums didn't jive to the vocalist (to Tamar). It felt kinda awkward.
- The vocal loudness isn't consistent. It is sometimes soft, and sometimes loud. The difference is about 2dB. If you can't ask Tamar to re-record the vocals, try adding more compression on your vocal track. You may also want to play with the EQ and reverb.
- Lyrics are sad, but suits the melodies of the song. Kudos!
- You have this background noise that resembles playing a vinyl. I'll just think it's your style. It kinda works anyway.
Overall, it's a good track to chill out to. Good job! ^_^
Yeah. Most of the issues with the vocals are right. Some of the pitches are a little out, and the second verse especially because I accidentally processed it with different auto tune (YEAH I KNOW. DON'T SHOUT) settings than the others without realising. The problem was that since I was making this track for a College course, I had two weeks to learn how to use Cubase with rewire. Fair enough, but I still havn't got around sending audio back to Reason, or even if it's possible to run it through my compression rig.
I might do an NG mix soon where the vocals are put into reason and done in a sort of bypass way to get the best possible effect. Oh, and the vinyly sound effect going in the background was to get me extra points on the course, because such an effect is common place in the trip-hop genre.
This song is great, just to start off. But I kind of have a problem wit the singer. It's great, don't get me wrong, but sometimes she went a little sharp or flat when she strained her voice during the verses. Not a big deal, but it kinda jumped out at me.
