Round and Down (Folk rock jazz, maybe)

[Pete B]

I've been mixing this today. Will probably realise the various errors of my ways when I get some distance and listen to it again tomorrow.



Criticism/feedback welcome.

Thanks,

Pete

[Ixus]

Nice and a bit dreamy, the piano thing at the end was very cool!
Funny how you can realize the things yourself that is bothering you but to me who just heard it now it sounds perfectly good!

[Pete B]

Thanks Ixus!

[jappe]

I like the music and vocals, pleasant listening to this!
Parts in this that sounds Beatles to me
Is that Kantele/Dulcimer in the intro?

On my system (small Genelecs+sub) the vocals sounds a little bit too strong in my ears; other than that, thumbs up.

[TritoneAddiction]

Sounds good to me. I liked everything except the intro. I'll be harsh and honest here. I hope that's alright.
The intro matters since that's what's supposed to draw you in. To me the intro just sounded like some random notes was playing with a thin sound with no room/reverb. Maybe add another instrument or fill it out with some subtle room reverb?
Everything else was great though. Nice job.

[Pete B]

I like the music and vocals, pleasant listening to this!
Parts in this that sounds Beatles to me
Is that Kantele/Dulcimer in the intro?

On my system (small Genelecs+sub) the vocals sounds a little bit too strong in my ears; other than that, thumbs up.

Thanks for the feedback Jappe. The Beatles! Swoon, ha-ha. The dulcimer-like sound is the Pangea preset 'struck grand piano', just EQd a little. I usually like to make the presets 'my own' by changing the settings or adding effects but any changes I tried made it less suitable.

Sounds good to me. I liked everything except the intro. I'll be harsh and honest here. I hope that's alright.
The intro matters since that's what's supposed to draw you in. To me the intro just sounded like some random notes was playing with a thin sound with no room/reverb. Maybe add another instrument or fill it out with some subtle room reverb?
Everything else was great though. Nice job.

Thanks for the positivity and feedback Tritone. Haha -- you're right about the intro just being random notes. I agree with you about the importance of an intro, but the notes I did were deliberately random! However, thanks for highlighting it. Because it was just a few random tinkles I didn't give much thought to producing that part, but following your suggestion I will try some reverb or something.

[TheGodOfRainbows]

Happy soulful relaxing. Love the Beatles esque jazzyish sound. I agree with Tritone about the intro, and around 2:20 - that struck piano solo. A bit harsh, but not too bad. That struck piano is indeed very aggressive and biting. Some of those instruments require a bit of a slower attacks me thinks.

Awesome song though!

[Pete B]

Happy soulful relaxing. Love the Beatles esque jazzyish sound. I agree with Tritone about the intro, and around 2:20 - that struck piano solo. A bit harsh, but not too bad. That struck piano is indeed very aggressive and biting. Some of those instruments require a bit of a slower attacks me thinks.

Awesome song though!

Great, thanks for listening. When I get round to finishing it off I'll certainly play around with the attacks and see if I like how it changes it. Cheers for the suggestion.

[TheGodOfRainbows]

Also ofc, just good old attenuation of up some of those particularly harsh freqs. I'm not sure on how people view this method, but I often find frequencies I don't like that are harsh by cranking the gain and sweeping until I find the most piercing harshest range, sometimes narrowing the Q as well, and then adjusting the gain to a more appropriate level.

I also do the opposite, by turning gain down all the way and sweeping, which is probably the more professional way. But for me, sweeping with the eq freq with gain maxed helps me identify what I don't like alot faster. Turning the headphones or speakers down is definitely necessary if doing it this way.

[Auryn]

Enjoyable and musical track this. It reminds me a bit of Simian's first album "chemistry is what we are". IMHO it could do with some flourishes of delay, reverb or some other fx that would help to accentuate the breezy, carefree quality it already has.

[Pete B]

Also ofc, just good old attenuation of up some of those particularly harsh freqs. I'm not sure on how people view this method, but I often find frequencies I don't like that are harsh by cranking the gain and sweeping until I find the most piercing harshest range, sometimes narrowing the Q as well, and then adjusting the gain to a more appropriate level. I also do the opposite, by turning gain down all the way and sweeping, which is probably the more professional way. But for me, sweeping with the eq freq with gain maxed helps me identify what I don't like alot faster. Turning the headphones or speakers down is definitely necessary if doing it this way.

Thanks for taking time to add the extra suggestion; I'll be trying it. As long as it's not painful though, I do like a bit of harsh!

Enjoyable and musical track this. It reminds me a bit of Simian's first album "chemistry is what we are". IMHO it could do with some flourishes of delay, reverb or some other fx that would help to accentuate the breezy, carefree quality it already has.

Thanks for listening. I didn't know Simian. Interestingly non-generic. Coincidentally, they've also got a song called Round and Around on that album.
I like your ideas for accentuating the breeziness. Thanks. I'll try some things out.