I put this one up a long time ago, after a close friend of mine had passed unexpectedly. He was my all around go to guy many years ago when I was in a touring band, and was the kind of guy who could do just about anything. He was the truck mechanic, the crew chief, the FOH guy, and if you needed your shower retiled he could do that too. His wife, of course went through some very hard times. I tried to write a song from her perspective about what happened, and this is what I came up with.
About a year later, the drummer from the same band also passed away. I flew up to MI to do a memorial for him, and ran into an old friend who did demo tapes (yes, tapes) for us way back when. He has a successful recording and production business, and offered to give this song a work over, since he was involved with all of us way back when. He’s added lots of vocals and sweetening to the project. What you’re hearing here is an MP3 stereo mix and an added bass track I did after drums were added. I think the production is great compared to the bare bones original, but I’d like opinions on this version before he puts the finishing touches on it. Keep in mind my bass track is basically raw so he can fit it in with the multitrack mix, so it may be off in level and eq, since it is the raw track I’m sending him to work into the mix. Thanks for your help, and thanks to Mark Miller of Harvest Productions, and his wife Julie for all the beautiful background vocals.
Just listening at work on my cheap speakers, but this sounds outstanding, Bob! Great production. You must be really happy with how this came out! I’ll be sure to give it another listen in my studio at home, for the full effect!
The song shows off your vocals. Lots of nice layers to the arrangements. I listened to this through my mediocre laptop speakers and through my headphones. I thought the bass sounded quite good. I’m having difficulty finding anything to critique. I’d bet that there’s a lot of people who will love this one.
Hi awesome mix! Nice clean production. Verry well polished!
Only thing I noticed on my m6 pro earbuds is that the guitar is coming in a bit metallic, a bit thin and tinny as if missing quite a bit of harmonics. Specially after the 1 min marker its a tiny bit harsh to my ears. The buds are flat frequency response but I do have a bit more sensitive hearing in the high register, so could be a bit of both.
Happy Thanksgiving to you too! I’ve gone back and forth with the eq due to my hearing and my monitors being bright. Still trying to find the happy medium. The vocal layering was added by Mark, and he also did some finessing throughout the song to enhance it. Again, on this mix, I’m shoehorning a single bass track in on a two track MP3 mix, which is a little hot, so there’s still some time to fix things. I tell Mark to use his discretion when I make suggestions since I roll off a bit at 4K and up, so your suggestion is important.
Thanks for listening,
Thanks for listening. We gave a few suggestions to Mark, (producer) and he smoothed out the bass, which was a touch boom to me, as well as getting the electric guitar out front a bit more. It’s amazing how much better the WAV file is in terms of articulation, but I’m finally very happy with it.
Thanks for your input, it’s basically what I asked him to do too, so we think alike.
You should be very proud of this song, Bob. Lyrically and musically it is very moving, and even if it has technical challenges you had to overcome, your friend really shined on this one. Wonderful melody and arrangement. Stellar performances all.
It isn’t easy to create a song with so much impact, no matter how talented people are. So many bands never get there, even famous ones. I am lucky to have discovered this one. Thanks!
Thank you so much for your kind words. To know that someone relates to something I wrote is very gratifying and humbling. I always strive for some meaning in my songs. My loss of a good friend, and imagining the grief his wife must have been going through just resulted in the song kind of writing itself, and me embellishing the idea. My producer friend knew him well too, so that was a big plus.
Thanks again, your comments mean a lot to me.
awesome mix! Nice clean production. Verry well polished!