Sounding good from here. I might be tempted to bring the lead vocal up a touch in the mix would be my only thought.
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Superlative job, Andrew! Sometimes when one keeps adding new elements to a good song it distracts from the core, but I think that didn’t happen here. In fact, everything sounds like it belongs, and maybe now an earlier version will sound like it’s missing something.
The song in my mind falls into the category of incredibly good yet obscure indie rock. I wonder if it would have been a classic hit if released 40 years ago that we would be now hearing on rotation on Sirius.
But to make Michelle’s playlist is a real sign it is a good song on a strong album, so maybe its time is still to come, and we here are just privileged to have heard it first.
Thanks!
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Great tight and precise playing and arranging here, I like the horns added to it also.
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Perfect pitch intro. Your voice is just damn good. This baby is so powerful. I will once again say I can’t hear the main vox in some places. That lead break is like WHAT? Love the horns. Getting back to the hidden vocal, my wife tells me my hearing is about shot. I say no, you mumble. Opening act for…
For some reason I feel like I am in a big concert listening to this. Especially the brass. It is really hard to comment on any one thing because there is so much going on. Inspires me to improve.
I was anything but disconnected through the entire thing. ha ha Congrats
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haha I wish that were the case with my playlists, I would be pushing out superhit records 
but this song is pure goodness.
I just really liked the song. The song has a bit of a history with me. I was messin around with a fiddle during those days and I had decided to tease Andrew with a ‘fiddled’ version just as a joke just to humanize his otherwise superhuman personality with mixing, producing and composing. I had turned his song into some quacked up punkish version and snuck in a fiddle. Ever since then it sort of grew on me and stayed in my playlist. Ofcourse its very very low quality as I lost the original and just sort of had a lofi version of it. If you are curious here it is lol
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Haha! Thanks. I think the arrangement of the song is the same, but yes, you do indeed hear trumpets… and trombones… A brass section in fact. That’s a fella by the name of Will Allen Jnr who goes by the moniker “The Brass” Working with Will was an awesome experience.
The demo production that you have heard (originally posted here) “3454676543 times” (wow! imagine if that was on Spotify! I might have made about $20!) was completely overhauled except for the vocals and a few other minor elements.
I replaced all the rhythm guitar parts with new ones to match the new drums, and they are now played through my mic’d amps, not amp sims. The lead guitars were reamped through my amps, because I liked what I played last time.
My good friend and jazz bass genius Dave “Bassboy” Galea kindly agreed to play over my simpleton chord structure and resurrect some of his formidable slap bass chops for this tune. He also did a little acoustic double bass cameo in the intro. I love what he did.
So ultimately, yes this is a completely overhauled song.
Thanks Eric - I’ll take a look at the lead vocal.
Thanks Steve, I appreciate the kind comments… It’s funny you should say that: The song was, in fact originally written around 27 years ago. I’ve tried recording it in various arrangements and formats, but I could never get it to realise the full potential I was hearing in my head. I think I’m finally close!
Thanks Ingo… I think it might have even been you who gave me the idea to add brass… if so, thanks!
No worries, mention number 2 there, so I’ll definitely look at that.
Haha, you discovered my secret ploy: Create distraction and hopefully no one will notice all the faults! 
Thanks for the kind comments, Paul!
Cool! I’ve always wondered what the song would sound like as a highland jig, and now I know! 
Actually, those violin parts bring to mind this old chestnut from the early 90’s
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I really like how all the instruments play together here. You always make really good choices in your arrangements and how you make the instruments compliment each other and also compliment the song.
The only thing that I might consider altering is the volume of the vocal in some spots. I’d suggest bringing the vocals up in the verses.
All in all, another great piece of work !
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Thanks W!
Your wish is my command 
… consider it done!..
I’ve made some adjustments to the mix in accord with some of the feedback here. I realised I made a big boo-boo with the the bass processing (automation) in the first mix 
so I’ve fixed that up too. It mightn’t be super-obvious, but if you listen closely, you’ll hear it.
I call this mix “Mix 2a”
I’ve also done an alternative rendering of the bass, just trying a slightly different approach.
This is “Mix 2b”
Let me know which you prefer, if any. Thanks
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Yep, hearing the Spin Doctors influence this time around. I’ll try and give a comparison listen between your versions tonight on my monitors, but it’s rockin’! Love the tune and the guitar work. 
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2b or not 2b, that is the question, Couldn’t help myself there. Hands down 2b…for me. Only other would be use the first 20 seconds of 2a and then jump back to 2b. That start on 2b …the vox…seems a little distant if ya know what I mean. Also I think the horns (that I love) are just a touch too hot??
Nobody else here can do what you do. Not a suck up, just a fact from the peanut gallery
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Mix 2a, mainly because of the brass tones. Mix 2b is messing with it a bit so you dont ‘feel’ the brass being ‘blown’ into and only hear the resonance later, its a subtle difference but its there, most evident towards the end around 2:30ish . Both mixes are fun to listen to though. In Mix2a the brass and other bass feels more driven (not necessarily loud) which could be bringing out the finer elements of brass. Mix2b is basically 2a just smoother.
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I am digging both mixes really.
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Thanks Mike, yeah now Dave has done his slappin’ thang on it, it sounds pretty much exactly like I originally envisioned it!
Thanks Paul, Michelle and Eric. I really appreciate your input.
To quote myself:
The only thing I changed between the two mixes was the bass, everything else is exactly the same. If you pull both mixes into you DAW they pretty much completely phase cancel each other (apart from some artifacts on some of the other elements that I assume are randomised elements in the processing such as modulation effects, which change slightly between each rendering). When the bass comes in, you’ll hear it super loud and clear, because it is completely different.
The fact that you may be hearing differences in the other elements between the mixes probably points to just how interactive each of the elements in a mix are, in that, when you change one thing, it makes other things sound slightly different in relief. (Either that, or your are imagining things! 
)
Thanks for your input - much appreciated!
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yeah I caught that much, I thought bass in 2b sounded a bit louder, I am cool with that too. It just loses a bit of finess from the brass, I think 2a is ‘cooler’ for the elements you have mixed in, the even harmonic bass builds up and takes over the brass ‘odd’ harmonics. 2b is likely more crowd pleasing though.
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Sorry, you misunderstood me…What I meant is that if you play the two files (Mix 2a and Mix 2b) together and reverse the polarity of one, you hear some slight artefacts, but when the bass comes in, it sums together and is really loud because it is processed completely different on both mixes. Does that make sense?
The bass volume in both mixes is pretty much the same.
Both mixes - I love how you’ve got stuff all over the stereo field. The tom rolls - right to left. I’m kind of surprised you mix from audience perspective. Still, the rolls sound awesome.
While I agree with Michelle in that the horns are more prominent in the first one, I’m still drawn to Mix B myself, it just feels a little more rockin’ somehow…
For the record, both of these are pretty fan-freakin-tastic!
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kind of, what my ear is hearing is more harmonics in 2b. I guess you are adding harmonics and summing it to the fundamental to sound louder ?
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Damn! I’ve been listening for 25 minutes, trying to hear a difference in the vocal volume (listening through my laptop speakers only) and I was going to tell you that my ears must be shot from hours of recording, because I just can’t hear any noticeable difference in the volume of the vocals. I was just about to grab my headphones to inspect the song closer…but then I read your post.
I think there’s a big psychological factor for the listener. We hear what we’re told to hear and we see & hear what we focus on.
I did notice more of the little intricacies in places that I missed yesterday, though. Too many pieces of ear candy to mention…So many little things, in fact, that I can’t remember all of them.
The more I listened to your vocals, the more they seemed to poke out of the mix. There may be a few little spot in the verses where the volume dips, but there’s nothing wrong with some dynamics. I think we, as critical listeners get too hung up on clinical perfection/ precision. The song is rockin’ as it is!
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Dude! That song! That hit!!
Very smarth moves everywhere, and nice shortcuts where the song needs some. And everything under the 3 minutes mark.
Mixwise I would prefer things a bit different but it’s mainly a matter of taste.
Very great job!
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Maybe… I used a completely different processing chain on the bass. In mix 2a, I kind of processed it like I would my own bass guitar, which is pretty complex, 3 separate tracks blah blah blah, and the basic sound coming from my Amplitube Ampeg plugin. But Dave has a completely different core tone, and he runs DI through a Neve preamp, so I don’t think my usual processing didn’t seem to be doing the trick. Then I remembered that the Slate Bundle’s Overloud TH-U has an Eden Bass amp model, which is the one Dave usually uses live, so I decided to start out with that as the core tone to process the DI with. It just seemed to work better.
Wow - that’s dedication!
Thanks W - yeah, I think it’s pretty close now. I appreciate you taking the time
Thanks Phil - My arrangement of this song has changed massively from when I wrote it 27 years ago. My original version of the song had a LOT of repetition in it, particularly of that main riff. It was too much. I’ve learned a lot about arrangement since then. This song really benefited from a radical rearrangement.
Thanks for listening and sharing your thoughts!
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