My Songs .... any feedback appreciated

Bash This Recording
#1

Im just going to throw out several songs I did mostly in 2016. Keep them all in one spot so I dont have to always look for them

I spent 2016 learning to sing. So these sort of show that process…some are better than others. Im going to try to do them in chronological order

I guess mainly im looking for overall comments of any sort. mainly, do any of these stand out as way better, or way worse than the others. If some seem to have more potential I may redo/refine them

I guess one question is…WHAT AM I??? Whats the style? Which direction could I go with the writing and singing??

Im not even sure if any of these are ‘complete’. I doubt ANY of them have vox, bass, AND bgv lol. Probably 2 out of those 3 on most of them.

THESE ARE NOT MIXED to any good standard lol. Some are scratch guitars etc. This is just stuff I posted on the singing website I hung on last year

Morning Light Jan 2016 (nice Jimmy Page chord at 3:04)
https://clyp.it/pcuce4jl

All Over Now Feb 16. This is a partial with some harmony vox on intro and chorus (no verse) and a gtr solo
https://clyp.it/up3xbyct

Our Last Chance Feb 16 Another nice bridge
https://clyp.it/ergepn0e

South Sweden. Feb 16 A quickie verse and chorus done over another guys music track. If nothing else this shows me singing over stuff thats normally heavier than what i write
https://clyp.it/0gcws1yh

“Happy Birthday Sugarboo” Mar 21 2016 for a girls birthday the next day. My most heartfelt song. WRITTEN AND DONE IN ONE DAY lol. AFAIK she never listened to it and never acknowledged it (I was blocked on FB lol)
https://clyp.it/w1fof2ur

In April 2016 I started to find my head voice

Another Fool Apr 16. i ALMOST got a hook on the prechorus lol. Some nice interludes and a solo etc. i think i doubled a wrong lyric in there too lol

https://clyp.it/beblu3vq

Minnesota Mama Apr 16. Written for the ‘Sugarboo’ girl. experimented with trying to sound sort of bratty like jaggar or something but it didnt really come off too great.
https://clyp.it/xndcmdtd

The Garden. Apr 16. yet another one written for the “Sugarboo” girl. This one may be the closest to what i think my style could be. (scratch guitars). Another cool bridge
https://clyp.it/1lmit0yb

Homeward Bound May 2016 (omg, forgot about this one lol)

On the Inside July 2016. Singing was getting better so i went nuts. i MAY have put this on RR, not sure

Sing My Song. Aug 16 Some vocal harmonies and building.
https://clyp.it/11y1qbyz

Together in the Heat. Oct 16 another guys music track with my vocals. Done quickly just for fun

#2

Whoah… man, that’s a lotta stuff to take in all at once! Will do what I can to give 'em a listen…

1 Like
#3

Its just a repository of what I did in 2016. i aint gonna lose any sleep over any of them lol. Hopefully i can blow away any of these now with a little focus

1 Like
#4

Hey JJ @Jon-Jon just picked one of these at random to give a listen here before I head to work, Homeward Bound.

This is a really good foundation to be starting from! Nice tune, good energy, good performances. Your singing is really good, if you say you reached that level of ability with a year or two of focused effort, well that gives me hope for my own voice!

So at least judging by this one clip for now, I would say you definitely have all the raw materials ready to rock, and your goal this year to get a handle on the mix process is good timing, sounds like you are definitely ready to take it to the next level.

Will check out some more of these later on… cheers!

1 Like
#5

Well obviously we have all “sang” along with the radio etc our whole lives…and im pushing 50 lol. But I never “tried” to sing or studied singing until starting in 2016. then in Jan 16, right after I bought the singing course, I was chasing this girl for about a month, which didnt work out but I got at least 3 songs out of it lol. So during those months I didnt train singing at all.

So basically any of the singing before Apr 16 is totally untrained and its getting gradually better ever since. I should have many more improvements over time

yeah, I need to get my songs together now…even though its ‘too late’, in a few years time it will really be too late lol.

I consider most of what I have done so far as basically about a 3-4 on the 10 scale at best. It can get way better

here’s a rough timeline

Feb 88 started gtr, aged 20. Played really solid for about 7 years then got into other stuff but never “quit” playing

Late 2014. After maybe 10+ years of not recording, decided to record again so had to start learning DAWs and interfaces etc from scratch. Started putting lots of jams on wikiloops.com

Later 2014 bought bass gtr

2015, rough year but really got into EZ Drummer2

2016 focused on singing

2017 bringing it all together into an end product

its crazy though how EVERYTHING has to come together to show one’s true potential. Its no good to be able to sing great or play great, the WRITING has to be there to let the other talents shine. Thats the hard part. And of course you could wirte a great song and perform it perfectly etc but then if the mix isnt great its all for nought

#6

I listened to a few real quick at work. I don’t have a sub here at work yet so I cant comment too much under 100hz. I’m not picking on any particular song, and was listening to see if you had a common thing between mixes. Vocals seem good most of the time, a couple I felt they were a little buried. The guitars seem too much in front for me, they feel very wide but very forward and sometimes run over the drums and vocals, and sometimes I think they are too bitey or a weird midrange thing going on. The bass seems to sit well with guitars for this type of music (was there a few that didn’t have bass cause on those it was gone?) but I cant hear how it is working with the kick accurately enough for me to comment. The snare seem a little thin on a few songs for the wall of guitars it was trying to keep up with, I also didn’t get that big toms thing either, which seems typical for this type of music.

There is a lot so it might be easier to pick a finished song and then go from there, and work on that mix. It looked like some of these were demos and some sounded like they may have been missing parts. Are you recording everything? are the drums always live or are there a few that are programmed?

1 Like
#7

Well basically none of these are “mixed” to any high standard. I guess I mainly wanted feedback on the overall songmanship and maybe what type of songs my voice might fit etc etc

yes, only a few of them have bass lol

drums are EZ Drummer

2 of the tracks “South Sweden” and "Together in the Heat’ are just my vocals over another guys stereo track

I consider them all to be maybe 4th or 5th grade level as far as the mix. My goal this year is to get my stuff to at LEAST B.S. level. (hehe)

#8

@Jon-Jon
Wooh, a heap of songs…
I dived into a bunch and then decided to choose one a bit randomly to explore more closely.
I chose The Garden as you said “This one may be the closest to what i think my style could be”.

The song definitely feels ‘guitar driven’… hmmm, now that I’ve written that down, I’m thinking that feels like a theme for your other songs that I listened to… I’m really loving the moody dark sense to the song. Some great tones to the vocals. Okay, there are some things here I’m noticing - I’m primarily a singer/songwriter, so I’m always drawn to vocals and melody. I’m finding the vocal pitch a little variable and I’m wondering, to me it sounds as though you are using your voice as an instrument - please don’t get me wrong, this is a cool thing and allows great musical flow - but it does mean that the melodic line can be harder to identify as a structure within the song.

O gawd, am I making any kinda sense here? To me, within this song, the voice sounds to be dueting directly with the guitar and there’s a lot of vocal pitch movement whereas I’d like to hear more melodic resting on specific notes particularly in the repeated chorus bits but that is purely personal interpretation. I originally studied classical voice and although I have largely unlearned all of that, I do have an inbuilt set of sonic expectations (huh??). I have studied quite a wide range of vocal techniques over the years and for me, there is no exact science to this.

From your timeline, I see that singing is relatively new for you… you have some really great tones there and a good range - I wrote a blog on RecordingReview some years back following a recent voice training session where I think I called it “the voice is not an instrument”… well, we use it as such, but it is SO Much more.
Once again, I enjoyed the vibe of this song and it created some cool poetic imagery for me.

:sunglasses:

1 Like
#9

Well basically none of these are “mixed” to any high standard. I guess I mainly wanted feedback on the overall songmanship and maybe what type of songs my voice might fit etc etc

I think your voice is working with these songs. it goes anywhere from radio rock to grunge. I hear some Alice in Chains type of vibes in there. I don’t know if that’s what you want to sing, but its definitely in the rock category. Its way easier for you to understand what your own capabilities and voice strengths are if you focus on a song and really get into the process of dissecting a song. not only does it help understand the mixing process it helps with song writing and like @Emma said:

I’m finding the vocal pitch a little variable and I’m wondering, to me it sounds as though you are using your voice as an instrument - please don’t get me wrong, this is a cool thing and allows great musical flow - but it does mean that the melodic line can be harder to identify as a structure within the song.

Which to me translates into a couple of things:

  1. Finding where and how to generate melodies into guitar riffs on guitar driven songs
  2. Use your voice as more than a lyric machine (Zepplin whole lotta love - Robert Plant in general) - @Emma likes to do these things in the songs ive heard from her. Noises, ohhhs and ahhhs are just as memorable to a listener when inserted at the appropriate places.
  3. How to enhance vocal melodies with harmonies, backing vox, other instruments and even the how the mix interacts with the vocals

My suggestion is to work on a mix and just see all the ways you can insert vocal performance to either enhance or detract from the song. A lot of that is production, some is arrangement, some is song writing, some is performance and some is mixing. From there you will get more feedback on how to do certain things.

1 Like
#10

@Jon-Jon
Wow… you are VERY talented
It sure is tough when you want/need to do everything yourself. :slight_smile:

1 Like
#11

Nice collection of songs. If possible, I would go back and add bass guitar or the songs missing them. (I did not listen to all of them.) Morning Light reminds me of the early Whitesnake songs. Keep up the good work.

1 Like
#12

Well obviously ive played guitar for almost 30 years and my fave bands are all classic rock/hard rock/glam/metal guitar bands like VanHalen, Zeppelin, Hendrix, Whitesnake etc. So im a guitar guy all the way (though I did just buy ‘EZ Keys’ software, so who knows maybe ill do some keyboard songs too)

Yeah, some of my vox do get a bit pitchy. Especially that song if u listen to how languid and syrupy it all is.

of course if u listen to the rhythm track you see that its sort of a moving target…especially in the chorus. its not really a “4 bars of this chord, 4 bars of that chord” etc…the rhythm is really organic especially with that big bend in it . Even the verse is just a riff thats moving)

rhythm track only–>

But yeah, its a bit pitchy and slinky lol. I definitely favor feel and vibe over exact technical correctness…though I also go for good technique also.

Also, on almost all of these songs, the vocal line wasnt really written before I stepped to the mic lol. I step to the mic and start feeling it out right there…and finalizing lyrics on the fly lol. So hopefully I can improve on a lot of stuff while still keeping it fresh

BTW the lyrics are pretty much 100% autobiographical. About this girl I grew up with when we were little kids. Amazingly beautiful etc. I lost track of her after HighSchool and only ran across her on fbook in early 2016. I instantly fell head over heels and she was expressing the same back to me but it didnt work out.

So the song is about lost innocence and uses bible imagery. Even little details like “east of Eden” are true…her and I grew up in a town that was east of a town called Eden lol

“I call on the maker, on my hands, on my knees, on my face oh please”. that was true, lol. i was laying in the floor praying that God would put her and I together. Oh well, she found something better than me and I got 3 songs for my trouble I guess

#13

haha, go listen to ‘On the inside’

or like this?

or this?
https://clyp.it/xkl2urva

haha, dont make me break out my Gregorian chant stuff

#14

thanks brother, I appreciate the boost. yep, sux to do the one man show thingy. Everything takes 10x as long

Whitesnake is one of my faves. Dunno if ill go back and add bass. If any of these songs seems that good to me ill probably just redo it all from scratch (pipe dream lol)

im a lot like DaVinci (except for the genius polymath part)…he was well known to only finish about 5% of his projects. All of these already sound old to me and were only a step on the way to where I hope to end up…which itself is a nebulous moving target

I like PIECES of most of them lol

#15

exactly like that…

now just get a track going that you want to work on the mix.

1 Like
#16

I feel a 70s 80s rock(:

1 Like