Here & Alive

By myfirstpunksong on December 1, 2024 2:51 pm

FEEDBACK ON ALL ASPECTS VERY WELCOME. VOCALS, MELODY, SONGWRITING, PERFORMANCE, PRODUCTION.
(It helps!)

Diary entry style one on being in Vietnam's cultural capital one month now. Leaning into the sense of chaos and unpredictability with this one, in a way to try and mirror my life and this city.

Done in 2 sessions, yesterday Saturday and today Sunday.

The idea was one from earlier in the year, jammed with my buddy Andy Holland, who wrote all the lead guitars which I recorded yesterday based on some video recordings we made early Oct when jamming. He also came up with the alt drum thing where it speeds up that I like and think really brought a lot. My rough ideas benefit hugely from talented collaborators.

Shoutout to Suicidal Tendencies for this one as its a total Institutionalized homage, a track I discovered through Senses Fail's cover a decade ago. I dig it. I didn't quite get the urgency in the vocal I wanted but as explain, I'm tired. It's Sunday night and I blew through energy at band practice earlier and came down with this weeks beat left to finish.

WWW
I got started on this one yesterday, which was a win over last week which was done in one session. Having just one more session working on it makes a huge difference, but regardless I'm happy with just getting one done and the ideas down.
Enjoying playing around with vocals a bit and mixing and finding sounds. I think I'm narrowing in on a sound I like and the next step will be to fin a way to recreate it live.

EBI
I think better when I freestyle journal first and then kinda read it out. Rather than trying to just straight up improv over the top which this was kinda a mix of the two. Freestyle is good to get the vibe but for the words I think taking a little more time and thought makes them better. I think I could've made this much more reflective and interesting and commenting on the sights and sounds and what makes the vibe of the city.

For a final version I think I'd do some tweaking with structure and variation, but glad to have the idea down if only for posterity and to submit again.

Look forward to hear some of you my fellows tunes this week. 4 weeks to go!
Thanks for listening and commenting y'all. Be well!

Audio works licensed by author under:
CC Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works (BY-NC-ND)

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Tags: alt, hardcore, noise, punk, rap, rock, talkie, week 48 2024, View by:myfirstpunksong

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December 2, 2024 12:43 am

fetalface

I liked the contrast between the cheeky instrumentals and the low-key lyrics & delivery. Sounds like quite an adventure.

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Today 3:45 am

myfirstpunksong

fetalface wrote:

I liked the contrast between the cheeky instrumentals and the low-key lyrics & delivery. Sounds like quite an adventure.

Thanks, I wanted to emphasise that contrast, didn't quite get it maybe as I'd hoped but hey, its a process.

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Today 3:57 pm

jwh

oh this is really fun. def hear the nods to Institutionalized (hell of a song!), but it still feels like you. that sped up beat part with the lead is so damn great!

only because you asked:
mixwise - the music all feels cohesive and "in the same space."
i like the vocals a lot, but feel like they could sit in the mix a litte better? might just be the level. particularly the end part with the "i'm here & alive" (i really love that part) is coming in pretty hot.
*i noticed it more listening in headphones than over a mono speaker, so take it with a grain of salt.
also i probably bury my vocals too much sometimes, so it might just be a weird preference for me.

a couple things that (i think) have helped me with getting vocals to sit in the mix:
1.) setting up a reverb bus with some kind of "room" reverb that everything gets sent to, even if it's just a little bit. (learned this from Napear)
this particularly helps if everything wasn't recorded in the same space (or if i'm mixing things that were mic'd with things that were recorded direct or VSTs etc).
if you're recording everything in the same room, it may not be as important to do this.
and yeah, it can quickly go off the rails. i try to be subtle with this, unless i'm doing something super spacey.

2.) being mindful of competing frequencies. like if you have guitars that are kind of in the same range as the vocal. panning can help with that. you can also carve out some space with EQ in the guitars to allow more room for the vocal.
this can be done by setting up a sidechain situation. that admittedly starts to get over my head a bit, but...
neon liminal reminded me about this plugin called Trackspacer. it kind of simplifies that whole process and i've found it very helpful and not too difficult to dial in.
i hesitate to just default to a "hey buy this plugin" solution too much, but this one has been really helpful for me. ymmv!

a *very* basic explanation: so if i have guitars that are kind of stepping all over the vocal, i will set up a guitar folder. i will then send the vocal to the guitar folder as a sidechain. i add Trackspacer on the guitar folder and it does some subtle ducking whenever the vocal signal is coming through. it can be tweaked of course, but sometimes the default setting is already doing what i need it to do.

i'm probably not explaining this very well. there are some youtube videos that helped me figure it out.

lastly (geez, writing a book over here) - how cool that you are in Vietnam! sounds like it's already been a life-changing experience. cheers!

oh this is really fun. def hear the nods to Institutionalized (hell of a song!), but it still feels like you. that sped up beat part with the lead is so damn great! only because you asked: mixwise - the music all feels cohesive and "in the same space." i like the vocals a lot, but feel like they could sit in the mix a litte better? might just be the level. particularly the end part with the "i'm here & alive" (i really love that part) is coming in pretty hot. *i noticed it more listening in headphones than over a mono speaker, so take it with a grain of salt. also i probably bury my vocals too much sometimes, so it might just be a weird preference for me. a couple things that (i think) have helped me with getting vocals to sit in the mix: 1.) setting up a reverb bus with some kind of "room" reverb that everything gets sent to, even if it's just a little bit. (learned this from Napear) this particularly helps if everything wasn't recorded in the same space (or if i'm mixing things that were mic'd with things that were recorded direct or VSTs etc). if you're recording everything in the same room, it may not be as important to do this. and yeah, it can quickly go off the rails. i try to be subtle with this, unless i'm doing something super spacey. 2.) being mindful of competing frequencies. like if you have guitars that are kind of in the same range as the vocal. panning can help with that. you can also carve out some space with EQ in the guitars to allow more room for the vocal. this can be done by setting up a sidechain situation. that admittedly starts to get over my head a bit, but... neon liminal reminded me about this plugin called Trackspacer. it kind of simplifies that whole process and i've found it very helpful and not too difficult to dial in. i hesitate to just default to a "hey buy this plugin" solution too much, but this one has been really helpful for me. ymmv! a *very* basic explanation: so if i have guitars that are kind of stepping all over the vocal, i will set up a guitar folder. i will then send the vocal to the guitar folder as a sidechain. i add Trackspacer on the guitar folder and it does some subtle ducking whenever the vocal signal is coming through. it can be tweaked of course, but sometimes the default setting is already doing what i need it to do. i'm probably not explaining this very well. there are some youtube videos that helped me figure it out. lastly (geez, writing a book over here) - how cool that you are in Vietnam! sounds like it's already been a life-changing experience. cheers!

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