Hello friends.
It has been a while since I have posted. It is good to see such great activity on this forum.

I have just written a new song using BIAB R/T. What a wonderful song writing tool.I used Reaper for all the editing and mastering. All comments are welcomed.

Thanks,
Marty

Why Did We Let It Go This Far
http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?songid=10994062&q=hi&newref=1


SLCWaltz Country Waltz
535 Elec Bass
1124 Fiddle
824 Ac. Guitar
822 Ac Guitar
1126 Pedal Steel

Why Did We Let It Go This Far

I never knew what really happened
How we got to where we are
A hopeless love filled with sadness
Why did we let it go this far

All we have now are old memories
Of a love that grew apart
Seems like time made a difference,
Why did we let it go this far

Chorus:
Loving you was so easy
We never knew what we had
I only know how much I miss you
How did love so good grow so bad

We can pick up the broken pieces
And maybe catch our falling star
But your gone and it seems so hopeless
Why did we let it go this far

Ride:
Chorus:

Loving you was so easy
We never knew what we had
I only know how much I miss you
How did love so good grow so bad

We can pick up the broken pieces
And maybe catch our falling star
But your gone and it seems so hopeless
Why did we let it go this far

Hey Marty - good to hear you again - it has been a while.

You do have a great way of mixing, and a voice that is able to cross many genres and sell a song.
I think you've got the soul of Hank in this one.

On the technical side, which mastering features in Reaper did you use?

Keep up the good work - Ian

Hello Ian!
Thanks for listening. Mastering was done with Izotope Ozone 4 for this song. However most of the time I use:
2 instances of JS Schwa/soft_clipper and 2 instances of JS Loser Master Limiters. The seem to work real well and best of all they come with Reaper.
Marty

Nicely done Marty! Country isn't my thing but I love Willie Neslon's voice and you sure have his beautiful pitch and distinctive timbre.
That's a very strong song expertly recorded. Thanks for the enjoyable listen!


John

What a fantastic recording. great stuff...

I appreciate the kind words skyline. Thanks for listening.
Marty

Thank you pikeyh. It is great to hear your comments.
Marty

Good stuff Marty. And outstanding arranging imo - really nice! I don't hear Willie maybe a hint of Mickey Gilley - but really all Marty and well done!

Marty,

Nice job - love the song. Agree with Josie on the sound/feel. You have such a great clear tone.

Bob

Hi Marty,

It may have been a while since you posted, as you said, but it was certainly worth the wait!

Really nice job all round. Could hear Alan Jackson doing this!

Good luck with it

Martin

Nice Job !

Thanks to all who listened. I really makes one inspired to do even better on the next tune. Thanks again to the BIAB GURUS for such wonderful software.
Marty

Hi Marty,

What a song! It's really good and very easy to listen to. You always handle the AABA form so wonderfully well and this one was no exception.

What really appealed to me was the the skill with which the lyrics were crafted. I loved the way that you linked lines 1 and 3 in each A-section with the consonance "s" sound in each line's final word and then used perfect rhyme in lines 2 and 4. It worked for me! To my ears, this really helped capture the self-reflective feel of the song. One thought that occurred as I listened was to wonder how "fallen star" rather than "falling star" would sound in the lyrics.

I don't normally comment on lyrics because they are often very personal. I hope you don't mind my thoughts. As I have already indicated, these are incredibly well crafted and well developed lyrics in my opinion. They're a great match for the music.

All the best,
Noel

Hello Noel!
It is good to hear from you again and thanks for the listen. I really appreciate your input on my songs. It gives me great food for thought. You are so right about "fallen star". I sang it that way but if you notice the written lyrics, I wrote "falling star". I guess I can blame it on my Louisiana/Texas accent...LOL. Have a blessed day,
Marty

Marty,

Nice job on this one! Very good, solid arrangement, and your vocals are excellent. Keep up the good work!

Steve

Thank you Steve. I really appreciate your comment and your taking the time to listen.
Marty

Good to see you back, and WOW what a song to lead with. Very slick production, and excellent writing. You said you used reaper, what kind of soundcard do you have in your computer? Thanks for sharing! Keep 'em coming.



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Thanks PgFantastic. Yes, I use Reaper for all my editing and Mastering. I use a usb Focusrite Saffire 6 for my interface and sound card. I am very happy with the performance. Thank you so much for listening and for the compliment.
Marty

Marty, that is a nice song, i enjoyed your easy country sound. I also hear a little Mickey Gilley, which is funny i was doing an old Gilley tune last night during my practice. Reaper is a nice package, i use it on occasion. I prefer Sonar i think it has better plugings, and better midi, but Reaper is a sweet setup for routing and simple audio tracking.

Funny thing is i recorded a song the other day in RB, then mixed and mastered a version in all three, RB, Reaper, and Sonar, and funny i got just as nice a result in RB as the others with one exception. It does not have as easy of automation envelopes tools.

Hey Marty!! This is a beautiful song, Very professionally done. I really could polish a belt buckle on this song. occ

Hey Marty,

new user here, listening to what others have done. This song has a great feel to it, very well done.

Thanks Robh. I used Sonar X1 Producer for awhile but went back to Reaper. IMO, I feel more comfortable with Reaper and it does not have the bulk of Sonar. I cannot comment on the midi aspect, because I rarely use any midi. Thanks for your comments and the listen.
Marty

Thanks Fitzync. Welcome to BIAB and this forum.
Marty

Hello Robh and occ.
Thanks for the thumbs up and taking out time to listen. Sometimes I wish I had a little gravel in my voice to add a touch more character, but alas! I have my studio down due to a revamp. I really miss writing and recording. I should be back up in the next couple of days.
Marty

Radio Ready all the way.

Great lyrics, backing track and vocal. Super RT selection also. Plus it’s mastered like a pro would do IMHO.

Two thumbs up.

I have updated the link for this song. Does anyone know of a way to edit the original post?

Why Did We Let It Go This Far

http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?songid=11033925&q=hi&newref=1

Hello Mario,
It is good to hear from you again. I have just did a remix and the link has changed. Thanks for the cudos and for listening.

http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?songid=11033925&q=hi&newref=1

Hi Marty,

I've just had another listen. This new mix is absolutely brilliant. You've captured the soul of the song really, really well through the arrangement, your excellent singing, and your very skillful mastering. You should try and get this song in movies!

One small thing that I noticed on my sound system, and I'm passing it on for what it's worth, is that some of the ess sounds seemed a little over processed and were sounding more like "th" than "s".

One thing that I picked up from a seminar that I once went to with Stephen Webber (a grammy award winning producer and professor at Berklee College) was that he manually subtracts the "ess" sound using equalization. Steve's argument was that using a de-esser subtracts brilliance from the whole vocal line and he prefers not to do that.

For a while I used to do what Steve suggested but I discovered in Reaper that volume envelopes with the "sqaure" point shape do the job really well. What I now do in my mixes is to go through and manually adjust all the ess sounds; they're very easy to identify on the graphic display and it usually takes about 15 mins to adjust them. I then sometimes add a little touch of de-esser, although that's rare these days. Below is an image of how I de-ess.



If you're already aware of the above process, please forgive me for boring you!

All the best,
Noel

Hi Noel.
Thanks for the tip. I will try the volume envelope trick on my future mixes. Thanks for your input and for listening.
Marty