PG Music Home Forums General Discussion User Showcase You Are My LIFE (Will be a Songwriting Contest Submission)

This song has been on the shelf for a little over a year.
(I finally found someone that could sing it)

****** Song Summary *************
Title: You are My Life
Key=C , Tempo 70,

Style is _BEATBOX.STY (Beatbox Hip Hop)

2474:Bass, Acoustic, Held
1943:Synth, Rhythm, EuroDance Strings
2267:Synth, BellPad, Rhythm 80sPopPads
2579:Bass, Synth, RnBModernSub
910:Piano, Electric, Rhythm SmoothBallad
RealDrums, UrbanPopEv8GoodGirl^1-a:Kck1, b:Clap

Here is link to song
You Are My LIFE

Blessings!

This is a great song.

It may be an artifact of sound cloud which does this to a lot of my stuff, but the high end seems a bit brittle, especially on the vocals. Again, it could just be sound cloud.

If it is not sound cloud though you may want to sweeten the mix in your mastering program to get more mids in there. She has a gorgeous voice and I can't hear the entire spectrum of it, in parts where it should be more rich.

But this is a great composition though. Cheers.

I will check it - thanks David! blessings!

Hello, Even If

This is a very good song. I like it very much.
And vocals are so good.
What a wonderful voice Athena has.
The vocal is a perfect match for this song.
Enjoyed my listen a lot.
Good luck with the Songwriting Contest.

Best Regards.

Shigeki Adachi

Thanks Shigeki! I just wish she lived closer because she is in Hawaii. I feel blessed that I was still able to have her sing despite being so far away! blessings!

Bill,

The girl can sing! She puts the song across well.

I agree with David. There is a lot of "crisp" to this - and not enough bottom. The UrbanPopEv8GoodGirl RealDrum is a nice choice. The synths work really well - the bell is nice! I do think you would benefit from a Held electric bass with a bunch of compression to carry the bottom. The acoustic bass seems too subtle.

The vocal, of course, is what really carries this - as it should. It needs some "warmth" (processing). It sounds as though a tape saturation plug has been overused. It gets to the point that one (me, anyway) is listening to that instead of listening to the song.

You've got all the pieces. I think you need to re-visit the mix. You've posted some super mixes here. I think you can improve on this one. And, man! that vocal deserves the best treatment possible!!!...

floyd

Hi Bill,

nice song and outstanding vocals.
I agree with the above sound suggestions.
Enjoyable listen.

Guenter

thanks Floyd . . . since several of you have posted about it not having enough bottom, I'm going to revisit the mix before I submit it

blessings!

Thanks Guenter! Blessings!

beautiful song! Nice and breathy vocals too!

Bill,

As always, your ability to create and to produce a song shines. This is fantastic. Athena presents your creation beautifully. I honestly cannot imagine how it could be sung any better. For what it's worth, I also found the mix a little lacking in the warmth that depth of bass can bring. That's personal taste, though. There's no doubting that this is a professional creation through and through.

May competition success come your way!

Regards,
Noel

Thanks RnAM! Blessings!

Thanks so much Noel . . . You are very kind! blessings!

After listening to everyone, I went back and revisited the mix . . .

I had never taken the breaths out so I expanded and figured I would do that before changing the sound . . .

When I did that, I saw the waveform up close (magnified about 10X) . . . top of waveform is flat when blown up which would hint that there was brickwall limiter . . . that is part of reason vocals are a lil brittle, some of the waveform is missing.

I have contacted a couple of studios in her city - going to try and get that wonderful voice on a 8K dollar tube mic with a Red preamp and see what happens . . . .

Appreciate all of the feedback and encouragements!!!

The song is good and should be a contender in the contest.

The vocals are the issue. They are sung well, but poorly recorded or produced. If you have access to the raw wave, you can fix it. If the wave was "processed" and then sent to you....since you didn't record this in your studio, you need to either get the raw wave or have it recorded again. The mic isn't automatically the problem. If it's recorded properly, a basic SM-58 will do a superb job.

When I work with singers from out of town, I simply ask them to send me an unclipped, raw wave. No EQ, no compression, no limiting, no pitch correction, and no reverb....I want it just like it came from the mic.....raw. Some singers are cool with that but some want to send you a "fixed" track. Insist on the raw wave...always.

Unfortunately, as the song goes along, it gets so much worse. At first, it had the brittle high end, and a boxiness from the improper use of EQ on the mids and very little low end. Even female singers need to have the right amount of low end. Let me back up a bit... the lows might be OK when the EQ on the mids gets fixed.

The biggest issue I have with the overall sound is that it doesn't sound like it's open on the top end.... As the singer starts to push as she gets into the song, her levels are fine, but someone thought it would be a good idea to compress or limit the wave. So from the middle on, where she's really belting it out, you have that ear grating digital clipping happening on the voice. (It's not soundcloud's fault)

For goodness sake, remove the breaths. They are distracting. They might sound cute, and one or two properly left in for dramatic effect might.... I say "might" be OK, but the rest have to go.

If you added the compression, EQ and limiting.... take it out and start from square one..... this time.... only use reverb and some EQ.

On the song, you did a great job with the writing. It should place well in the contest when you get the vocal track sounding good.

edit: listening on cans. I have to wonder if she isn't also "pulling back" and singing from the throat a bit on the high and powerful stuff..... rather than stepping back and using proper mic technique to sing those louder parts and letting it all out naturally. I didn't hear the same level of high end distortion on the cans as I did on the computer speakers earlier. So that could very well have been the cheap speakers. It's still rough in the cans, but not as bad.... however, it still needs to be addressed.

Herb,
I contacted her - she used garage band to record it. I'm pretty sure there is processing recorded in it from GB and raw wav is clipped - I didn't see that it was when it was small - - when I blew it up, the whole top is flat . . . I have gotten a couple of studios in her state that have contacted me back that will do it for decent price . . . seems like the way to go since I'm not there

thanks for all the feedback . . . blessings!

[quote=floyd jane]Bill,

The girl can sing! She puts the song across well.

I agree with David. There is a lot of "crisp" to this - and not enough bottom. The UrbanPopEv8GoodGirl RealDrum is a nice choice. The synths work really well - the bell is nice! I do think you would benefit from a Held electric bass with a bunch of compression to carry the bottom. The acoustic bass seems too subtle.

The vocal, of course, is what really carries this - as it should. It needs some "warmth" (processing). It sounds as though a tape saturation plug has been overused. It gets to the point that one (me, anyway) is listening to that instead of listening to the song.

You've got all the pieces. I think you need to re-visit the mix. You've posted some super mixes here. I think you can improve on this one. And, man! that vocal deserves the best treatment possible!!!...

floyd

Agree with David and Floyd. The singer is so talented and the emotion is wonderful!! Floyd has helped me a lot with my mixes and I was doing the same thing-too heavy on the high end. Great song, great vocal!! Take care. Greg

great song, and it sounds like you are well on your way to making the small changes required to make a big difference in your ability to competewith the other entries!

I think you have a combination here that will appeal to your target audience

In my experience a Hard Limited wave does not change the tone of the sound. Overall the Vocal high end EQ is set to hot.

You can remove the breath sounds in RB expand the track, go to the breath and hi-light only the breath. (Hers seem to be mostly at the end of a word in a phrase.) Play the selected area, there is a button for that. If you have selected more than the breath, decrease the area until only the breath is selected. Delete with the delete key on your keyboard. Listen to the phrase and see if there are any pops or clicks before or after your deletion. If so undo the deletion and start over. It sounds like a lengthy task and it is, but, its worth time invested, usually there are 5 or 6 parts in everyone's vocal tracks that need to be cleaned up this way. Either the breath, teeth clicking, even lip smacking, and tongue noise.

It has enough bottom end in the mix, just adjust the vocal track EQ not the master. Lower the high end on her voice that should do it. If you can try to remove some of the breath sounds great, resetting the eq is going to make some of the breath sounds less noticeable too.

Can you list the effects that you use on her voice? Maybe someone can spot something that will help.