PG Music Home Forums General Discussion User Showcase New Song: "Brighter Than Any Star"

Hello,

Here's a song I wrote a while ago but never posted (as far as I remember, at least).


link: Brighter Than Any Star (audio) - on Soundcloud

The demo is sung by Jason Wyatt. He is also playing the two electric guitars heard in the mix as well as providing the vocal harmonies. If ever you need a demo done, I highly recommend Jason. He's incredibly good. All else you hear is Band In A Box and Realtracks. I mixed the song using Reaper and polished it up using Ozone.


As always, please feel free to comment about anything.

Regards,
Noel

P.S. You will probably hear Steve Young's influence in the arrangement of the mix. When assembling this arrangement, I regularly asked myself, "What would Steve do at this point in the song?" Those thoughts helped a great deal when decisions needed to be made. Steve's songs have given me lots of insight into how to get things to sound professional. Thanks Steve


REALTRACKS/DRUMS USED

366 - Electric Bass
368 - Acoustic strumming guitar
362 - Acoustic strumming guitar

Realdrums - Nasville Even 16

WOW Noel. Fantastic!! Great vocals, great mix and great production. I love the positive energy that your songs bring to this forum.

Well done!

Hi Noel.

A great song and a VERY, VERY, good recording and mix. Beautifully crisp and clear and loud without sounding compressed.

The lad certainly has an impressive voice, but maybe a bit what we call "Talent Show." At times it felt a bit like he was showing off his voice, rather than the song.

I'd love to hear you sing this one. I think your voice is quite distinctive and would suit the song, but that's just my take on it.

Still an excellent song and very professional package.

ROG.

What a beautiful song. Great story. Loved his voice. Thank you for sharing

Noel, Great song. Please don't change a single thing about it. Well recorded and i loved the break in the last chorus. My new favorite Noel song. Super job. Tom

Noel,

That is absolutely BEAUTIFUL in every respect.

Lyrics and melody are moving, emotional, romantic and simple. Wonderful slow dance ballad. Form fits perfectly.

As important as the vocal is, the best singer in the world can't turn a mediocre song into a good one with just a vocal. As Pat P. said when using one of his own songs as an example - and I'm paraphrasing in my own words - if more focus is on the singer's vocal performance instead of the song then something is wrong.

That's not the case here. Jason did a great job. He had a solid song to work with so it's a great marriage of singer and material.

Love it.

A+ from me.

Hi Noel,

Please don't change a single thing about it.
It's perfect as it is.
Beautiful song.

Guenter

Noel:

Very nice song and a very good demo. Congratulations.

How was it that you came to work with Jason?

John

Hi, Noel !

I must be doing something wrong as I
did not manage to open your file (play) !
When I press on the play button, there
is a text saying "you are using an unsupported
browser", but I do use the latest version of IE ?
and I have both google chrome and firefox on my
computer ?

You do not happen to have a link to
soundcloud by any chance ??


Cheers
Dani

Noel,

Another great song! Loved everything about it.

Bob

Hmmm, seems like I might be out of step with everyone else, here.

Whilst acknowledging that the lad had an impressive voice, I did think I detected a touch of ego in the delivery. As Josie said, if attention is drawn to the voice instead of the song, this isn't right and that's what I thought I heard.

However, it appears that no one else thought this and so I'm happy to concede that I was wrong and offer my apologies to Jason, who is certainly very talented.

ROG.

Hi ROG,

Thanks for the positive feedback! You started my morning on a high and the rest of the day sailed along nicely after that. Appreciate it.

When I read what you said about the singing, I completely understood what you meant. What you heard is probably due to me more than Jason. I did a heap of volume shaping of the vocal line to try and create an emotional contour that sat with how I heard the lyrics and music. (See the image below of the start of the third/last chorus.)



I could easily have over-exaggerated Jason's singing without realising it. I'll leave the mix for a couple of weeks, to clear it out of my head, and then have another listen with your thoughts in mind. I appreciate your comments. They're very useful indeed.

All the best,
Noel

EDIT: P.S. In case forum readers are wondering, the big, square dips on either side of "change" are to tame the "CH" and the "J" sounds at either end of the word. The curvy dip on "-bout" is bring that syllable under control in relation to the surrounding lyrics.

Hi Dani,

I've added a Soundcloud link in my original post

Thanks for letting me know about this problem. I use Firefox and the Songspace site opens fine. (Did you try pasting the URL's link into Firefox?)

After reading your post, I tried using Internet Explorer. On my Vista machine, the most up-to-date version for Vista does not work properly at Songspace. Strange. I'll pass it on to the site's Support team.

Regards,
Noel

Hi Joanne,

Thank you I always smile when I see your avatar pop up in a thread. I'm not quite sure what positive energy my songs have but I'll pass that thought on to my mother. She has an amazing ability to see a silver lining in the blackest of clouds. Maybe she taught me a thing or two that I don't know about.

I'm looking forward to hearing your next work!

Best wishes,
Noel

Hi Scott,

I agree. Jason has a great voice. Thank you for passing by and giving the song a listen. Appreciate your time. Thank you.

Regards,
Noel

Hey Tom,

Glad you found time to wander in and take a listen. I appreciate all the uplifting comments. Thank you.

All the best,
Noel

I say... this is a good song. Great job on the writing of the melody and the lyrics.

As far as the vocal delivery.... heck YES I want a singer who's not afraid to sing and show off his/her voice.... name one professional singer who doesn't. If you have a talent, be proud of it and learn to use it the best you can. That little "cry" & "crack" in the voice in a few places, was effective. I

I did not feel that the singer was "pushing" his voice into the over exaggeration area, which could have been tacky. Nope... didn't see that happening. Simply a well delivered song and a good vocal performance. nice vocal harmonies.

I generally do use volume envelopes in all my tracks for control but rarely do my vocal tracks have envelopes that are up and down as your screen shot depict.

Nice guitar fills. nothing fancy but certainly solid.

While I like to sing my own demo's I also am not adverse to using other singers from time to time. I like the passion others can bring to my songs. Passion beats a "safe" delivery any day.

Loved it....

Noel,

It's all been said, this indeed is a solid project from the first word to the last note.

Congrats!

Later,

Hi, Noel !

Now that I got to listen to your song
I must say that it is really good and
very well performed and produced.
Could not get any better ?


Cheers
Dani

Noel,

Outstanding! I really like this song. You did a great job of writing (as always) and Jason was a good pick for the vocals on it. I think he did an excellent job. Seems like I remember either this song or one like it that you posted a year or two back, where you had contracted a Nashville vocalist. Again, this sounds just great to me.

Always enjoy hearing your work!

Steve

hi guys this is excellent peace really top notch guys arrangement vocals mix plus +1 thanks eric

Hi Josie,

If these forums were hooked up to webcam, you'd see me smiling big and bright right now as I sit here writing to you.

I'm really glad that you got a chance to have a listen. I always value your thoughts and insights into how you hear my songs. Thank you

I also appreciate your confirmation of Pat P's theories. He's an amazing man and I've learnt such a huge amount from him over the years. Believe it or not, one of the most important lessons I've learnt transfers incredibly well into mixing. It relates to the unstressed words we use in language: words like 'the', 'a', 'and', 'or', 'me', 'her', etc. I often find that these syllables are over-emphasised in my recordings and so I use volume shaping to throttle them back to conversation levels. This REALLY does make a difference.

Once again, thank you for test-driving this production.

Best wishes,
Noel

Hi Guenter,

Gosh! Those words sound like they'd make great lyrics Thank you for dropping in, clicking the link, listening and taking time to comment. Much appreciated.

All the best,
Noel

Hi John,

Thank you for listening. I'm grateful for the feedback.

I came across Jason at demosinger.com.

I was looking for someone whose voice I liked and who had the facilities to overdub a backing track. Luck was with me. Jason was the first person I contacted from the site. His turnaround time was sensational. From the time I sent him the backing to when I got a draft of the vocals was about 5 days. He was outstanding to work with and his price was incredibly good value.

Jason is found at http://www.jasonwyattmusic.com/

Once again, "Thank you",
Noel

"Noel96"...

Talk about "emotional intensity"! The song has the gravity of an anthem, or a hymn. If I was married, I'd play this for my wife on her birthday, or on our anniversary.

Congratulations to you and Mr. Wyatt for bringing this beautiful baby into the world!

[i]bluage[/]

Hi Bob (rsdean),

It's always a pleasure to hear from you. Thanks for giving me some of your time. Appreciate it.

Regards,
Noel

Hey Herb,

Thanks for the positive comments! Much appreciated.

A bit about the volume shaping ...

I use Reaper. Eighteen months or so ago, I used to mix the tracks first and then run the mix through Ozone. While this worked fine, I found that sometimes individual tracks that sounded ok before adding Ozone needed boosting after the plugin was operating. These days I find that keeping Ozone always active as the final plugin in my Master channel makes it easier and quicker for me to get to the final mix.

Because Ozone is constantly on and because I always have it adding some level of compression, it often means that volume shaping of individual tracks needs to be more exaggerated in the initial mix to achieve a good balance in the final mix through the Ozone plugin. Thus the pronounced volume shaping. Have you ever played around with having Ozone always active as the final plugin? I'd like to hear your experiences if you have

Thank you for dropping in and taking time to listen and comment.

Regards,
Noel

Thanks Danny.

I like the phrase "from first word to last note". Thank you for having a listen.

Best wishes,
Noel

Hi Dani,

That was strange that you couldn't get the song open on Songspace. It's good to see that Soundcloud worked for you. Thank you for taking time out to play through the song. I appreciate your positive thoughts.

All the best,
Noel

Noel,

A GREAT BIG WHOOPING WOW!!!!

One of the finest songs I've heard in these here parts... "On every level" as my buddy Noel would say... Lyrics and Melody, Production and Mix!

Simply Beautiful.

Great use of RealTracks. The opening is PERFECT. The guitar work that Jason added was just right. That type of "adornment" is not covered well by RealTracks - (would be a great addition!).

What an awesome melody! The change at "cold" is so nice. The melody line that opens the chorus is stellar! And then.. the bridge - short and sweet - brings the whole thing up another notch. THEN... the dramatic pause in the final chorus rockets it! MAN!...I wanted the orchestra to start up right there!!! The full orchestra... Not to take away from the production AT ALL - it is TASTY - through and through... (you just got me excited at the finish there - like one of those movie songs that takes off at the end and takes your heart along with it....)

AWESOME. It stays with ya... I could go on and on - but I think I'd rather go listen one more time (I think that makes about 10...)

Do that again!

floyd


(PS - regarding songspace... really like the look and layout of the site - a terrific presentation! BUT... if you pause the song and start it up again, it always goes back to the beginning. You can click the time line to advance to where you want to go, but you have to remember where that was - you can't just stop and go... you might put that in as a suggested improvement...)

Yes.

I absolutely have Ozone on from the start. One of the first things I do is to pop O4 (with my custom preset) into the master bin. I start working towards the final mix right from the beginning of the first track. I have been doing this for years. I envelope as I go, I add FX as I go (in the tracks) so the further along I go in tracking, I am also working towards the final mastered mix as well. Therefore, when I do get all the tracking done, the final mix is mostly just tweeking the envelopes for levels.

By doing it this way, generally by the time I hit the final mixdown, everything (EQ wise) is in place. Any EQ added to the tracks is balanced upon what it sounds like coming through the master. That way, there is no need to go back and tweek the tracks as when the master plugs are dropped in at the end.... I drop them in at the beginning and this is not an issue.

Well, we do simple productions mainly because I'm too lazy to venture out too far...so let's say that I don't speak all that talk about volume shaping and envelopes, etc. Guess I'll just have to base it on mine and Janice's ears.

When you think about it there aren'r many pure pop productions, vocals, etc., posted here. "Pop" is not a bad word -- it's just that a lot of pop now days is absolutely over the top, in your face, and short of any semblance of dynamics. This song has NONE of those short comings IMO. I think the lyric and the vocalist compliment each other very well and the production is stellar.

And in a world of overly maudlin, sad and often angst ridden songs it's nice to hear something upbeat. Great endeavor!

A professional production of almost a new standard, if you see what I mean.
I have nothing to add to all the praise given already.
I however am amazed, and impressed, at your "clinical" way of writing songs as I "just follow the flow".

I like the idea of someone else singing some of my songs but as most are little vignettes of my life it would be hard for me to accept their interpretation I suspect.

As Guitarhacker I do volume envelopes on a lot of stuff I record but never have used such vertical changes. I shall have an experiment on my latest opus later!
All round that is an excellent song

Alyn

Hi Steve,

Good to see you Thank you for giving the song a listen and for taking time to comment.

To be honest, I can't remember if I posted in these forums or not. I know that I had a version of the song on my SongU website for a while and that I used to have a link to that site in my signature. I think that version was with me singing.

As I'm typing, it occurred to me that I might well have sent you a link to hear Jason singing this when I first tried to mix the song. I remember feeling very intimidated about mixing a professional vocal in with my BIAB backing. I also remember thinking that if anyone knew how to do it to perfection, it would be Steve Young. Your productions have always been light years ahead of mine. I'm a big fan of your skills.

Recently I revisited this song. When I listened to what I had done those couple of years ago, I was embarrassed because I recall thinking that the mix was reasonable at the time. I took that as a sign that I have progressed in mixing and so I set about bringing this mix into line with my current understanding of the process.

Learning to write and produce songs sure is a long slow road for me but I'm loving it.

Once again, thank you.

Best thoughts,
Noel

Hi Eric,

I appreciate your comments. Thank you for taking a listen!

All the best,
Noel

Hi Bluage,

Thank you! I'm not sure that my composition can stand beside all those wonderful comments you made. You gave me a huge smile, though. It's always good to feel good, I reckon I appreciate all your positive thoughts.

Best regards,
Noel

Hey floyd!

Well that's a first! I've NEVER been given a "great big whopping wow" before. So many exclamation marks! I must say, I like that phrase "on every level". I must make a note of it. I can see myself using that in the future

It's interesting you mention the chord on "cold". The major chord on the flattened 7th degree of the major scale is always a bit special, I think. I seem to recall that it wasn't too long ago that I commented on your use of it in one of your songs. In the case of "Brighter Than Any Star", it's this chord that's responsible for making that 9th bar in the verse. I'd like to lay claim for making that discovery but I can't. I'm pretty sure I would have picked it up from someone, somewhere and added it to my toolbox.

I have to say that I'm so very conditioned to 8-bar sequences that writing a 9-bar melody was a bit of a challenge for me. It wasn't until I thought of Shakespeare, and the fact that he liked to end his long speeches with rhyming couplets, that the 9-bar sequence started coming together. The concept of rhyming couplets sounded like it might be a technique I could use for ending my verses. I already had the xaxa rhyme scheme happening and when I tried the xaxaa pattern, everything seemed to fall into place. It made me grateful for studying "Hamlet" in Year 12. It then dawned on me that Steve Seskin also sometimes ends a section with rhyming couplets. That was one of those 'ah ha' moments for me. I've now come to appreciate that a rhyming couplet gives a good sense of closure or completion.

Anyway, I'm probably boring you now ...

Thank for you all the songs you post. I've picked up so many good ideas from you since you started being part of the forum!

All the best,
Noel

Hi again, Herb,

Thank you for taking time to fill me in on your use of Ozone. It's reassuring to see I'm walking along the a well trodden path.

Regards,
Noel

Bud,

It very energetically disagree. There is NOTHING simple about your productions. Whenever I listen to them, I can hear the hours of work that goes towards getting them to sound authentic. That recent one that resonated with the '30s sound is a perfect example of what I mean.

The songs that you and Janice post here are a constant source of pleasure for me. I regularly re-listen to them. In addition, your arrangements and production inspire me and take me to places that I could never have gotten to on my own.

Thank you for listening to "Brighter Than Any Star". I appreciate the 'thumbs up' comments.

All the best to you and Janice,
Noel

Hey Alyn,

Good to see you

Unfortunately, I can't control my clinical approach to songwriting. I blame my penchant for science for that.

In fact, it wasn't until I discovered that it's possible to approach lyric writing (in particular) using some fundamental principles, that are kind of like Newton's laws applied to lyrics, that it all started to make sense to me and fall into place for me. Lyrics were something that I had no idea how to make them work. Now I see a glimmer of hope on the horizon!

Thank you for dropping in and giving the song a run through. I appreciate your time and your comments.

Hope all is sailing along on smooth waters for you,
Noel

This is a track from a new Eagles album yes?
Wow, what a terrific song, perfectly constructed. Thoroughly enjoyable all the way through, a very pleasurable journey. Well done!

I confess to agreeing with Rog a teeny-weeny bit, sorry! I'd like a bit more emotion and involvement in the vocal and less 'Talent Show' finale 'your vote counts', but that doesn't detract too much from a very professional vocal sound, from, well a professional. Jason should ask you if he can use it on his own albums, I can see a hit track here.

Hey John,

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you. 'Life' has been keeping me occupied lately and made it difficult to keep up with the forums.

Thank you for having a listen. I really appreciate your time and your comments. Your thoughts always help me see aspects of my work though other eyes and that's very valuable to me.

Must be just about time for another song from you

All the best,
Noel

Noel,

What an excellent song! I thought the production was outstanding and I liked his vocal... Also some tasty guitar work.

Great Job!

Greg

Hi Greg,

Thanks for dropping by. I appreciate the positive feedback! Jason is a talented guy, there's no doubting that. I hope he's reading these comments He deserves all the kudos he's getting!

All the best,
Noel

Noel,
Wonderful song. I loved everything about. Thanks for posting.
SD

Hi SpaceDog,

It's great to see you back in the forum again. Thanks for the positive words. I appreciate the smile that followed after I read them.

All the best,
Noel

remarkable indeed! the melody and lyric and vocal - just wow!

Super job all the way around!

Hi Lawrence,

Your comments were a great way to begin my day! Thank you for that. I appreciate your having a listen to the song.

All the best,
Noel

Hi Noel,

Now that's a chorus that begs to be sung along to.

Sounds great, thanks for posting.

On the above clip... I might have reduced the gain -2db on the word "bout" to see if that worked and perhaps muted the little nub after "change" if it was objectionable. "Don't" may also have gotten a -1 or -2 db cut.... but the rest looked pretty even to my eye. Of course, the ear is the critical factor here and not the eye..... I use both in my edits. Do I hear something that sounds "off normal"? If so, have a look. DO I see it? If yes, and normally I can see the issue..... then I fix it.... eyeballing and listening.

I don't use this level of detail or control on a vocal track. I do use volume envelopes but more as a general overall level adjustment depending on the vocal track and the part of the song it's in.

Now, I will go in and edit carefully if there are objectionable breath noises, lip smacks and other such noises. I generally use the "process audio>mute" in my DAW for that sort of clean up. That way, it totally disappears.

I am not adverse to using the volume envelope to lower a certain sung note or word that seems to stick out too loudly. I also use it to raise the lower volume words on occasion. More often than not, I will use the process audio with gain increase or reduction and play through the part to check it in context as opposed to using the envelope for that. Most of my hard enveloping is on the instrument tracks.

Hi Frank,

Thank you for having a listen! I appreciate it.

Best wishes,
Noel

Hi again, Herb.

Thank you for your thoughts.

When I read ...


... I found myself nodding my head and thinking, "That's pretty much how I work, too". The 'look and listen' approach definitely pays dividends. I also find that listening live and listening through headphones are both necessary because they occasionally seem to emphasise different aspects.

As I mentioned in an earlier post in this thread, one of the things I find with compressors is that words that are normally quite soft in speech (words like: a, the, an, it, to, my, etc.) get their volumes lifted and they sometimes lack the conversational level after compression. So I adjust those down.

Another thing that I do in Reaper is to use the "Split track at prior zero crossing".



Once this is done, I can then add an independent envelope (volume, pan, etc.) to each of the split sections. By dragging this envelope up and down, that section of the wav file is modified on-screen to show me the changes. I find that being able to see these changes is very useful (just like you've already mentioned).

Because I cross at the "prior zero", I mostly eliminate clicks and pops that sometimes occur when making these kinds of adjustments.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I found your reading very useful.

Kind regards,
Noel

Noel,

That is such a pretty song. Everything about it was stellar! And yes, this is a splendid Demo...you got your money's worth and more, I would think. We totally enjoyed our listen!

Al & Di

Hi Al and Di,

Thanks for dropping in a having a listen. The backing is pretty all Band In A Box. The demo singer, Jason Wyatt, played some fill in riffs on two different guitars. All I did was to use those in a way that sounded right to me when I was putting the mix together. Glad it worked for you!

Best wishes,
Noel

This is a great song.. and well executed .

Hi Rob,

I appreciate your stopping by. Thank you.

I can't take all the credit for how this one sounds. If you take Band In A Box and Jason Wyatt out of the equation, I don't think I'd have too much left to hang my hat on (some notes, some words and a few ideas, maybe)!

Every time I write a song, I always pause and think about how amazing BIAB is. Seriously. And it always happens without thinking about it. BIAB really does let me do what I know I couldn't do otherwise. We're lucky people to have discovered this program!

Woops ... I think I just jumped up on a soapbox of some kind. Better jump back down.

Best wishes,
Noel

Great song, great vocals, nice mix.

Hi Elliott,

Thank you for opening the thread and popping inside. I appreciate the positive feedback.

All the best,
Noel

I have no idea how I missed commenting on this one - mea culpa Noel!

My better half mentioned this song and we wanted to hear it again, and I think others might want to hear it again as well.

This is absolutely stunning....a masterpiece.



Regards,

Bob

I miss a lot on this forum. Glad I didnt miss this one. It's delightful in all departments. And such clarity. Cheers.

We couldn't agree more with what taht said. She said it all. We loved everything about this one! Congrats on a terrific song!

Al & Di

Brilliant work, ready for the radio, Vocal, mix guitar work all outstanding; thanks for sharing!

Goodness me, Noel - I'm VERY late to the Party on this.
How could I have missed it?
A beautiful song and great lyrics.
Loved the mix and Jason has a good singing voice, just right for this song.
Maybe, just maybe, the infill guitars, whilst a super tone and restrained and thoroughly professional, are just a tad up in the mix. Just a tad. Only my opinion.
Thanks for that, Noel - it quite made my day.
cheers
ian

Hey Bob,

Thank you for having a listen. There's nothing wrong if a song slips past you. I don't measure friendship by song comments, so all's well Things seem to move pretty quickly on the forum these days and I find it difficult to keep up with all the new songs myself.

I appreciate your positive comments. I'm gonna dream well tonight now, for sure!

All the best to you and Penny.
Noel

Hi Richard,

I also miss a lot of this forum. Despite all my good intentions to try and keep up with the pace of new songs, things slip past me.

Thank you for taking time to listen. I appreciate the positive comments.

All the best,
Noel

Dear Al and Di,

Thank you! Every once in a while, I seem to get lucky and things come together for me a working combination of music and lyrics. To be honest, I think Jason's singing boosted the listenability factor of this song immeasurably. He's a talented man.

All the best,
Noel.

P.S. I notice that there are a couple of your songs that I haven't yet listened to. I'd better get my act together and scoot on over

Hey Robert!

Thank you for giving the song a listen. I appreciate the positive feedback.

All the best,
Noel

Thank you for your permission to cover this fine song. Soon this will be listened to by people here in Florida, on the other side of the world.



Regards,


Bob

Hi Ian,

Thanks for the comments about the guitars. I've just had a listen (my first in months) and I see what you mean. I will definitely revisit mix and pull the volumes back a bit.

Because I'm not a guitar player, I don't have a feel for what sounds best.

Also, thank you for your positive comments. I appreciate them.

Hope all is travelling well for you!
Noel

It's been over a year and there are probably people who haven't heard this brilliant piece of music. Noel - you're the Man, mate.


Regards,

Bob

Hi, Noel.

Awesome!

That's all I'm gonna say.

Thanks for the music,
Dan

Noel,

All the good things have been said. As close to perfect as any song can be.