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Hey Tarantino, Cave and Cohen comparisons. I'll go with those!
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Matcham,
I really like this. Could you post the lyrics?
Regards,
Bob I would also love to see the lyrics! Your vocal is wonderful-tons of personality and very relaxed and natural. Cello is beautiful-sounds custom played. Enjoyed this a lot!! Take care. Greg
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A very interesting write, Matcham.
The music choice belies some of sharp edge of the lyric.
Good mix.
I am enjoying your songs.
.floyd Hi Matcham, I agree with floyd. You created an interesting juxtaposition between lyrics and music. To me, the effect is similar to that heard in the M*A*S*H theme... a beautiful melody supported by an equally beautiful chord progression and with lyrics that stand in stark contrast about suicide. As I listened, 'Inventive' was a word that sprang to mind! Regards, Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Thanks Greg. The lyrics are on the first page in this thread. The cello was an exciting find for sure. I simply played with volume swells to make the most of what was already there.
Noel thanks for your insight and 'getting' exactly what I was aiming for. Comparison with the M*A*S*H theme is humbling. What a great song, movie and series.
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Matcham,
After the 1st 2 listens I thought Eric Bogle and his song "the Band played Waltzing Matilda", partly because of your mention of that song and then I read the words. Possibly a different subject but just as dark and just as good.
You have written a great emotive song with hard lyrics.
That was a great listen, everything about the mix was great.
Alyn
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Thanks Alyn. I was referencing the Bogle song in fact. Waltzing Matilda as you may know is a famous Oz song - could have been our national anthem and should have been if sentimentalism had any say in our choice.
Matcham
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... Waltzing Matilda as you may know is a famous Oz song - could have been our national anthem and should have been if sentimentalism had any say in our choice.
Matcham Yes, Waltzing Matilda would have been much better. No more to add.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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Cool song. I like the insight you have in writing the lyrics. Creative. Yes.... the "sounds like" hit me too.
Everything sounds good to my ear... perhaps a bit muddy in the mix. Nothing major.
I noticed something else right at the start that I will elaborate on. This stuck out to me and my first thought was, "that cello isn't the same recorded tempo, it's filled with conversion artifacts, and it's not matching up " sure enough, when I looked at the tracks, the cello is from a RT that's practically half the speed of the others. It's always a good idea to pick RT's that were recorded at the same tempo as everything else in the song. Yeah, you can use the track but you get artifacts when it has to be tempo matched to the song tempo and it's out of the normal range. BB/RB will force the track to play at the song's tempo, but in that tempo conversion you get audible artifacts and in the cello, you can hear a false vibrato or wavering sound that's unnatural as a result. The natural vibrato at 85bpm would sound perfect, but when the track is forced faster, the vibrato becomes unnatural sounding. Not a super big deal, but if you're planning to use your music in a commercial manner, that would be important to watch out for. This sort of thing can happen to any RT that's used out of it's recommended tempo range.
I have noticed this in my song projects and that's why I mention it to you. You can ignore it or you can try to select tracks that are all in the same general tempo range. For example, your tracks were all in the 110 to 140 bpm range, while the cello was at 85. You either needed to slow the others down by selecting something in the 85 to 100 range or find a cello above 110 to have a more natural sound without the conversion artifacts. My rule of thumb is to choose track tempo's within 10 to 20% of the song's actual target tempo.
All in all, I like the song.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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Hi Herb, thanks very much for your detailed feedback. You are exactly right about the cello track used. I must admit I hadn't noticed the artifacts - can now of course! Usually I try to match tempos more closely but had to use the cello in this case as it brings the song to life better than any other instrumentation I tried.
I consider the songs I'm posting here demos. I'm writing and producing at the same time. I want them to sound as good as I can for you guys and your valuable feedback then later on I hope to have a body of work to choose from for further development. By then I hope to have a lot more realtracks to choose from and I'll start to hit up mates for studio tracking. Maybe even some musos here on the forum?
No real commercial ambitions. Maybe some radio airplay and live band appearances. Flogging music is hard work and not enjoyable imo. I'd rather create!
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Matcham,
Cool song - rather like Diamonds In The Mine & other Songs of Love & Hate by Leonard Cohen - it has the same countryish instrumentation but far from it lyrics and bitter humour.
The La Las fit in even more like Laughing' Lenny.
Cheers
rayc
"What's so funny about peace, love & understanding?" - N.Lowe
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Cheers Ray. I had to look up Laughing Lenny. Glad - even relieved - you recognise humour in the tune.
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