Originally Posted By: floyd jane
The introduction is Outstanding. Love the BAND! It's pure '70's Radio Pop Ballad.

Thanks - that seems to be my wheelhouse. It's a good thing I'm not a songwriter targeting the contemporary market! wink

I'd initially used an electric guitar solo on the intro, but ended up replacing it with the much simpler Rhodes piano lead.

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This DOES have a real Paul Williams quality to it. (excellent inspiration choice).

I'll take that for the compliment it is! laugh

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A good write. The Chorus is excellent. Some nicely penned Love Song verse lines (that can be a tough nut).

It's something that I really struggle with. I realize that everything's already been said, so it's hard to write something that's been said a bazillion times, even if it fits and is the right thing to say.

I see the "some", which is a great lead-in to the next paragraph! wink

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(I've erased this next comment several times - but figured you MIGHT want to hear it - even if you say "that's not true"... There is a bit of a "pieced-together-ness" to the verses. A lot of good - even better than good - lines and phrases that somehow felt scattered (?? not quite the right word...). They did not naturally lead me to the chorus. It felt a little "bumpy". That might come off sounding "harsher" than it is intended - because it really is just a "bit of a feeling"..

Not want to hear feedback on my lyrics from a professional songwriter? I've got an ego, but I'm not that stupid! wink

And I've got no issue changing lyrics... if I can think of something better. laugh It's especially easy to do with synthetic voices, and I've done that for a number of songs.

So you're saying there's not enough focus, and the lyrics don't lead to as strongly to the chorus as they should. I don't doubt it... I probably should have spent more time reworking the lyrics. I'll see what I can do when I get a chance to look at this with fresh eyes and ears.

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GREAT melody!

Thanks! Whenever I come up with a melody I like, I worry it's too derivative of a song I accidentally half-remembered.

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Kevin is pretty amazing.

They keep the process under an NDA, but I get the impression there are a couple of things going on. One thing the did from the beginning was work with a list of real words, instead of nonsense syllables. This results in a more natural connection of phonemes.

They're also using neural networks trained on a large amount of vocals, so it again has a more natural result.

But I think the "secret sauce" is that they also train the neural networks on the singer's actual singing, and you can "auto-tune" the singer using this. It's not perfect, but it adds a level of realism that gets it past the robotic effect you'd otherwise have.

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You (and you son) are doing some Wonderful work!!

Thanks again!

In the future, don't hesitate to include negative feedback - how else will I improve? I may not agree, but I'll certainly give it consideration, and I always appreciate it! smile

-- David Cuny
My virtual singer development blog

Vocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?