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Hi, David.
Thanks!
I assume the Cutty Sark is to dull the pain of singing your throat raw...
You're too kind.

Thanks again!

This is so, so beautiful! Well done, in absolutely every way. One thing did jump out at me:

"Time for wishing on the starry sky
and forgetting what I've known"

I just love those couple of lines, but the whole thing is superb. The duet of the two singers, towards the end, also really worked, for me. One of those songs that I am going to listen to, for at least one more time.

Wow! This is just a lovely, lovely song. Really like all the little touches that perfectly support the song without sounding forced. Hard work like that is sometimes best when the listener doesn't notice it and just enjoys the song. Love the intertwined vocals at the end, but the male vocal MIGHT be a little further back in the mix. That's my only (slight) quibble. You've really set that bar quite high with this song!!

David,

What a lovely song! The vast amount of instrumentation used in this is incredible and the overall production is deserving of a lot of praise....much more than you will probably receive in the forum! I have a bit of an idea about how much work went into this and appreciate the effort put into the song! The synth vox work is excellent!

Thanks, T

Very nice gentle intro and then the beautiful melody and a great voice start... very pleasant tune, kind of Christmas/winter feeling with lovely dreamy lyrics "time for wishing on the starry sky/and forgetting what I've known".
Great work with the arrangement, so many nice details, but still simplicity rules. And of course, Natalie doesn't fail It would be interesting to hear this sung by a male, though.

Janne

David,

A Lovely Opening. Listened to it 4 times before moving on.
I then did the same thing with the first verse. WHAT a Perfect combination of instruments - mixed Perfectly. It is a Gorgeous sound. Quality Producer Guy stuff. Drums, bass, guitar and vocal - perfect levels.

The vocals on Mister Allistacious section gave me chills. The melody sounds like James Taylor should be singing it and the harmonies have a sound close to Joni Mitchell and Linda Ronstadt backing him up....

The string interlude before "Ollie Uncle Elephant" is Tasteful.
The fiddle was Quite impressive. I have yet to read your notes, so I'm hoping you talk about how you got that to "suggest" the melody...
The french horn was nice. The "just a little bit" was a nice touch. And the ending string quartet. Again, Quality Producer Guy stuff...

Your work with the girls is Stunning. Getting closer-to-real all the time (it is getting hard to know since we are hearing these girls sing ALL the time. You get accustomed to it.)

A beautifully written song. (I had to go back and listen again - to the lyrics - because there was so much good stuff going on I couldn't listen to the words...)

This is real quality work.

fj

So I read the notes. Now I'm even MORE impressed. Impressive work on the piano, the strings, the controller. The SWAM instruments are incredible.
So, you played the violin solo on a keyboard?

Hi, James.
Thanks!

The duet at the end was just something I stumbled on. The song needed something different, and I'd just gotten the Hayden voice. He's an interesting contrast to Natalie. I started playing around with a counter-line, and... Oooh, that's pretty... happened.

I'm glad that you enjoyed listening!

Hi, Ron.

Thanks!

I went back and forth on placing that vocal part, and I may revisit it again. When I first started with the backing vocals, they were way too up-front. I moved them back, and like magic they sounded much better.

So that part might move back a bit more as well - we'll see.

Thanks for the feedback and encouragement!

Hi, Torrey.
Thanks!

I wish the writing for the strings was more melodic. It does the job, but I had planned on writing something a bit stronger. Unfortunately, sometimes there's a wide gap between what I want and what actually comes out. I'm pleased enough with it, but it reminds me that I need to work more on my string writing.

And while I appreciate the sentiment, I'm more than happy with the praise I've gotten from the forum - especially since people here know exactly what it takes to make a song!

Hi, Janne.
Thanks! Writing hard, rocking songs doesn't seem to be my wheelhouse, but sleepy, pleasant songs - I'll take that, thank you very much.

I was quite pleased with how well Natalie sung the song. The other voices didn't seem to come close to her level of expression.

Although... I may try using Natalie's expression with a male voice.

While the male voices are pleasant, but the female voices just seem to have a level of emoting that the male voices can't get close to... yet.

Thanks for stopping and commenting!

Hi, floyd jane.
You certainly know how to make a songwriter feel good about their song!

Now that's my dream team... Although Karla Bonoff would be nice, too.

I mentioned in my notes that I had higher hopes for it, but my brain wasn't putting out anything particularly distinctive. So there are a some pleasant "gestures" between the parts of the string section, but I really need to spend some more time working on getting my individual string parts to feel more cohesive. I'm happy with how it came out, but I listen to arrangements done by George Martin for The Beatles or America, and think That's how it's done!.

That part was played using my EWI. It's the same sort of wind controller that Mario uses.

As an aside - breath controlled instruments (using a wind controller or breath controller) are a fantastic development. I can play all sorts of instruments - strings, brass, double reeds - that I'd never be able to play in real life with a degree of control that is staggering. Even if you don't have a breath controller, you can still control the instruments via the mod wheel and play then strictly with a keyboard. But as a singer, I find the wind controller very natural.

I originally played a Sample Modeling cornet on the part. I've got a very schmaltzy playing style, with lots of breath controlled vibrato. I thought it sounded good and provided a good contrast, but my wife (and Deej) thought it was too out of character with the rest of the song, so I changed it to a Sample Modeling violin. I was able to use the same MIDI data, and just swapped out the instruments. I did make a few minor tweaks to the melody to better lead into the vocal entry on the second half.

I sent a link to my old choir director, who asked if it was synthetic, or and actual singer. I figure that if a singer knows it's probably synthetic but still has to ask, I must be doing something right.

One more tangent. Right now, there are still a limited number of singers available, and it's fairly easy to recognize specific voices.

There's a technology called RVC (retrieval voice cloning) will make it possible to train an neural network to replace an existing voice with another voice. The performance remains, but the timbre of the voice is changed. It's expensive to record all the material needed to create a new voice, but it's fairly cheap to train a neural network using RVC. So I expect in the near future there will be a wider variety of voices available using this sort of technology.

Thanks again, I really appreciate your kind praise!

Hi David.

My gosh. This is stunning listening. The orchestration is extraordinary, and the skill with which you have created a musical journey is very, very impressive. Everything fits together perfectly. I love the song; it's melody and lyrics. It's very easy to listen to. I was pulled into the story telling immediately and I was mesmerized by the words, their images and how they flowed. And now that I know a little bit about Synth V, I want to congratulate you on your work with Natalie. It's easy for me to appreciate now just how much time you have spent tweaking the length and strength of the component parts of syllables as well as tweaking performance components. You have achieved a level of realism in Natalie's enunciation and vocalization that I'm still trying to obtain.

All in all, this is one heck of an impressive composition and presentation.

All the best.
--Noel

Hi, Noel.
Well... thank you! You've a master of superlatives!

I think you've giving me too much credit here - it's more that Natalie's style fits the song, rather than me doing a lot of tweaks. If there was something that wasn't working, my first impulse was to figure out how to change it so it worked with Natalie, not the other way around.

Thanks again, I appreciate you taking the time to listen carefully and the thought you put into your response!

David ...that was gorgeous...every aspect (and there are too many to mention) of the production is exquisite...the melody is beautiful and captivating...please tell Natalie that she did such a great job...you should work with her again I loved it!

The lyric and melody are heartwarming and had us both smiling as we looked at our “old friends” up on the shelf from our childhoods.

Natalie does evoke Karen Carpenter’s voice in this a lot and the outro duet with Kevin is great.
The other bgv’s were very good and we thought of Beach Boys harmonies during the chorus following the Ollie Uncle Elephant verse. Nice!

We also enjoyed the music box and Celeste and English horn and, wow, the strings were lovely.

Each listen gets better!

J&B

PS Thanks for the backstory and track data.

Lovely vocal, David.
Like Ray though I think you should ditch the snare. It sounds too mechanical for such a warm and gentle sound overall.
Good one.

Vic

David, you are a master at the synth voices.
Outstanding song, gotta love those Swam instruments.
The vocals are crystal clear, the instruments sound great, and the mix was spot on.
Loved it.

Gosh! this is absolutely beautiful all around. Great production. Loved it!

Mike B.

Hi, Dan.
Wow! Thanks!

The problem is that I like her voice so much, she keeps getting all the songs! I need to give the other voices a chance, too!

Thanks for listening and commenting!

Hi, Janice & Bud


Yeah, I think she's awesome in the lower register.

I staggered the vocals, and forgot about it until I brought it into the DAW. When I heard them in context, I was surprised how nicely they came out.

Thanks! It's nice to finally use some of those pretty sounds in songs!

Of course! It's nice to know that someone reads it.

Glad to hear from you!