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Here's a fun song from our vault that I've redone using all realtracks and mixed in RB. This song is finished so rewrite ideas and songwriting critiques are not requested. Otherwise the demo is open for comments. Thank you. NashvilleEven8 drums,RT 521 bass, 632 guitar, 405 guitar, 621 steel, 1171 lead guitar, and a bit of train harmonica. Harmonies are three parts live. Reverb is TCH M30 and Spitfish was used as a dessor. PG Ten Band EQ, Dynamics and Peaklimit. Smoking Gun ©1990,2010 Josie Beck,Charlene Grant All Rights Reserved. Smoking Gun
Last edited by Sundance; 12/15/10 08:47 PM.
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Journeyman
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Hi Josie,
I can't get soundclick this morning. I'll be trying again later. Had a bunch of MS updates yesterday, but everyone blames things on updates.
I'd like to go to my page too. lol
Wayne,
I'm not movin' till I hear Josie's song.
(keeps clickin', OCD?
p.s. Why are we Enthusiasts?
Last edited by redguitars; 12/16/10 08:28 AM.
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Soundclick is down.
Is this a Robert Cray cover? I played keys in a band, they did this in Em or some such thing, it was straight ahead rock...
John Conley
Musica est vita
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Sorry, it's down. Wayne, I'm not 100% happy with the mix - it seems to lose something in uploading making the guitar sound a little splattered to me even tho it doesn't sound that way here on the original. I don't know what I'm doing wrong and it's frustrating.
John, I don't know Robert Cray, I'll have to look him up this evening after work. This is an original song we wrote in 1990 - a country you done me wrong song written by a couple of women who'd been done wrong. So we had fun writing it. LOL.
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Josie, I love this! Great song and killer vocal - excellent job!
Bob
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Josie, excellent! It was worth the wait.
"You left this broken heart of mine, The scene of a crime", too cool!
Always a fan of yours, Wayne,
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Hi Josie,
After listening to it over six times, I have to say more.
I know I really like a song when I hear it and want to be in the band.
This song made me take out my Guitar and start playin' along with you.
And that makes me feel good.
Of couse that doesn't mean you'd like what I'd play.
Every song we write and record is like a snapshot of what we feel.
I thank God for that everyday.
Wayne,
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Hi, Josie. Nice work! There's lots of stuff I liked about the demo: The power chord introduction, the strong opening (vocals and instruments), the added guitars at :20, the strum at :33 ... the lead guitar at 2:08, the crash at 2:34, how clean and balanced the mix is. Lots of nice details all around.  One negative thing that struck me was that the instruments seem to lack "attitude". They're doing all the right thing in the right place, but they sound laid back instead of punchy and aggressive. For example, I love that you've got those guitar strums starting at 0:45, but they're just a bit mellow, instead of kicking in behind you. It might just be a matter of mixing - bringing out the guitar high end a bit so it's got more "crunch", bringing up the volume, or narrowing the range of the bass. Around 1:20, it might be nice to have maybe a hint of the guitar solo that was to come later. Other than that, it sounds good to me. 
Last edited by dcuny; 12/16/10 02:45 PM.
-- David Cuny My virtual singer development blogVocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?BiaB 2025 | Windows 11 | Reaper | Way too many VSTis.
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Site must be glitching again - page loads but attempts to play the song gives 'error loading file' all the time. I'll try again tomorrow!
John
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Josie!! I think this is outstanding. I love your voice and the harmony. occ
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Hi Josie,
Loved it! The lyrics are terrific. You've worked the metaphor very skillfully. The mix and the arrangement sounded fine to my ears. Every time I hear one of your songs, the thought "ahh, this is one your best" ALWAYS pops into my mind. That happened this time, too. I'm just going back for another listen now.
Bye for now,
Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Hey Josie, I like it. Here's the song I was talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gQEDwjhaDEThe diff with what we did was I switched from a background piano to B3 sound at about 1:20 and carried that off and on, kind of a punchy block chord thing, but sustained where it should be in this case.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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You have a good song there. I enjoyed it very much. By the way, is your co-writer the same Charlene Grant that is the blues artist?
Jim
†=☮&♥
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Good music once again Josie! Great writing! Quote:
I'm not 100% happy with the mix - it seems to lose something in uploading making the guitar sound a little splattered to me even tho it doesn't sound that way here on the original. I don't know what I'm doing wrong and it's frustrating.
I can probably help you with that. This is an mp3, correct? What are you using for the conversion and at what rate kbs are you converting to? An mp3 should never be less than 160kbs at a minimum and higher if possible. 192kbs or 250kbs is better still. It's a balance between getting a decent rate and being compliant with the site you're posting to. Some sites have file size restrictions and anything over 128kbs makes the file too big for uploading. 128kbs always sounds like crap, imo. I default to 160kbs personally. The file size is almost always right, it's still easy on the slow dialup folks out there, and it sounds fine too. It may be the site is doing a lousy automatic conversion too, which happens. But I'm curious what you're doing.
Dan
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Bob, I'm really happy you enjoyed it. Thank you.
Wayne, playing along is such a huge compliment! Thank you.
David, I totally agree with you. Maybe it's me not being a real guitar player - I can play some - but if I was then I'd know how to get the sounds better using real tracks. I tried doubling which just made it too loud, delay which made my head swim, eq which made it too hissy LOL, I tried moving it all across the spectrum - tried less and even no bass... Adding in a little of 1171 earlier seemed to overwhelm and draw more attention to the level of punch so I left it out until the solo. It is a little crisper here as opposed to the encoded mp3 but not the crunch I envisioned. So after days and days of toying with it, I finally just settled. Realtracks are great and I love them but sometimes it's still hard - for me anyway - to get the sound I really want. But at least you were able to tell what I was trying to do so all wasn't lost and heaven knows I could not have done this much without the RT's. Thank you.
Skyline John - hope you get to hear it. I used to put everything on myspace but lately every time I try to upload anything there it sounds bad to the point of unusable.
Occ, I'm usually paranoid my voice is too loud in the mix so then everybody has to say turn it up LOL. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Thank you.
Noel, I always appreciate your insight. Thank you.
John Conley, I'm so glad you like it. Thank you. And thanks for the link too. To me there's nothing in this world that can give me bigger goosebumps than a good song with a great sounding B3 coming in at the right moment. It's sheer magic.
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Thank you Jim. No, my Charlene won't sing in public. LOL.
Dan, thank you so much. Just as an aside, anyone who hasn't should go to your page and listen to "It Comes As No Surprise" it's absolutely beautiful. I use the LAME encoder in Audacity at 192 kbs.
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Hi Josie!
Its all been said. Congrats on a neat song with a great hook.
Marty
Music is what feelings sound like.
Band In A Box (current) Sonar Producer X2, Windows 7, 16 Gigs Ram, Quad Core, AMD Processor, Alesis MK2 Monitors, Roland Quad Capture Audio Interface,
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Quote:
Just as an aside, anyone who hasn't should go to your page and listen to "It Comes As No Surprise" it's absolutely beautiful.
Why thank you! That's an old one. I never felt I nailed that one all the way in the writing, but so many people comment on that one being a stand out.
Quote:
I use the LAME encoder in Audacity at 192 kbs.
That's all fine. It's probably the site then. If it's really bad sometimes, it's worth deleting it and re-uploading it to see if it's any better a second time. All before you point people to the file, that is. I feel your pain though. Nothing like the original wav files. It's sounds fine over on this end anyway Josie. Great job.
Dan
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Thank you Marty. I'd like to do a video of it one of these days.
Thanks Dan that makes me feel better.
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Quote:
So after days and days of toying with it, I finally just settled. Realtracks are great and I love them but sometimes it's still hard - for me anyway - to get the sound I really want.
I think that's just the nature of the beast - it's hard to create a sound that isn't there in the first place.
If you don't mind stepping out of the PG universe, but still want to stay with user-friendly software, you can build simple guitar parts in Audacity using sampled guitar strums. For example, here's a free sample pack consisting of up, down and mute strums of acoustic and electric guitar. You can drag and drop the files into Audacity, and then cut and paste them into position onto a track.
But if you start down that path, it's probably worth looking into a DAW. At some point, you're willing to trade the ease of use of something like Audacity for the higher learning threshold of Traction.
Then again, if RealTracks get you close enough, call it a day and move on!
-- David Cuny My virtual singer development blogVocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?BiaB 2025 | Windows 11 | Reaper | Way too many VSTis.
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