Sweet Eyes

I created this song from a stereo scratch track recorded in 1992. I decided to attempt a complete demo using only BIAB/RB with one of the new Xtra Styles. The original is a very rough audio recording done without a click track or metronome and the tempo varied from 99-105 bpm in the initial Audio Chord Wizard tempo map.
I accepted the challenge to see if I could create a decent recording maintaining the original vocal track and use vocals from the original track to create harmonies using the TC Helicon feature as well as some backing vocals.
I worked with Band in a Box, RealBand, the new click track feature and the Audio Chord Wizard to even the tempo to a fixed 102 bpm and then created a backing track with one of Band in a Box's new Xtra Styles and added effects, harmonies and mixed the tracks in RealBand. I started a discussion in the forum and first felt the song was not worthy of entry into the XTRA Styles contest due to the low quality of the original audio recording. A thread about my production notes can be found in the Recording, Performance and Production Forum. That discussion includes a link to an earlier version of the song prior to finishing the mix and a portion of the original recording is attached to the end of that song for those interested in seeing the dramatic difference the final mix is from the original. Production Notes Thread
All effects, processing, editing and mixing of the original audio was done in RealBand and all of the harmonies and backing vocals were taken from the original vocals and processed in RB and TC Helicon.
Title: Sweet Eyes
Key=D , Tempo 102, Length (m:s)=3:10
Style is _INSPIRE.STY (Inspire Cheery Indie Pop)
RealTracks in style: 1253:Bass, Electric, PopShiningHeld Ev 120
RealTracks in style: 1262:Piano, Acoustic, Rhythm PopShiningHeld Ev 120
RealTracks in style: ~405:Guitar, Acoustic, Strumming Ev 120
RealTracks in style: 634:Guitar, Electric, Rhythm PopAmericanMuted Ev 120 (B:8ths)
Loop in Style: House-Techno-Trance\House - crunchy_120_b drums ev16.wav
RealDrums in style: MetalSlowBigTomGroove: a: Toms, Snare b: Busy Big Toms, Snare

Hey Charlie,

Glad to see you posting the song here to! You've done a great job with this.

Regards,
Noel

Thanks Noel. I appreciate your support and encouragement.


Charlie

Charlie

Great effort. Consistent and I like some of the chord changes.

Top job.

Charlie,
This is a good song -the chorus is beautiful and the style nicely restrained & hypnotic.
I haven`t read the original thread but can tell a lot of work went into fitting the vocal track with BiaB... to me its a worthy effort because the vocal might be unpolished, but it has a nice feel.

Robert

Indeed this is good work Charlie, one of your best so far I think.
Some interesting chord changes throughout the song. Well sung too.

Rob

Hello, Charlie

Great effort!
Some of the chord changes is very good.
This song reminds me of The Hollies a little bit.
I also sometimes rearrange my songs with RealTracks and the vocal tracks recorded in the past in order to post to this forum.
But if only multi-track files are rest in my computer.
Your effort is definitely wonderful.

Best Regards.

Shigeki Adachi

Thanks for stopping by and giving it a listen. I appreciate your comments.

Charlie

Hi Robert. Thanks for your kind comments. I'm glad you enjoyed the song. It did take several hours of fairly intensive work and in the end, I hated to just end up with wasted time so I did some more tweaking and entered the contest.

Charlie

Thanks for listening and taking time to comment Rob. My wife informed me today there is a version on an old Ipod she has with a 2nd verse. Memories and moments fade with time.

Charlie

Thank you for your kind comments. I appreciate you taking time to listen. I truly enjoy your posts. They are always so professionally done.

Charlie

Charlie,

This is a great.

What I particularly love--of all things--and I know this sounds strange--is the drum sound and the effect you are using on the left guitar (electric.) Straight off a U2 album. How did you do that? Can your share your fx recipes for those tracks?

Thanks for listening (and closely I might add)

All effects were from RB stock effects.

Drums - accessed by the FX button on the track
Guitar - accessed by right clicking the track, selecting Audio Effects then select Compressor

EDIT: I forgot to finish the guitar effects. I found that specific guitar track to be repetitious so in an area in the verse and another in the chorus, I changed the major chord to a minor and minor 7th to force a variation and that is what produced the U2 effect you hear. I thought it was a very pleasant changeup. The change in the chords were c to Am7 and after the A7 pause, used a Bm instead of the D major.

Hope this helps and I'm looking forward the hearing a little of "The Edge" from you soon.

Charlie

Charlie,

This is really well done. You do amazing work adapting older recording...would never know that the vocal was not done specifically to these tracks.

Nice mix. Terrific listen. Nice job on adding the harmonies, too.

You ought to put this in the Showcase. I almost missed it - (I have not been paying attention to this forum).

Nice.

floyd

Thanks Floyd. I'm glad you found it. I always appreciate your thoughtful and insightful comments.

I hope to one day be as adept as Guenter (Boehm) in the remix category but still a long way to go for me.

I didn't think the mix quality was good enough to enter the song into this contest at first, so I initially posted an earlier version of the mix with some of the original track tacked onto the end of it in the Recording, Performance and Production Forum and I'm not sure adding another post wouldn't be overkill.

I made a post with links to both this entry and the Production Notes discussion into the User Showcase.


Charlie

Charlie,

I think the forum and the contest are two different things, so I would post it man. I am with Floyd.

This is a great lesson in "back to the basics" I guess. Your drum sound and guitar sounds are really great and not over-produced, and gosh, they were just stock RB effects. Same thing happened to me in Sonar the other day. I had put together a whole string of high dollar drum effects and they were sounding horrible, so I went into Sonar, and under generic effects chose something with a title like "Good Sounding Drums." And it was 1000 x better!!!

Maybe I have learned yet another lesson here.

All that work worked. Sweet Eyes is a sweet song, Charlie.

Thanks for those kind words John. I appreciate it.

Charlie

Hi Charlie. Wow! This is just wonderful. All your hard work definatey paid off. Not easy to try and line up a vocal like that.
Great job!

What a effort you made to restore your song! And it's woth it. Nice arrangement, nice vocals.

Dave, thanks for your continuing support. You are really turning out some toe rolling rockers yourself here recently.

Charlie

Thanks JoAnne. It was a lot of fun. I appreciate you taking time to listen and comment here and on SoundCloud.

Charlie

Thanks for listening and commenting Rob. I appreciate it.

Charlie

Thanks Joe. I appreciate you taking time to listen.


Charlie

Hi Charlie,

Really enjoyed your song and the story behind it.

It was well worth the effort and a real contender.

Rec

Thanks for taking time to listen and comment. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Charlie