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Posted By: Sundance Smoking Gun - 12/16/10 04:31 AM
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
Posted By: redguitars Re: Smoking Gun - 12/16/10 01:22 PM
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?
Posted By: John Conley Re: Smoking Gun - 12/16/10 03:07 PM
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...
Posted By: Sundance Re: Smoking Gun - 12/16/10 05:13 PM
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.
Posted By: rsdean Re: Smoking Gun - 12/16/10 07:53 PM
Josie, I love this! Great song and killer vocal - excellent job!

Bob
Posted By: redguitars Re: Smoking Gun - 12/16/10 08:34 PM
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,
Posted By: redguitars Re: Smoking Gun - 12/16/10 09:27 PM
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,
Posted By: dcuny Re: Smoking Gun - 12/16/10 09:36 PM
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.
Posted By: Skyline Re: Smoking Gun - 12/16/10 10:03 PM
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
Posted By: occ Re: Smoking Gun - 12/16/10 10:03 PM
Josie!! I think this is outstanding. I love your voice and the harmony. occ
Posted By: Noel96 Re: Smoking Gun - 12/16/10 10:27 PM
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
Posted By: John Conley Re: Smoking Gun - 12/17/10 12:34 AM
Hey Josie, I like it.

Here's the song I was talking about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gQEDwjhaDE

The 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.
Posted By: Jim Re: Smoking Gun - 12/17/10 02:04 AM
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?
Posted By: Shockwave199 Re: Smoking Gun - 12/17/10 02:09 AM
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
Posted By: Sundance Re: Smoking Gun - 12/17/10 02:34 AM
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.
Posted By: Sundance Re: Smoking Gun - 12/17/10 03:05 AM
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.
Posted By: Marty Wittmann Re: Smoking Gun - 12/17/10 03:32 AM
Hi Josie!
Its all been said. Congrats on a neat song with a great hook.
Marty
Posted By: Shockwave199 Re: Smoking Gun - 12/17/10 03:51 AM
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
Posted By: Sundance Re: Smoking Gun - 12/17/10 04:07 AM
Thank you Marty. I'd like to do a video of it one of these days.

Thanks Dan that makes me feel better.
Posted By: dcuny Re: Smoking Gun - 12/17/10 07:45 AM
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!
Posted By: Shockwave199 Re: Smoking Gun - 12/17/10 09:06 AM
Quote:

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.



One word- compression. When you have some time to just noodle, try another mix of this for fun, utilizing compression on every track. Compression is a bit tricky so the best way to learn how to use it is to just start using it. Try some presets for the compressor plugin you choose and see how they change the sound of things. Turn the dials. Watch how the level meter can be held very steady depending on how you set the compressor. When I use realtracks [all the time really], I always have a compressor on the drums, bass, strum guitars and other guitars such as 'chunking' guitar parts like you have in this piece, as well as vocals at all times. It's one thing to mix just by generally adjusting the volumes between all the tracks, and panning, and eq'ing. But along the way, compression must be learned to take the mix to another level...so to speak! Compression will give attitude to tracks that need it. Different compressor plugins will color the sound of a track in different ways- some doing it transparently, while others do it in a more agressive sounding way. But once compression is understood and used properly, things really begin to take off. So that's why I say, for fun and learning try mixing a track from the ground up with compression on the tracks. Maybe you have some different choices in the app you're using to mix. Try them all. Try the presets. Tweak the presets. You'll get it. There's nothing really wrong with the mix of this track. But if you're sensing you want some attitude on some things, compression will get you there. And attitude is really just another way of saying- I want this instrument more 'in your face' in the mix, without overtaking everything else. Compression. Have fun with it!



Dan
Posted By: tributeman Re: Smoking Gun - 12/17/10 11:29 AM
excellent Josie.This is such a good song and I love the way you put the break on the instruments and carrying on singing into the hook.Me personally I wouldnt mess about to much with your backing(though others here might know more about "bettering" the mix)It sounds good and quite punchy through my studio monitors and I would get this out to some country and music publishers pronto.And oh! great lyrics.. so I think Ive said it all.cheers Frankie
Posted By: PgFantastic Re: Smoking Gun - 12/17/10 06:28 PM
Nice work! Very nice use of Lyrics! Thanks for sharing!


My Music
Posted By: toucher Re: Smoking Gun - 12/17/10 07:13 PM
Great song, good writing and composition. vocals are really great.
Posted By: retake Re: Smoking Gun - 12/17/10 07:41 PM
Josie, I love the song. You did a great job!

Steve
Posted By: Skyline Re: Smoking Gun - 12/17/10 09:04 PM
Great song Josie and pukka vocals as usual! I'd have brought the drums up in the mix more but that's my pop sensibilities showing through!

John
Posted By: Sundance Re: Smoking Gun - 12/18/10 03:53 AM
David, Thank you, will those work - can you paste those into RB? Just wondering. The only time I normally use Audacity is to make an mp3 after the track is done.

Dan, Thank you, I'm going to try that on my next one. I used compression on the vox track and on the stereo master track but I didn't use it on the individual instrument tracks. I think I was paranoid it would sound too processed but I get what you're saying and I'm going to experiment using it on the instrument tracks. If I can make it transparent - I'm curious now - I have to try it.

Frankie, so glad you like it. I'm going to leave it as is and use the suggestions for the next one. I love the song but I've heard it now to the point that I've got to work on something else for a while. LOL. I haven't actually pitched anything in so long I'm not sure where to start on that end these days. Thank you.

Marty, PgFantastic, Toucher and Steve - I appreciate all of your kind words. Thank you.

Skyline John, I recognize those pop sensibilities and I will confess to you that I turned them down from where I originally had them LOL.
(Rock babies r us.)
Posted By: dcuny Re: Smoking Gun - 12/18/10 07:31 AM
Yes, they can. But I didn't realize that the particular batch of samples I linked to are in 32 bit float format, which RB 2009.5 can't read. It's pretty simple to use Audacity to convert them to 16 bit PCM, which RB can handle:
  1. Launch Audacity.
  2. Open the folder with the samples that need to be converted.
  3. Select all the .wav files in the folder. The easiest way is to use the Ctrl+A keys.
  4. Drag and drop the group of files into Audacity. This will open each file on an separate track. Note they show up as "32-bit float".
  5. Choose File|Export Multiple... from the menu.
  6. In the Export Multiple dialog, choose:
    • Export Format: WAV (Microsoft) signed 16 bit PCM
    • Export Location: Where you want the files to go. You can select the original directory, if you want to overwrite the original files. However, I believe it will "helpfully" create backup copies with the label "old" appended to the name.
    • Split files based on: Tracks
    • Check Overwrite Existing Files
  7. Click the Export button, and click OK at each prompt - once for each file, and a final confirmation dialog.
  8. Close Audacity.
  9. Select No at the Save Changes? dialog.
The .wav files can now be imported into RB. Note that multiple audio files can be inserted into a singe audio track:
  1. Select the track you want the audio to appear on.
  2. By default, RB tracks are in MIDI. Change the track to Audio:
    • Left click on the track to get the context menu.
    • Select Track Type: MIDI > Audio - Stereo from the top of the menu.
  3. Click on the track to set the point where you want the audio to be placed.
  4. Choose Audio | Import Wave File... from the menu (or press Ctrl+F3) to get the Open File dialog.
  5. Navigate to the file you want to insert. Select the file and press OK.
Although RB will place the audio onto the track, you probably will need to shift it around a bit to get it exactly in place. You can do this by selecting the portion of audio that needs to be moved, holding down the Ctrl key, and dragging it left or right. Release the mouse where you want the audio to be repositioned, and click OK at the Drag/Drop Edit dialog. Cut and Paste also work as expected.

I hope this helps!
Posted By: bobcflatpicker Re: Smoking Gun - 12/18/10 09:43 AM
Great job Josie and good use of the RealTracks.
Posted By: Pat Marr Re: Smoking Gun - 12/18/10 02:21 PM
Quote:

p.s. Why are we Enthusiasts?




the short description under your name is an indicator of how many times you've posted to the forum. As you post more, the description will change. It has nothing to do with your musical expertise or proficiency with the software

Quote:

Smoking Gun



Having said that, I want to congratulate Josie for another song well done! You really do have a knack for weaving clever metaphor into your lyrics... that seems to be a common denominator among all your songs. And you have a very good sense for using RB to assemble the parts into a pleasing composition.

In edit mode I can't scroll up to read the other comments, but somebody commented that the subject matter could have allowed an edgier performance, and I agree. That comment focused on the use of edgier real tracks, but I'm thinking of vocal edginess.

Songs recorded in a studio tend to sound different than songs recorded live, and part of the reason is that the enthusiasm of the live performance is captured when the performers are strutting their stuff onstage. Phone solicitors are trained to smile when they answer the phone, because the voice takes on different characteristics when they smile. I think there is a corollary in the recording process.

When you record your vocals, do you sit in front of the mic? or do you stand and move around? I'd like to hear if there's a difference when you close your eyes and sing wholeheartedly while imagining yourself to be onstage in front of a large audience.

As good as your recordings are, I always get the impression you're trying not to disturb somebody in another part of the house. I want to hear Josie totally unleashed, Josie the tigress, not Josie the kittycat. If necessary, lock the door to your recording room, wait till the house is empty, dress up in a really flashy outfit to get in the mood, and sing to the imaginary audience while prancing about the "stage." Nobody will see it but you, but I bet the resulting vocals will be different because of the theatrics.

Just a thought. Your songs are already very good, but I just think you're holding something back, and I want to hear it all.
Posted By: tributeman Re: Smoking Gun - 12/18/10 03:23 PM
"I haven't actually pitched anything in so long I'm not sure where to start on that end these days. Thank you."

Josie Im going to a songwriter friend,s Christmas part tonight and if you like I will ask him for some contacts for your music.He worked in Nashville (he was signed to Warner Bros)for about 6 months and had a few songs covered by some American country singers one of them was Patty Loveless Cheers Frankie
Posted By: Sundance Re: Smoking Gun - 12/18/10 06:20 PM
David, Thank you, that's really nice of you going to all those specifics. I appreciate it and will try them out.

Bob, Thank you. I can get frustrated with the realtracks but being the semi control freak that I am, I really enjoy the process - slicing and dicing, trying this and that.

Pat, Thank you. Good suggestions. I like getting in the zone and prefer standing. Sometimes I will sit doing simple harmonies but that's rare.

Frankie, that would be so totally cool. Thank you for your help.
Posted By: tributeman Re: Smoking Gun - 12/19/10 08:32 PM
Quote:

David, Thank you, that's really nice of you going to all those specifics. I appreciate it and will try them out.

Bob, Thank you. I can get frustrated with the realtracks but being the semi control freak that I am, I really enjoy the process - slicing and dicing, trying this and that.

Pat, Thank you. Good suggestions. I like getting in the zone and prefer standing. Sometimes I will sit doing simple harmonies but that's rare.

Frankie, that would be so totally cool. Thank you for your help.




Sorry Josie snow got the party called off but will send him an email.Cheers Frankie
Posted By: Sundance Re: Smoking Gun - 12/21/10 05:20 AM
Wild weather over there Frankie. Stay safe and warm. Send me a pm when/if you hear anything. Thank you so much.
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