A Tried and true title I guess, but conducive to the nature of the song. This was a collaboration between three of us. Jen Shaner wrote the original poem, I set it to music and help rearrage some of the lyrics, Sarah Kingswell, did the vocals long distance from the UK and help with input on the trax and a few lyric changes again.

Several re-writes, and the song has changed drastically from its original conception to what we hope is the final demo version. Hoping to get a few of you to give it a listen and let me know what you think overall.

Music is all BIAB, and Real Band and realtracks, with the exception of the Cello and strings.

You forumites have a way of listening to a song and giving feedback that doesn't toot your own horn. I can respect the opinion of everyone here.

http://www.reverbnation.com/open_graph/song/13444709

Hope you enjoy it, but if you don't please let me know why.......

Thanks

Rob

Hi Rob,

I really enjoyed that. I agree, "I Remember" is definitely a strong contender for title! Overall, the sound I heard was incredibly professional. Kudos to you on that.

All the best,
Noel

Rob,
Very, very good. With the exception of what I thought was a rather abrupt cymbal ending (maybe just due to the cheap speakers I'm listening on), I think you've nailed it.

Very nice, Rob.

A very good song Rob, I really enjoyed this one.

As far as suggestions are concerned, I can only suggest things that I might tweak if I were mixing it:

1. On my headphones there is a Left bias to the panning. There's more stuff panned L than R and there's a bit of clutter once things get going, as the strings and backing vocals are in the same notes/octave area. I'd pan the acoustic guitar almost hard left, get BIAB to do a second one (it'll be slightly different hopefully, or use a similar style) and pan that one hard right, i.e. so it sounds like two guitarists. That will create a more solid sonic frame for the song, especially the intro.
2. A tiny bit of reverb on the lead vocal wouldn't go amiss, or delay if you want to keep the voice close and intimate.
3. Add a bit of 'air' EQ to the top of the vocal around the 14-16kHz area.
4. I can't hear any bass. Is there one? It should audibly enter with the drums.
5. The strings need to come up in the mix to add more substance when the second verse starts. Pan them a bit wider than 2 o'clock. Take them up an octave for the second chorus to add more interest.
6. There should be a cymbal crash at 1:05 after the drums come in with the fill.
7. The title that jumps out at me is 'Memories Won't Lie'.

John

Rob,

Very nice song - enjoyed it...

Bob

Song is excellent, to me the vocal seems to be overpowering the guitar solo part just a little. This is to my ears. The level seems fine once the rest of the music joins in. Even with that this was an excellent collaboration. Thanks you all for sharing!


My Music

hi rob very nice peace enjoyed very much everything sounds fine on my system eric

Good stuff Rob, a very enjoyable listen.

Congrats!

I agree with John, just a little tune-up would make it incredible. Great Singer and Lyrics!

Great collaboration Toucher.

Nice collab Rob. I agree with John (Skyline) especially on adding a little verb to the vox.

Rob,

This is quite polished and the lead vox – although a touch cloying at times – is nice and clean and pleasant enough.

John has gone into great length on the mix (he has the ears for that sort of thing!) so I’m addressing my comments chiefly to the composition itself.

The structure is ok – slightly bereft of surprises, with rather too much similarity between the chorus and verse progressions for my taste.

I do think that the harmonies are overdone. I would suggest that just one backing voice – if the right one, of course - would be more poignant in most places.

The intro exposes what I always feel to be the major flaw with these audio loop based programmes. They play what they want, and not necessarily what the composer intended.
The root note of that acoustic gtr intro is jumping around all over the place.

Contrast this to the line followed by the ‘cello (which is actually being played) at 1:30. C up to E up to F up to G (or whatever key this is in), thereby reinforcing the chord structure.

There is something not quite right about the drum entry at 1:01, but I can’t put my finger on what it is. Perhaps it should come in with some sort of break rather than just 'playing straight'.

I think you could have gone with 2 verses here before the chorus.

My main difficulty – and it is quite a major one – is that in the key section of the song, i.e. lines 1 and 2 of the chorus, the lyric and the melody simply don’t fit.

The stress on ‘memories’ falls, of course, on the first sylable.
You wouldn’t ask “what are your earliest memoRIES?”
I know some other forum members do not see this as a problem, but I find that this grates terribly (even when established artists do it, which they do often).

Contrast this to using the following more-or-less nonsense lyric which I offer simply to illustrate the point (for those first lines of the chorus)
In my heart, you’ll remain
In my heart, there’s a stain..

The section from 2:45 – 3:17 feels to me like it is going nowhere. It’s not different enough from the rest of the piece to qualify as a bridge – musically it’s just padding, although I do concede that it is here that the lyric is propelled forwards “please remember that I love you still”

oh and the intro click can go now!

For all this, this piece has a nice Emmylou feel to it and I enjoyed listening to it.

very best regards,

Marc

Wow!,

Incredible feedback, you guys outdid yourselves this time. Several of the suggestions have been discussed and some tried. There are a few though that I will definitely have to try and see what the other writers think.

Thanks to all for taking the time to listen and comment. It may take awhile between other projects to try some of the suggested changes, I'll repost at some point in the future when that happens.

Again, thanks for the input.

Rob