Sometimes a song nags at you until you have no choice but to write it. This one has been lurking in my mind for years, but the lyric wouldn't come. When I took the verse that I had and put it in the middle- instead of the beginning, it all fell into place. This is not in any way the type of song I would normally write, but some songs demand to be written. This is one of those songs.

http://soundcloud.com/bruce-boome/last-night-i-danced-with-an-1

I used CWaltz F2 Country- Med-Fast Waltz style and added Accordian: Rhythm PopCalypso Ev 100

Hi Bruce,

It was much easier to hear the words in this song (compared to your other recent post). You've got a great voice! There's no need for you ever to feel embarrassed about your singing.

What great lyrics. I really liked they way the rhymes flowed and pulled the music along. It's clever writing There was something about the backing, though, that distracted me and I can't work out what it was. Through my speakers, the backing sound lacked clarity. It made me wonder about what effects might be in place.

Overall, though, this song has a great rhythm and feel. It's impossible for me to listen to it without getting thoroughly involved in it.

All the best,
Noel

Hi Bruce,

I like this and it's nice to hear the accordian. I like your voice too. I'm with Noel on the mix. Personally I think it might be the bass but not totally sure... There's also the pumping which is probably an effect you are going for that might be just a tad overdone....hard to say.

Overall though as Noel has said it does have a really nice feel.

I agree with what has been said thus far, great voice and super lyrics.

I agree that there is something wrong with the mix and like Josie I found the bass to be too loud. I think that if you turn the bass way down you will improve the mix 100 percent.

Just my thoughts.

Nice song, and nice vocals!

But I agree there are issues with the mix. Just looking at the waveform, it looks like it's mixed so that everything is at maximum volume, all the time. That's typically done by throwing a compressor onto the final mix.

Apologies in advance for slipping into pedantic mode here...

A compressor basically keeps the volume between some given range. If the volume falls below a certain threshold, it turns the volume up, and if it goes above a threshold, it turns the volume down.

That's great when you've got an uneven volume coming in, and you want to "smooth over" the differences between the high and low volumes of a performance. So you can put a compressor on a vocal or bass line to get a consistent volume.

It's also helpful to throw on the final mix as a sort of "brick wall limiter", so that if the volume exceeds a certain point, the compressor keeps it within range, instead of giving nasty digital clipping. But when used as a limiter, the compressor only kicks it when the volume exceeds a limit - it's not used to raise the minimum volume.

It looks and sounds like you've thrown a compressor on the final mix to make everything louder. That will give you a sort of "wall of sound", but I don't think it matches the more folk feel of the music. And although "louder is better", it also creates ear fatigue, which makes it hard to listen to a song after a while.

In the final mix, the compressor will be applied indiscriminately. So when the bass comes in loudly, the compressor turns everything in the mix down... including the vocal. This leads to a sort of "pumping" effect, where you can hear the compressor adjusting the volume. You can hear it at 1:40 in your song.

Optimally, you want this effect to be completely transparent... Unless you're mixing a dance song, where the "pumping" is used as an effect.

But for most songs, you generally want the exact opposite to happen. Since the vocal is the most important part of the song, you want to make sure that it's never covered up by another instrument.

One way to ensure this is by using a compressor to apply "ducking", so that when a vocal comes in, it drive a compressor to lower the the volume on other instruments on the mix, so they don't step on the vocals. Check out this article for fun details, although I think it's not really necessary for this style of music.

But to reiterate the important point - nice song!

Thanks for your comments guys, really useful. @ dcuny. Thanks for the tips. I'm still trying to get the hang of compressors and limiters, that needs work. As to the bass, probably my room has some faults, in future I'll try and lower it and hope for the best ;-)