Hey Ya'll,

Here's a new song I wrote about a month ago called Girl It's Gone. All real tracks and vox recorded in RB and mixed in Tracktion. Lyrics in link.

I appreciate your time listening and all your comments are welcome - especially regarding the mix.

Hope you enjoy it.

Thank you,

Josie - nice song. sounds great. love the piano that starts and ends it. your vocals sounds really good. and a nice mix. great job!

I agree with floyd jane. That was a beautiful song.
good stuff, sounds OK on my set up

Alyn

You're a great singer. I like the harmonies and the mix. Well done.

Guenter

Josie,

Great piece of work!

Ditto+ for Floyd, Alyn, and Guenter.

Love your vocals, they really standout nicely.

Thanks for sharing!

I love the vocal. Great stuff!

I always love your songs, this one is no exception! Great Job!

What a lovely song. I love your vocals and the melody you created. Superb writing too. Outstanding use of BIAB.

Great tune!

Josie I love this. Great vocals and great mix. occ

Hey Josie!



I've now got a new favourite song of yours. This is top notch in every way!

There were some things that really stood out to me as exceptional crafting. Firstly was the use of the second-person-narrative point of view (that's what Pat Pattison calls it when one uses all pronouns except me or I and their related derivatives). To my ears, second person narrative is a very intimate form of story telling. In this instance, it's like the singer is taking a friend aside and giving heartfelt advice. When second-person-narrative perspective works, it works brilliantly. In these lyrics of yours, it's a hand-in-glove fit; perfect.

The second thing that stood out to me was your amazing lift. The two similes about a train and a plane added just the right touch of philosophical content to the lyrics to push them forward into the chorus. To my mind, these lines really empowered the chorus no end. The music that underpins these lyrics is also first class! (I've got to say that the train and plane are both powerful "gone" images and a masterstroke choice.")

A third thing that stood out to me was how skilled you are at singing and mixing your vocals. The writing, the performance and the production of this song are a tremendous credit to your abilities.

All the best,
Noel

nicely written, wonderfully performed, great mix...it has everything! very nice job!

Floyd,

Thank you. I was on the fence about the ending for a while and then went with it. So glad you like it.


Gibson,

Thank you for listening and commenting. Makes me feel like all the time I spent on this was worth it.


beohm,

Thank you. Feels good when I can catch a vibe that moves someone.


Seeker,

Thank you for the kind words, I really appreciate it.

Sundance, outstanding work! Lyrics, performance and production are all exceptional, thank you for sharing!




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Joanne,

Thank you so much. Nice having another female pov.


Tommyc,

You are quite inspiring to me. Thank you Tommy.


jpt,

You made my day. Thank you.


occ,

Thank you. I'm glad it touched your heart.

Noel,

Thank you, thank you and thank you. This was a tough song to write. When I went to my sad place in my mind, I was actually working on a different song. Then to my surprise I got stuck in some really heavy old pain that I thought was over long ago. You are right, I wrote this to my younger heartbroken self using the approach as if talking to my best friend.

Not going to say how many times I remixed it.

Thank you again. I really appreciate your time and the nice things you said.

Robert,

Thank you. Appreciate that very much.

If ya'll have a few minutes to spare, Bob made a really cool video of this song for me.


Girl It's Gone video

Hey Josie,

Another pretty good song, I thought. I also thought the backing vocals could have been more present, and that the lead guitar was a bit too busy. It's my personal preference but I tend to not let the lead guitar compete with the vocals, unless, it is mimicking the vocal, and even then, only rarely. Good job..

RG

RG,

Actually, believe it or not I tried several mixes with less busy lead gtr and louder bgvs but this one best captured the vibe I wanted.

Thank you for the nice comments and suggestions, I appreciate it.

WOW that video is excellent!!! How did Bob do that???????? What program did he use????
It really adds to the lovely song

Alyn

Hi Josie,

Any chance you would elaborate on your process and setup? I've listened to some decent songs here in the showcase but this one seems really special. It truly sounds like it came right out of a pro studio ready for CD!!

I'm kinda struggling with getting my vocals to "sit in the mix" along with my exported RealTracks accompaniment. I tried the demo of iZotope Nectar and while that tool did some interesting stuff on my vocal tracks it still seemed to not match up that well. Plus, I sometimes manage to get a mix that sounds good on one player/system but then it sounds bad on another.

I understand that the answer might be I just need to keep plodding along and gain some experience. I'm pretty sure there are no easy buttons! But man on man I'd sure welcome any tips from someone like yourself who just produced such a nice song!

John

Great song and vocals Josie its all been said on here.

When I first listened to your song my initial reaction was this is as good if not better than a lot of the commercial recordings out there.

Keep up the good work.

Musiclover

Your songs never disappoint me and this is no exception.

I believe this is your best to date! My only question is why hasn’t a record company signed you yet?

Two thumbs up on a perfect song.

I have been reading your contributions to the latest mixing and mastering series of threads and I have appreciated your comments. So it was a pleasure to see one of your new ones here. I think you are doing a top notch job on your recording and mixing, Everything is clear and well and positioned. What lead guitar part is that over there on the left side? I like that tone a lot.

The only thing that stood out a tad was that acoustic guitar continuously strumming away in the right speaker -- some variation is needed there, I think. Either add your own guitar back in or different styles maybe. The piano parts also get buried a little here and there (or maybe you turned it off?)

In any case, a very well done tune.

Josie,
I'll echo Noel's comment... this is my favorite Josie Beck song to date! I liked everything about it, very pro sounding! I've got to run off so I don't have time to watch the video too, but I'll comment on that later

(Two enthusiastic thumbs up)

Josie,

Hey I'll 2nd Noel's comments.

I think this is your best work to date! The song, vocals, mix... I thought everything was top notch!

Really like Robert's video too.

Just a fine job all around!

Greg

Alyn,

Thanks. The video was produced with a combination of Apple's Final Cut and iMovie. It was a lot of fun putting this together - Josie really knocked it out of the park with this song...

Bob

I, too think this is your best vocal to date.... just perfect. And the composition is advanced, better than ever. The flight, the vocal "taking off", is the way songs are supposed to be written... poetry.

The intro is marvelous. The outtro might be edited a little.

I like that your panning is a little wider than it used to be... mixing in general is getting just fine. Lead vocal in the chorus might be a little crisper, but that might be just my taste... or my old guy hearing.

As someone else mentioned, the lead guitar back might be a little busy... you think of maybe using a tasteful RealTrack fiddle in parts?

Looks like you are on your way to a pro career.

Nice work - catchy tune, good mix, excellent vocals. I love the harmony.

A caveat to my mix comments: I'm listening to the mix through a pair of inexpensive headphones, so it might be coloring things.

I think the bass could be dialed back a bit. But I don't listen to contemporary country, so that that with a huge grain of salt. But I kept noticing it, which (to me) isn't a good thing if it's not doing something (like a riff or accent) that should be calling attention to it.

And while I love the rhythm guitar - nice EQ, punchy and bright - I agree with Kemmrich. The constant chugging quickly gets wearisome, especially since it's at (what sounds like) the same level throughout the song. If it was backed down (or the high end rolled off) except for key parts in the song, I think it would work. As it is, it's so prominent in the mix that it kept drawing my attention away from the vocal. For a rhythm support part, it seemed awfully forward in the mix.

But those are minor nits. This is really, really well done.

Nice work Josie, I really enjoyed this one. A smashing song, your voice sounds brilliant and the arrangement and mix are spot on.

I'd echo one point from earlier posts, re. the lead guitar panned left. It sounds excellent when it drops occasional licks in. And when it plays in unison with your vocal on the first line of each chorus that makes for a great hook, but then it should drop out and not step on your vocal, only heard in gaps in your vocal and again at the end of the chorus.

Thanks for making my sunny Sunday morning sunnier!

John

Quote:

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Alyn,

Thanks. The video was produced with a combination of Apple's Final Cut and iMovie. It was a lot of fun putting this together - Josie really knocked it out of the park with this song...

Bob

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Hi Bob,
the video was was very professional in appearance. Exactly how does that work? Did you create the characters and animate them? Or are there library elements that can be combined according to the needs of a project? Either way, it looks like a powerful set of tools for vizualizing ideas.