Here's a new song: Mechanical World

All instruments except for the shaker are BiaB. It started out as using the MIDI FOLK style, but not much of that made it to the final mix.

The harmonies definitely need to be bumped up. The lead vocal probably should be re-done - I'm a bit too far from the mike, and there are lots of iffy notes. The drum at 0:10 needs some finessing as well.

I'll probably also replace the solo on the bridge, since it doesn't really go anywhere.

Lyric:

It's a mechanical world, it's a windup world;
it's a world that's fallen from grace
And I can't help believing these things I'm seeing
are like the picture of Dorian Gray

Who holds the lock a key?
Who put the stone in place?
Who walks where no one sees?
Runs away to hide their face?

It's a mechanical world, it's a rundown world
that's been aimlessly spinning through space.
And I can't keep believing a dream so misleading
that's lead me so far and astray

Who wound the clockwork key
Turned the cogs and gears within?
Who built this mystery
Of burnished brass and shining tin?

It's a mechanical world, it's a windup world
It's a world in sad disarray
The mainspring's unwinding with dead hours chiming
and clockwork is ticking the moments away



Any comments welcome.

Sounds like you found the Vocal Control thing in Pro Tools,LOL! Excellent production and very well performed! I also listened to How Great Thou Art fine piece of work! Thanks for sharing!


My Tunes

Thanks for listening and the kind words, Robert!

There's still quite a bit of "scoop" in the vocals, but I can live with that.

David,

The only guy who puts up a song and then critiques it before anyone else can... Which I guess isn't surprising since your "reviews" of songs are often more detailed, insightful and thoughtful than anyone elses..

The production and mix are really good. That opening piano is nice! I can't say I understand all the lyrics (not the pronunciation... the meaning), but that's not really important here... They are still very cool lyrics. They have a sci-fi feeling to them - and that's where I have a "bump". Your instruments/production are very organic. For your lyric, I would think just the opposite would be the ticket - more modern "manufactured" sounds - the "loop thing". And a "highly processed" vocal track - almost robotic.

Unless I'm TOTALLY missing the meaning in your lyric... am I?

Don't get me wrong. I think you've done a great job. Just "surprised" by how "organic" the production is...

floyd

Hey David,

I like it. The mix is really well balanced and the arrangement is skilfully assembled. Despite what you said about the vocals, I didn't hear anything that I'd change. I loved the rhyme "believing / misleading", that one grabbed the attention of the lyricist within me. Equally, the two chords out of the instrumental bridge made a little voice in my head pop up and say "ooooh, very nice".

I enjoyed it and I'm going back for another listen now.

Regards,
Noel

Thanks, Noel.

I'd expected you'd ding me on "believing/misleading" as it was a bit clunky. It's a close rhyme - I've read Pattison's book on rhyming - but it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue! (On that topic, RhymeZone is a nice resource).

The "misleading" lyric being followed by "led me so far" feels redundant. If I re-do the vocals, I'll fix that.

Sadly, the "Mephistopheles" lyric didn't make the final cut. That was an awesome rhyme, but that (and a "Faustian bargain" line) took an already pretentious song a bit too far.

The initial mix had the BiaB harmonies much more up front, which I liked. I rationalized that the slightly robotic sound made sense given the song's theme, and I sort of miss them. But I figured I should get around to posting something, instead of dawdling over this thing forever.

Hi again, David.

I didn't hear the "believing/misleading" rhyme as clunky at all. The reason it works (for me at least) is because the "-LEE-" syllable is such a good sonic link ("L" is a strong sound and "ee" is a good long vowel sound). Trailing with "-ing" diminishes the impact of the "v/d" relationship. Nope. Whatever you say, it's a clever rhyme!

By the way, do you have Rhymesaurus? It's not available for Mac, only PC. It's from http://www.purpleroom.com and is absolutely THE BEST lyrics resource I have. It's possible to look for rhymes a heaps of ways. The software also has the ability to look for word patterns, too. For example, say I wanted a word that was three syllables long, began with 'mis' and had the middle syllable stressed, Rhymesaurus makes it possible. Pattern searching is also brilliant for looking for alliteration possibilities.

If you don't have this, I've just checked on the website and the program is only $12.95 now. I promise you, it'll be $12.95 well spent!

Just passing the information along in case it's of interest.

Regards,
Noel

Hi, Floyd.

First of all, thanks for posting Bull by the Horns! After listening, instead of posting a comment I figured the better thing to do would be to finally write a song.

Which I did... And then I put it aside and pulled out this song, which I'd been struggling with for much longer than I want to admit.

The plan for this song was that I'd start with some sort of sound effects (clockwork and ticking) and fade into the main percussion track. I've been listening to Freudiana for the last couple of weeks, and was thinking about Let Yourself Go in particular. I'd even pulled up a bunch of SoundFont O1W and M1 samples in hopes of finding something appropriate. (What I really want is an M1:Legacy).

I didn't find any drum tracks in BiaB that I liked. I finally punted and put together backing track using the FOLK track, figuring that I'd replace it with something else (which I ended up doing). And the same as I usually do, I generated a bunch of RealTracks to import into my DAW.

And - much to my own surprise - this is what I ended up with. The first mix had the BiaB generated harmony much fuller, and I've pulled back from that, mostly for clarity, but also because the harmonies are more natural. I'd also considered starting out with a "telephone" voice effect, since the vocal already has a notched sort of sound - at least on the opening phrase.

Instead of fiddling with it forever, I figured I'd post it first.

As for the meaning of the lyric, if you combine The Wasteland's crowd flowing over London Bridge with an army of brass Tik Tok men from Oz sadly marching over said bridge, I think you've got it.

Noel, thanks for the suggestion! I've blown my non-existent budget on Songwriting: Essential Guide to Lyric Form and Structure and Songwriting: Essential Guide to Songwriting, which I found at the local used book store. But I'll keep it in mind!

David,

Thanks for the links you posted in reply - they are quite interesting, and I intend to return and listen to them all... for now, I just skipped through them to "get a feel". They all sound like ... what I would expect your music would sound like to go with your lyric... a very cool lyric, I might add (I TRULY hope that I did not offend you in any way by my comments...) I just thought they DESERVED a different kind of music - and by the links you posted. it appears that you were intending to "head in that direction" - the clock ticking would have been THE PERFECT beginning. (not my "area", but I would think that some of the new Euro drums might work for this - I don't know - Guenter certainly comes up with some "different" stuff!! And Robert has found some interesting new directions..)

You should post the lyrics. They are interesting enough for that...read The Wasteland years ago - would rather read your lyrics at this point... <grin>

The "Bull By The Horns" post was sort of in response to all the "what about this and what about this and why can't it do this and what if it did this and have you ever tried playing sitar over the internet and do you practice this and do you watch this" stuff going on over in OT. Seems to me if people would spent the time it takes to write those posts, actually trying to make some music using BIAB - they might actually have a song or two to show for it.....

And... FOLK was a funny place to start for this... just saying....

I think this could be a VERY COOL song. It needs backing tracks that reflect the lyric.. Oh.. something just occurred to me... the tracks need to be more MECHANICAL...

floyd

No offense taken, Floyd! Those were exactly the sorts of questions I was wondering - and it's my song!

Lyrics are posted up top now.

The two most popular "robot" songs would be the end credits to Portal - Still Alive and Want You Gone. "Want You Gone" is more along the lines of what we're talking about.

I'll see what I can do, but the sad reality is that I've been fighting with this song for a couple decades, and at this point the song is still winning.

I liked listening to this. Played it three times, partially to try to make sure it was topical in nature, which I admire, and/or to hear whether it had any religious undertones Not that I have anything against religion(s), or religious music, for that matter, but I have a special affinity towards those with skill enough to write a religious song without actually mentioning a deity by name or title. I feel as though you might have tried to do just that here with this number, but I could be altogether wrong. A great effort anyway, and a catchy tune.

RG

Hi David,

Very interesting song. You must be a perfectionist that struggles with not being able to get what is exactly in your head into a song.

I've read the comments about the lyrics and being backed by mechanical sounds and such.

My comment is that it works on two levels. You could have reflected the lyrics with an industrial backing and that would be very interesting.

Still, it works as a folk song. Sort of a protest song about the state of the world. Folkies sung about all kinds of things with acoustic backing.

Antwort auf:

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Very interesting song. You must be a perfectionist that struggles with not being able to get what is exactly in your head into a song.

I've read the comments about the lyrics and being backed by mechanical sounds and such.

My comment is that it works on two levels. You could have reflected the lyrics with an industrial backing and that would be very interesting.

Still, it works as a folk song.

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I like it as it is, but I also would be very interested
in an experimental version.

Guenter