Since we're closing the books on the one we posted yesterday (Lap Of Luxury)... sounds too much like an existing song ... we'll offer this one instead. It's Pop-Blues in the style of Elton John. So, of course, it's pretty piano heavy. As always, we're open to any and all comments and suggestions.


Full Time Blues ------> http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11945331


File:Di - Full-Time Blues - Alt.MGU
Key=Am , Tempo 130, Length (m:s)=3:39
4 bar intro, 112 bar chorus, from bar 5 to bar 116. Repeat x1 chorus
Melody has 1915 notes, Melody harmony is < no harmony >(0)
No Soloist track.
Song is saved with Volume, Pan, Reverb, Chorus, Bank0,
Song is saved with bar changes for Volume Changes,
Style is ELTONPNO.STY (EltonPno - Ev.8 Rock Piano Accom)
Style MIDI Instruments are : Fretless Elec. Bass (36), Bright Piano (2), Slow Strings (50),
RealTracks in song: 691:Guitar, Acoustic, Strumming AcRockBright Ev 120
RealTracks in song: 1007:Piano, Acoustic, Solo-Accompaniment, PopFlowing Ev 120
RealDrums in Song: Nashville68^2-a:Sidestick, HiHat , b:Snare, Ride
*******************


Full-Time Blues
© 2012 Alan D. David, BMI / Diana Bowers, BMI

(v)
Why must I love you, why can't I say goodbye
Every time I try to leave, I can't and I don't know why
My mind tells me it's time to go, but my heart just won't comply
This constant war torments me, every day I live a lie

CHORUS
A tangled web of heartache, a case of full-time blues
No color in my rainbows, just the darkest hues
I know I ought to move along, I'm reading all the clues
But here I sit with the full-time blues

INSTRUMENTAL BREAK

(v2)
I pack my suitcase, every morning in my mind
Thinking how I'll say goodbye, and leave you here behind
But when it's time to play my part, no courage can I find
I always end up speechless, and my memory goes full blind

CHORUS
A tangled web of heartache, a case of full-time blues
No color in my rainbows, just the darkest hues
I know I ought to move along, I'm reading all the clues
But here I sit with the full-time blues

(v3)
I guess I'll always, be here by your side
Smiling on the outside, but crying deep inside
I'll learn to live with, these feelings I must hide
My head no longer matters, it's my heart I must abide

CHORUS
A tangled web of heartache, a case of full-time blues
No color in my rainbows, just the darkest hues
I know I ought to move along, I'm reading all the clues
But here I sit with the full-time blues

Alan & Di, These are some of your best lyrics. Nice time signature, sets up the perfect feel for the song. Good melody and well sung. Nice work. Tom

Tommyad stated my feelings perfectly. Nice job all around. I thoroughly enjoyed this one.


Charlie

Alan,

I'm there with Tom and Charlie... one of my favorites of your lyrics, for sure. And a good melody, too.. Nice job of capturing that Elton-vibe on this... It really sounds like it could sit on one of his albums.

Your vocal is strong, solid...nice job on that.

A little thing... the vocal (IMO) is a bit too "out-front" - for the style of song that it is. An Elton-type rock number ought to have the vocal a bit more "in the mix". The piano ought to be just a hair shy of even-with-the-vocal (volume-wise). If you brought the piano up, then the other instruments would fall behind. In this case (for this song), I think pulling the vocal back until it sits in the mix would put the piano where it should be... A/B an Elton song (Rocket Man, maybe) and I think you will hear what I'm talking about...

That's a big paragraph for a small observation... Don't want it to detract form the fact that it is very well done... writing, singing, arrangement....

Enjoyed it.

floyd

Hi Alan,

interesting lyrics, good vocals and arrangement.
I enjoyed it.

Guenter

Can I be nosy and ask your sound source for the midi tracks there?

Tom ...

Thanks so much for the kind words. We aren't real sure why, but we've never thought this was one of our better songs. Apparently several of the folks on this forum feel otherwise . That's a real nice surprise! Thanks again and best to ya ...

Alan & Di

Hi Charlie ...

As always, we enjoy hearing from you. And your nice comments are greatly appreciated. Thanks so much! Wishing you well ...

Alan & Di

Hi Floyd ...

When Floyd Jane speaks, we're all ears! First thanks for the real nice comments on the song. As we told Tom, we've never considered this one of our better songs. So nice to know many of the folks here disagree!

And yes, after visiting You Tube and listening to "Rocket Man", "Crocodile Rock" and "Benny And The Jets", we fully agree with you about the vocal being to forward in the mix. As was brought to our attention, by you I think, on the Euro-Tech song we posted a couple of days ago, I tend to mix everything too much like a Country or Jazz song where the vocals are the star if the song in most cases. But you are totally correct about Pop-Rock, Rock and the like ... the vocal needs to be embedded only very slightly louder than the loudest instrument. We listened to several other Rock tunes and found it to be true in all of them. Thanks for bringing that to our attention. It's an ever-changing, learning process to become proficient at mixing ... it's an art in and of itself.

Glad you enjoyed the lyric and performance otherwise. And thanks again for the sage advice! Best to ya ...

Alan & Di

Hi Guenter ...

Vielen Dank! We appreciate those very nice words. So glad you enjoyed it! Best to you ...

Alan & Di

Hello Icelander ...

Thanks for the visit & listen. And that's not being nosy in our opinion ... just tyring to learn something. That's how we get better. So, feel free to ask anything about any song we post. We'd be happy to share anything that might be informative.

Everything on that song is straight from BIAB ... no outside tracks brought in. And, it is literally straight from BIAB ... didn't run it through any DAW ... just what we were able to do in BIAB. The backing tracks never left BIAB until we recorded them on Audacity and then added the vocal treatment. And other than a little compression and additional volume tinkering on the individual tracks, we did nothing else to it in Audacity. So, what you hear is straight from BIAB ... no DAW whatsoever! Best to you ...

Alan & Di

Alan and Di,

Pretty much all been said. Very good job of writing here, and your vocals sound good. Definitely hear a little Elton in this. Well done!

Steve

Thanks so much, Steve! We really appreciate your time to listen and comment so nicely! Always a pleasure to hear from you! Best to ya ...

Alan & Di

Nice write! It may not be your best work, but it's certainly a fun listen. Maybe it's because you've made some non-standard choices for rhymes, or because you've picked some interesting phrases.

I dunno... But it's a nice listen.

Hi David ...

Well, regardless of why it appeals to you, we're just happy as can be that it does! It's a little different from what we typically do, though not radically different. I think the time signature and the corresponding percussions give it that "different and interesting" feel.

Thanks for the listen and very nice comments! Best to ya ...

Alan & Di

Inventive, interesting, different and fun.
I don't have a detailed analysis of why
but this one just grabbed me and stuck.

There's a ton of things to like here
and it's all been mentioned above so
just big kudos to you.

"No color in my rainbows, just the darkest hues"

Yeah man.

J&B

J&B ...

What more could we ask for in a review? One of the premier standards we use when evaluating a song is "Did it quickly vanish from memory or did it stay with us for hours, maybe days?" Regardless of technical expertise, performance, mixing/mastering etc, if it sticks with us for a while we generally thin it's a good song. I try not to over-analyze those that stick with me as they might be technically lacking and I'll pick up bad ideas fro mixing, etc. Sometime I just enjoy a song and accept it at face value.

The vocal was questionable in my mind as it was recorded in the middle of the night in a small apartment complex I was visiting at the time (Yep, took my BIAB HD with me since I was would be there for a few weeks!) I sung it barely above a whisper as neighbors had complained about the music in the middle of the night a couple of days prior. I had considered redoing the vocal but folks seem to like it as is, so maybe not!

We are delighted this one kinda falls that way on your ears. we truly appreciate your kind words. Thanks again. Wishing both of you the very best ...

Alan & Di

Hi Al & Di,

I think it's great fun experimenting and kudos for doing it. I'm going out on a limb here and saying that I hear this more as a song Di should sing in her jazzy blues style with more that type of arrangement. The lyrics to me aren't bad at all but they're not as conversational as one generally expects from an Elton rock edged song. Of course that's JMHO which is equal to about 2 cents give or take 2 cents.

You get a really nice sound with your workflow which is really quite amazing with nothing involved but Audacity and BIAB.

Josie

Well done song! I can appreciate the Elton John comparison. I nice, hypnotic steady rocker. Great job! Take care. Greg

Hi Josie ...

We're very happy to like the song. Thanks for the very kind comments.

There are two reasons Di didn't sing this one. 1. We felt an Elton John feel just didn't come across the way we wanted with a female vocal. It seemed to have lost that EJ aura. 2. Although Di helped me with the lyric, she's a not a real big Elton John fan and din't have a lot of interest in doing the vocal. This is one where we wrote the lyric and then settled on a style/genre. She felt it worked great as an EJ song, she just isn't a big fan.

Thanks again!

Alan & Di


PS: Your opinions are worth at least a good steak dinner to us!

Hi Greg ...

Thanks for jumping in for a listen and comment ... much appreciated! As was pointed out earlier, it would be better if the voice was set back more in the mix. The reason we did the way we did is it was done as a demo and the potential publisher said she wanted a strong lead vocal. And, on top of that, I tend to mix most songs as I would a Jazz or Country tune, with the vocals more in front. I need to work on that!

Thanks again ...

Alan

Cool... I like this but also feel conflicted on it. I was expecting a "blues" song... (typical genre stuff) based on the title.

Getting past that, this is good. I agree with Floyd.... pull the vox back a few db and let it "hide" more in the music. The style kinda needs that for balance.

Hi Alan and Di,

I enjoyed this song very much (Rob is having some serious computer problems, so this time I'm doing the honours).

I do, however, agree with Floyd about the vocal being a bit too much in the front, although I think the vocals as such are really good.

Good lyrics too, this sentence
"No color in my rainbows, just the darkest hues"
is exactly what the blues are about.

Anne-Marie

Very good. The reason I asked was rather to check if your Audacity (which we don't have on the Mac version) was then utilising some sort of a soundfont or if that sound is just as you say "straight from" the box. For if it is, then we're being cheated (yet again) on the Mac end, our 'straight from the box' sound set doesn't even come close to that quality!

Icelander ...

yes, this one is straight from the BIAB tracks, mixed down to two-channel stereo and then straight into Audacity. No CAW whatsoever, to include Real Band. Raw from the BIAB song composition page. We cranked up Audacity and recorded this straight from the BIAB song composition page into Audacity.

I do spend a lot of time with the BIAB tracks ... panning, volume, tone, reverb, plug-ins, etc . That's how most of our songs are recorded to MP3.

As I said, feel free to ask anything. If anything we have to offer is helpful or informative, we're more than happy to share. I (Alan) have been helped along the way for the past 50+ years by other musicians taking time to show me stuff I might not have learned otherwise.

Alan & Di

PS: No soundfront of any kind. Raw from BIAB to Audacity!

Hey Herb!

Thanks for the listen! yes, it's a little out of the box for Blues. Definitely not your typical 12 Bar thing. Actually, more than Blues song, it's a sing about the Blues ...kind of a fine line there but that's how we see it. Of course, EJ not really cared about stuff like that. Bernie Taupin handed him a lyric sheet and he, according to his (EJ's) own words, write whatever music came to mind.

But, we're delighted you liked it regardless ... thanks for the nice comments! Best to ya!

Alan & Di

HI Anne-Marie (And Rob),

I know, all to well, about serious computer problems! No fun at all!

And yeah, the vocal is out in front way too much. Using previous advice, I went and listened to 3 or 4 of his songs and his voice is barley louder than the loudest instrument. that will be our first tweak on this one. Thanks for following up on that suggestion!

Glad you liked that line. It was the second line we wrote and, for the most part, it was the genesis for everything else in the song. Thanks again for the kind words. Best to you and Rob.

Alan & Di