New song, just finished right now at 10:58 p.m., London time. Shattered, but hope it was worth it?

Never Be Apart

Style is _PINING.STY (Pining Fretless Bass Ctry Ballad)

RealTracks in style: 2937:Bass, Fretless Electric Pop8thsRene Ev 085
RealTracks in style: 2825:Piano, Acoustic, Rhythm CountryPopMike12-key Ev 085
RealTracks in style: 2916:Guitar, Acoustic, Rhythm CountryFolk8thsBrent Ev 085
RealDrums [in style:BluesRockSlowEv^3-a:SideStick , b:Snare, Ride

Flute solo: Sibelius/NotePerformer

I've been a little away from this board recently (way too busy, sadly), but I shall try to do some listening catching up tomorrow. Again, thanks for listening to my stuff!!! :-)

The backing, narrative and melody work well together.
You could improve things by removing the stick count in and doing a little treatment on your vocal.
I know you want the honesty & intimacy of an untreated vocal BUT, honestly, the lips smacks and essing are quite loud & distracting.
A gate would deal with the smacks and a simple de-esser would reduce the esses a bit.
OR you could use volume automation in your DAW to reduce the level for both issues.
Seriously, addressing those bits would make the very nice piece you've constructed even easier listening.

Yes, you have a point, rayc. I'm just a songwriter, not a singer, so I haven't paid much attention (up to now) to this issue, as my songs are - at best - "demos" to show people what I'd like them to sound like, and to hopefully attract others to sing them properly. That said, it's kinda lazy of me not to deal with these issues, as you say, and no-one likes a lazy guy, haha, so ... I'll see what I can do. I just record my songs in my bedroom, with a headphone mic ... but, again, that's no excuse :-) Thank you genuinely for your honesty.

EDIT: I've just downloaded the NoiseGate plugin for Audacity and read the instructions on how to use it. Sadly, I seem to be making things worse with it - there's a residual noise on the voice track from applying the noise gate to it which won't go away, no matter how much I fiddle with the gate decibel levels just yet - and it's more obvious than the lip smack noises themselves. Any thoughts, anyone? I can always go through the track with a fine toothcomb and silence any extraneous noises manually, of course, but this gate thing is, for the moment, not responding. I know I'm a dinosaur with technology ... but what am I doing wrong? Thanks!!!

You have a great mellow intimate sounding voice...
I enjoyed hearing you sing this song.

Thanks Jim :-)

Very pretty song. Excellent backtrack and cool chord changes. Excellent vocal. Well done

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKMLI97QyRY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79M3LRPgI9M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EGqbtXfAJA

A nice song,

a great progression and melody

nice choice of instruments and arrangement

this is a lovely love song

Kenny

Thanks Scott and Kenny - and THANKS rayc ... the videos are bookmarked, I shall have a proper look at them as soon as I possibly can! THANK YOU everyone :-)

Nicely done - really sweet, and love how soft and calming it sounds. It sounds sincere and heartfelt, and your vocals match the backing tracks perfectly.

Thanks for sharing

Thanks Deryk - genuinely appreciated :-)

Well done musician17, thanks for sharing this! This sounds very full and the instruments are layered nicely. The flute was definitely a treat to hear!

As Kenny said: "A nice song,

a great progression and melody
nice choice of instruments and arrangement
this is a lovely love song"

Yes, most lovely and well worth taking beyond the demo stage!

J&B

Thanks Joe, thank you Janice & Bud!!! Really happy you liked it - yes, when I get a little time, I will try to tidy it up a bit more and take it to the next stage if I can!

We would look forward to it!

What a lovely combo of progression and melody. Felt like "home" after just a few bars. Very nice.

James,

This is sweet sounding . . . something I could easily see being sung on stage. Love that flute—nice choice. rayc points out a couple things that I agree are worth massaging in the next take, but they are easy to take care off . . . doesn’t take away at all though from the bones of this pretty song. Nice job!

My best to you,

Deej

Wow - thank you Joe, Tangmo and Deej56. Yes, absolutely agreed - rayc makes very, very valid points. I think I'm not going to do much music-related stuff for a while, sadly - got an academic project to take care of that's going to eat much of my summer time, so this song, too, will have to wait :-( ... but yes, I'm so happy you think it's worth polishing!

Nicely done James!! I think Ray is right about the vocal treatment but you really do have quite a sweet voice.....not sure I've heard you sing before. This is really pretty!! Take care. Greg

Thanks Greg! I have done some work on the vocal treatment, but haven't uploaded it yet - will do so as soon as it's 100% ready! I tend not to sing too much, haha ... but thank you for your kind words!