A power-pop song with maybe a country tinge.

Lyrics in the description box.
BIAB backing tracks with my vocal and guitar parts on top. ;o)

Grumpy (a fun song about a bad day)

You are making good use of BIAB, Mark.

A catchy little tune (though I had a little trouble making out some words).

Welcome to the Showcase.

fj

Good tune and vox, worked well for me. Nice job all the way around.

This is the first time I have every heard one of your songs and this is a very good song. Good vocal and backing tracks.

A big welcome Mark! Hope you enjoy participating in the best forum out there for encouraging and positive input from fellow members. The tune sounds great to me and I really liked the sound of the guitar parts! Keep on rockin' Thanks, Torrey

Tasty guitar licks.

Yep, definitely has a strong country high lonesome touch.
It starts very suddenly.
A really good song - I'd keep working on it if I were you.

Milkweed,
Fun tune. Interesting vocal swings. Guitar fits very well. Prolly needs some more mixing, but overall a very solid composition.
Thank you for sharing.

Misha.

Thank you!
Sorry you had trouble making out some of the lyrics. Someone else told the vocals need less reverb and should be more forward in the mix so that they are easier to understand.
(Lyrics are in the description box, though you shouldn't need to refer to them to understand what I'm saying---that's my responsibility!)

Thank you, Torrey.

I think the guitar parts and vocal line reinforce each other, giving the whole thing momentum. It's one of my favorite songs of my own to play and sing by myself.

Thank you, Misha.
Mixing is, for me, the next hurdle. I've spent this year learning to use Reaper (-I'm 62 and the learning curve was steep for me), get some equipment (Scarlett 2i2, a couple mics, a bass, an acoustic guitar to go along with my Tele, some plugins) and learn how to use it all.

Between now and the end of the year I want to make rough mixes of several things and thereby gain experience, establish a comfortable workflow (which will likely include buying a bigger desk to work at), and figure out the sound(s) I'm going for. I don't expect anything I do for a while yet to be "finished." To use a baseball analogy, I'm still in spring training, not the regular season.

Thank you, Ray
I like the sudden start. I always thought of it as sort of a punk-pop song like The Buzzcocks used to do. (I know it doesn't really sound like that but it always seemed to me like a two-minute song, fast start, hooky vocal, and next thing you know it's all over but---I hope---you wish it wasn't!)

I think there's more of that high-lonesome thing in me than I realized. Maybe because I think of myself mainly as a guitar player, not a singer. (I WISH I had a great singing voice but I don't. I have a "character" voice and I'm trying to figure out how best to use it.) Anyway, there's a lot more country (I think) in my singing than in my playing. I used to live in Nashville (it's where I went to high school) and although I liked some country music it was never my main focus. But I think there's more of it in me than I realized before.

Thank you! It's a fun song to play.

Thank you! I really appreciate that.

Thank you, Mario!

I've been using Reaper all year long and mainly recording things without BIAB. (Just EZ Drummer, my own guitars, bass, and voice.) But last year, I put a LOT of songs into BIAB but didn't record them.
Now I'm doing some of that.

Welcome and we enjoyed your forum entry.

Nice vocal/guitar performances and arrangment.

As I'm sure along with many others we would enjoy learning the BiaB tracks you used to create that well performed band! And any other tech details you might care to offer.

We need more fun songs about bad days indeed.

J&B

Thank you, Janice and Bud!
As for the BiaB tracks used, these are them: _PB.ALADM.STY Medium Pop Ballad w / Dreamy Electric Guitar
The sample tempo of that is 85 bpm but for this song, it is played at 135 bpm, so it's not a ballad at all!

My guitar is a Squier Tele and that handles the main guitar part (which goes along with the vocal line). The guitar part came first. ;o)

I've been using Reaper all year long and mainly recording things without BIAB. (Just EZ Drummer, my own guitars, bass, and voice.) But last year, I put a LOT of songs into BIAB but didn't record them.
Now I'm doing some of that.
_________________________


Go for it !!.... this as Floyd has said , is hard to make out the Lyrics !! not be long tho !! .

till your posting every week .

And you will have our in house critique !! who pays for mastering , commenting on your sounds !.

All that for free!!

What a deal !!

Take care !

Welcome, Milkweed. Wonderful start and I'll be spending more time listening to your YouTube channel.

Milkweed
welcomes, nice geetar licks.

all i might suggest is on this song lowering the voc effects a tad. and experiment with dry vs fx.
try this on your vocs. (i'm a reaper user too for years.)
1. record a dry voc trak in reaper.
2. copy it to a new reaper trak.
(OR record a new voc dry trak ie a double)
3. on the copy or double slide the copy just a few millisecs. experiment with no of millisecs to use.
4. now insert on the copied trak pg echo dx plug in..
and experiment with the settings in the plug in dry vs fx
and other settings etc.

the very best to you.
om

Thanks, beatmaster.
I'll be posting more soon.
Really having some trouble deciding how to set vocals in a mix. I've never been a big fan of my own voice, and once upon a time when I sent out demos to record companies, a noted producer sent me a handwritten note informing me no one would ever listen to a demo with my voice on it, so forget about that!
I'm older now and more accepting of my voice. It's not great but it has some character and I gravitate to songwriters who aren't the best singers, so there may be hope for some of my songs yet!

Thank you, Marty!
At this point, there is more on my YouTube channel without BiaB than with it. But that's about to change...

I don't think vocal reverb or echo is an issue, part of the song is understandable some is not.

I just think you need to do some more vocal takes, perhaps a verse at a time, or even a phrase at a time. You could loop multiple takes and comp it (compile by using the best part of each take).

An example of where the words were not legible.

Gulped coffee by the pot
Now my head hurts, I don't feel so hot
Boo-hoo.

I couldn't get any of that. Just a performance issue mostly. Taking some words out might help also. "Gulped","Now" and "I" could go and with fewer words you should be able to enunciate better. "Boo-hoo" in your low register may be problematic, you're singing that as one word, probably need to separate it as two words for it to be understandable.

This one is also hard to understand.

Nothing I can't get past
Just want a punchy and fast
Song
To roll me along

Thanks, Frank. That makes sense. I often do a guitar part several times to get it right but tend to do a vocal all in one pass. Need more experience recording vocals. It's especially hard for me to keep an eye on the level meter WHILE singing. (For starters, I often close my eyes when I sing or else look up toward the ceiling.) Better mic technique should come with practice, practice, practice.

Thank you, OM. That's good advice. I'll try that.

I notice now---after having recorded vocals for a half dozen or so recent songs in Reaper--that it makes a big difference which fx were used and how much they were used.
Had not doubled tracks the way you suggest. I'll give that a try. (I have sung the same vocal twice and used both tracks for a chorus part.)
Thanks!

Mark.
do you know bout reaps parent/child trak feature ?
very usefull for comping vocs.
experiment with folder traks and indented child traks
under parent folder trak in reaps.
so name parent folder on lhs of reaps "LEAD VOCS".
then...child1...name take1
.......child2....name take1fx.
.......child3....name take2
.......child4....name take2fx
.......child5....name take 3
etc etc and...
1. experiment with reaps faders on lhs.
eg take1fx under take1 dry. also experiment with sliding traks. as i mentioned.
2. the above can be usefull in testing out fx, and see what might work.
3. dont forget the amp sims built into reaps.
used slightly under a dry voc trak can introduce character into vocs. its all experimental.
hth/ymmv
om

No, OM, I knew nothing about it. Thanks for the lowdown on that.
I have a few tracks I'm working on that will need some vocals next week and I'll try this, see what happens.

I've done six or seven songs lately (but only a couple use BiaB, so the others won't be posted here) and tried out some different approaches to vocals. I'm learning what sounds good to me and getting a little more comfortable recording vocals, so I expect to see a lot of improvement in vocal tracks over the next several months.

"Life is for learning."

I aint been around lately, just catching up on some good songs.

Sounds like grumpy fun1

moto

I aint been around lately, just catching up on some good songs.

Sounds like grumpy fun!

moto

Thanks!