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Just a couple of weeks ago I bought Synthesizer V from Dreamtronics along with voices Kevin and Natalie. It's pretty exciting because this purchase will now allow me to finish off a few songs I've got sitting in my ‘waiting to be processed’ folder.

“Seven Years” was written over the course of two to three months as I travelled to and fro from work a couple of years ago. This vocal synth is incredible. “Seven Years” is my first effort with it and quite honestly, I’m amazed at what it can do.



I hope you enjoy it. Please feel free to comment in any way on any aspect of the production or song. I'm still very much a novice when it comes to using vocal synths.


BIAB Band
Base Style: _FLYHIGH Demo - Fly High Ethereal Country Ballad
Bass: RT 366 Bass, Electric, Country Ev 065
Piano: RT 1542 Piano, Acoustic, Rhythm PopBelieve Ev16 06
Guitar: RT 3344 Guitar, Electric, Rhythm HazyBallad ev16 070
Guitar Solo: RT 3196 Guitar, Electric, Soloist PopBalladBrent Ev 065
Drums: RealDrums NashvilleEven16^2-SideStck,Hhat
Vocals: Kevin and Synthesizer V

Processing
Vocals: Nectar 3 (VST3)
Bass: processed with Renaissance Bass (VST3)
Piano: processed with Chris Lord-Alge Unplugged (VST3)
Guitar: processed with Chris Lord-Alge Guitars (VST3)
Mastering: Ozone 10


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Noel,

Hard to believe that this is your first effort with Kevin. It's the best Kevin I've heard (I think). He sounds REAL. In fact, there are spots that he almost sounds like he comes close to being slightly off-key (and, therefore...real sounding).
It occurred to me the one thing that gives-it-away (if it does) is that there are no breath sounds.

A beautiful melody!

A nice production. Excellent mix.

A terrific listen.
Nice to see a new post from you.
Hope all is well with you...

fj

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Hi Noel,

I do agree with floyd this is a good sounding Kevin.
You must have had a lot of work to make it sound like this!
The song itself can use some more excitement, like breaks or a transposition.
The melody is very nice, but a bit predictable, so think about my 3rd line ;-)

Hope to hear more from you,
Hans


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What Floyd said smile

I've rarely heard a Kevin song where he sounds convincing, you did really well here.
Of course, giving him a well written and well produced song helps a lot.
Enjoyed the listen!


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Noel,

This is beautiful.

Yes, that vocal synth sounds very lifelike. You certainly know what you are doing.

Nice to see you again. Great song!

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Noel,
I good to hear something from you again.

I enjoyed the song immensely.

Kevin sound too real. He's has a bit of an unpolished quality to his performance, which makes it sound authentic.

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Originally Posted by floyd jane
Noel,

Hard to believe that this is your first effort with Kevin. It's the best Kevin I've heard (I think). He sounds REAL. In fact, there are spots that he almost sounds like he comes close to being slightly off-key (and, therefore...real sounding).
It occurred to me the one thing that gives-it-away (if it does) is that there are no breath sounds.

A beautiful melody!

A nice production. Excellent mix.

A terrific listen.
Nice to see a new post from you.
Hope all is well with you...

fj
Hi floyd.

Thanks heaps for having a listen and taking time to comment. That's a good point about breaths and something I'll take on-board. At this stage, I'm climbing up the learning-curve mountain and the summit still seems to be a long way off. I'll get there eventually, I hope. A couple of days ago I accidentally discovered the phoneme for breathing and I still need to start playing around with it.

All is travelling okay. Thanks for asking. I hope that things are going well for you in your part of the world.

All the best and thanks again,
--Noel


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Hi, Noel.

Nice write and melody - I enjoyed the song!

I think the vocal works well. I find that Kevin is a bit... flat when he sings. Not in terms of pitch, but energy. The female voices don't seem to have quite that same problem, and I don't know if I've got any good work-arounds. I posted a few ideas on the SynthV forum.

I'm not a fan of using words like "shall" when the other lyrics are less formal - it feels tonally off to me. Then again, lyrics and music are a heightened language anyway, so... whatever works for you.

As cliche as it is, perhaps a key change would bring some lift that Kevin's voice doesn't. Then again, there's really nothing fundamentally wrong here, so feel free to ignore the suggestion!

Nice work! laugh


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Vocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?
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Originally Posted by Birchwood
Hi Noel,

I do agree with floyd this is a good sounding Kevin.
You must have had a lot of work to make it sound like this!
The song itself can use some more excitement, like breaks or a transposition.
The melody is very nice, but a bit predictable, so think about my 3rd line ;-)

Hope to hear more from you,
Hans
Hi Hans.

It's great to hear from you. I hope that things are sailing along smoothly for you. Thanks for listening. Also, thank you for your thoughts. I always appreciate your insight.

I understand completely what you are saying and I fully agree with you. The song definitely lacks excitement and drama. That might be because I wrote this song as an insight into the loss that people feel when those close to them leave (for whatever reason). From the start, I set out to make the song calm and reflective. From what you say, it sounds like I might have achieved that goal to some extent.

Thanks again for taking the time!
--Noel


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Originally Posted by B.D.Thomas
What Floyd said smile

I've rarely heard a Kevin song where he sounds convincing, you did really well here.
Of course, giving him a well written and well produced song helps a lot.
Enjoyed the listen!
Hi BD.

Thank you. I'm glad you found a few minutes to take time out and have a listen. Much appreciated. And thanks for saying those kind things about my song smile

All the best,
--Noel


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Originally Posted by David Snyder
Noel,

This is beautiful.

Yes, that vocal synth sounds very lifelike. You certainly know what you are doing.

Nice to see you again. Great song!
Hi David.

It's always excellent to see you. Thanks for your comments. To be honest, with the vocal softsynth, I really don't know what I'm doing so I'm glad I managed to convince you that I do know! All I'm doing at the moment is tweaking sliders, numbers and phonemes here and there and trying to get Synth V to match the sound that I'm hearing in my head. It's like working on an audio jigsaw puzzle. I'm hoping that one day I'll understand it all.

Thanks again and happy songwriting!
--Noel


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Originally Posted by Ezekiel's Storm
Noel,
I good to hear something from you again.

I enjoyed the song immensely.

Kevin sound too real. He's has a bit of an unpolished quality to his performance, which makes it sound authentic.

Hi there!

It's good to see that you are still on the forum smile I'm really glad you liked the song. Thanks having a listen and for passing on your opinion. I appreciate it.

Best regards,
--Noel


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Originally Posted by dcuny
Hi, Noel.

Nice write and melody - I enjoyed the song!

I think the vocal works well. I find that Kevin is a bit... flat when he sings. Not in terms of pitch, but energy. The female voices don't seem to have quite that same problem, and I don't know if I've got any good work-arounds. I posted a few ideas on the SynthV forum.

I'm not a fan of using words like "shall" when the other lyrics are less formal - it feels tonally off to me. Then again, lyrics and music are a heightened language anyway, so... whatever works for you.

As cliche as it is, perhaps a key change would bring some lift that Kevin's voice doesn't. Then again, there's really nothing fundamentally wrong here, so feel free to ignore the suggestion!

Nice work! laugh
Hi David,

It's always a pleasure to hear from you.

Thank you so much for all the information you posted on the Synth V forum. That has helped me understand the mechanics of the software a whole heap more smile I'm sincerely grateful. It's been fun playing around with Kevin.

Interestingly, from what you say about "shall", I suspect that it's used differently in Britain than it is in the US.

These days in Australia, we are equally influenced by both Britain and the US. While I was growing up, though, the British influence dominated. Although "shall" has gradually become replaced with "will", in my English lessons at school, I learnt that "I/we shall" is merely a statement of fact about doing something in the future. "I/we will", on the other hand, contains the notion of a promise or a commitment to doing something in the future. In second/third person, "You/he/she/they shall (do something)" was a command and "You/he/she/they will" was a statement of fact about doing some future act. When the contraction «'ll» is used, most people think it is solely "will" but it is equally representative of "shall". You might be interested in the article below. It sheds a little bit of light on this.

https://www.usingenglish.com/articles/using-shall-in-british-english.html

Thanks for the tip about keys. I didn't play around with keys when I was putting this together. I simply kept it in the key that I would have sung it in. I should have been more adventurous! That's definitely something I'll keep in mind in the future.

Thank you very much for all your help so far.
--Noel


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Noel,

Wow! This is spectacular. A great song and excellent use of Synthesizer V. Everything sounds so natural and unforced. Perfect mix as well.

Great to see you in the User Showcase again.

Bob

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Excellent job with Kevin, Noel. Kevin & Natalie are becoming two of my snyth favs for sure. Man, if you have more in the "waiting to be processed" folder, we here are all in for a treat. This is such a beautiful song and should never sit alone in a discarded folder.


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Very well done.

The details matter with the synths. the key is very important to all of the synths to have them sound their absolute best.

This was a good job on the song and using the synth


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Noel, the first time using this vocal synth? WOW you did a fantastic job on it!
Kevin sounds so real it is scary.
Great backing tracks and mix also.
Awesome job!


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Originally Posted by rsdean
Noel,

Wow! This is spectacular. A great song and excellent use of Synthesizer V. Everything sounds so natural and unforced. Perfect mix as well.

Great to see you in the User Showcase again.

Bob

Hi Bob smile

It's good to be back. Synth V has inspired to write some music again!
Thanks for taking the time to have a listen. I appreciate it.
All the best,
--Noel


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Originally Posted by BabuMusic
Excellent job with Kevin, Noel. Kevin & Natalie are becoming two of my snyth favs for sure. Man, if you have more in the "waiting to be processed" folder, we here are all in for a treat. This is such a beautiful song and should never sit alone in a discarded folder.

Hi Marty.

It's good to see you. Thanks for dropping in.

I actually do have a couple more songs awaiting Synth V. I've set them aside for the moment and I'm presently working on a Natalie and Kevin duet of a song I wrote six or seven years ago. When I tame Synth V and get the two vocalists under control, I'll post my final effort!

I appreciate your comments smile

Thanks again,
--Noel


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Originally Posted by Guitarhacker
Very well done.

The details matter with the synths. the key is very important to all of the synths to have them sound their absolute best.

This was a good job on the song and using the synth

Hi Herb.

Thanks for taking time to have a listen. And thank you also for getting my first interested in Synth V. It was after hearing "Pass It On" in the below thread that I was inspired to look at what Synth V can do.

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=768934#Post768934

You opened doors into a new world for me and I'm really grateful.

All the best,
--Noel


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