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sewa · Platinum Member Joined: 06 Feb 2004 Posts: 1293

Hmm, I thought I posted my comments yesterday but I must have clicked a wrong button or something because its just not there...

So to sum it up - that was fun! Thats my first impression. Another impression is that the mix quality is good. By that I don't just mean your mastering skills but the arrangement as a whole. Your older mixes (the ones you would post during the last OSAM for instance) were a bit overloaded, in the sense that there were too many things going on at the same time. This one, on the other hand, feels right. The vocals were nice too although I need to listen to the lirycs more carefully. The "annual sex" is the main theme that stays in my head for the moment Laughing

sewa

georgeinar · Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 11:51 pm Post subject:

Diego, I understand what you're saying, and I'm trying to learn how to master the Triton Studio sounds to have more in your face sound, but it comes off being a bit soft at times. Still I wanted a happy hard-working song about a lizard who is lonely and want to live on earth, so it's a hopeful tune.

Sewa, I am trying to keep my arrangements focused. I believe I am trying to stay true to my synth and what I can do with my limited voice. So I'm trying to do just 10 or so music tracks and simply get the most from them without adding tons of clutter. Now I won't say I won't regress, but it's interesting that you read my mind exactly here. I actually was trying to do more with this piece but I kept editing until I had something which seemed to hold together cohesively and make a simple basic statement. Considering I had it with a lizard slave on Mars this was no easy task. But the annual sex part was a joke I made up at work and I embarrassed people by going up to them and saying, at my age I only have sex annually, and they would just look at me and then laugh and say, did I hear you right? Was there a "u" in that word. And we had a good laugh everytime. So I promised them I would make a song out of that joke and here it is. It was going to be about communist behind the iron curtain, but it ended up on Mars instead.

Stephen: Thanks for stopping by and commenting. We miss you in the OSAM. It's still not too late you can slip a song in under the wire. Either way, I'm glad you got to hear this. It is certainly on another planet in more ways than one. And I rewrote the lyrics like 4 times and the bridge took 3 complete passes before I was satisfied. I really want you to help me on my next song though. It's a very slow smooth electro ballad, the type I could hear you on. In fact I should get you on a guitar solo. It's about how hard it is to say goodbye to people and it's a real tear jerker but with a definte 80's synth pop new wave flair. Hopefully. Anyway, that one you will have some serious comments on as you're so experienced with smooth sounds in music.
_________________
George Nelson is 2loose
http://www.cdbaby.com/artist/2loose for my cds
http://www.soundclick.com/2loose or follow my tweets = 2loose_buzzgoth (twitter name)

Stephen · Platinum Member Joined: 28 Aug 2002 Posts: 4709

chordial · Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 2:25 am Post subject:

Cool song George,
Love the 80's influences with a more modern feel, and there's your lyrical twist for good measure.
The production does sound very clear, great work considering some of the heavier sounds you've used.
Great concept too, a hard working day dreaming lizard on Mars, lol, great stuff!
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Chordial

georgeinar · Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:15 am Post subject:

Stephen, what I may do is send you the basic song without the lead part and see what you come up with. I'm not so sure this song will fit on my cd as the concept is not with the rest of the vibe there and so we could maybe just do a collab piece for fun. Or I could showcase you as a guest guitarist on the cd, heck I don't make any money off these things anyway.
_________________
George Nelson is 2loose
http://www.cdbaby.com/artist/2loose for my cds
http://www.soundclick.com/2loose or follow my tweets = 2loose_buzzgoth (twitter name)

Diego · Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 8:29 am Post subject:

ellll · Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 8:42 pm Post subject:

Well,

I have found more in this than with the first listening...It really seems quite mature now (I think more than THE SONGS on the album I played ALL the way to my Western hopes...Up Against the Wall)..(I love the West, you know!!!..), along with a bunch of electronica I like....I got quite used to it..

Only you know how much you have actually strengthened your themes...but thats what it seems to me...Mature...

Best Regards!!! ellll (John) Rolling Eyes

georgeinar · Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 11:48 pm Post subject:

Thank you Ellll, I do believe that each cd is a leap forward. My last one is technically far superior to my first and more focused. I hope this new cd will build on that experience. Also, this time is the second go with the same software. My first 2 cds were filled with learning curve with my TS and my pc software. Now I'm getting better and faster at mixing and mastering. It's a bit less painful than before.
_________________
George Nelson is 2loose
http://www.cdbaby.com/artist/2loose for my cds
http://www.soundclick.com/2loose or follow my tweets = 2loose_buzzgoth (twitter name)

unimon · Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 8:38 am Post subject: Mars

Hello George,
Fun song, both soundwise and lyrics. I liked the vocal effects at the ending. I could see a "dance" version of this tune, an ep cranked up with that last part extended.
Regards,
Tom

georgeinar · Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 1:23 pm Post subject:

Hey, that re-dub is one hot idea. Maybe I'll take you up on it and make that a later song when I run dry of new ideas. The song I'm working on for March started out sounding like one of your tunes only with some electronica thrown in. You'll probably find it quite a departure from my usual stuff.
_________________
George Nelson is 2loose
http://www.cdbaby.com/artist/2loose for my cds
http://www.soundclick.com/2loose or follow my tweets = 2loose_buzzgoth (twitter name)

Stephen · Platinum Member Joined: 28 Aug 2002 Posts: 4709

georgeinar · Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 3:24 am Post subject:

Well, for my part the ballad is finished but I haven't posted it yet waiting for March to kick in. But maybe I'll put it up in sounclick where you could download it. Would you be able to work off an mp3? It's probably not quite as high quality as a wav but I could record it at the highest resolution, what is that, 320 or something. You could at least listen to it and start figuring out how best to add guitar. Most of the instrumentation is very synth and electronic sounding, but there is an "acoustic" piano, so you may have liberty to add whatever guitar sound blends the best. I should probably upload the complete piece with the leads so you can hear where I'm going with this. Also, the lead parts are not too dominate so you may be able to intersperse some guitar melodies woven into the tapestry of what I've done. Let me know if an mp3 works and I"ll upload it. Even if you decide you want me to send you the wav file, you could at least practice the chord progressions and the arrangement.
_________________
George Nelson is 2loose
http://www.cdbaby.com/artist/2loose for my cds
http://www.soundclick.com/2loose or follow my tweets = 2loose_buzzgoth (twitter name)

Daz · Retired Joined: 01 Jan 2002 Posts: 10829

Hi George,

What a great way to kick things off Smile

Here's some brief feedback between work tasks ...

I did my usual "listening twice" practice; first as a listener and then a second time round with a techy ear.

As a listener I enjoyed the track as piece of music and was definitely kept interested by all the change-ups etc. So good work with the songwriting, arrangement and choice of sounds. I struggles a little to arrange things and keep up the interest, so I was definitely struck by all the work you did there.

On my techy listen I was struck by the fact that there appears to be more space and more differentiation between the parts in the mix than I remember from some of the previous work you've posted. The vocal sounded fine to me. Although it is dry, it does sound like it is "sitting" in the piece correctly. I tend to find that if a vocal is too dry it will sound like it is not really part of the overall song, but has simply been recorded over the top of the backing. This doesn't sound that way, in part because everything else is quite dry too (maybe the reason for the clearer separation I mentioned above).

The mix overall is quite "middy" (frequency wise) ... that's a tricky thing to comment on, because it can be deliberate stylistic choice or something that's accidentally happened when you were looking for a fuller mix but your monitors are deceiving you some Wink

If it's not stylistic, you have some more room there for even more separation/clarity of parts. Does that make sense.

On another note, I'd love to contribute some electric guitar parts to one your songs as some point Smile

I mean actually playing the guitar rather than a synth ...

Daz.

georgeinar · Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 11:48 pm Post subject:

Daz, thank you for such positive comments overall. I am trying to do less bottom heavy stuff and I noticed with a lot of industrial it is in the medium freqs the most. I also have virtually no base line on purpose which also opens up the bottom. As for the mastering, I'm doing more on the TS and less on the PC, as I've noticed that I can tweak better with more control on the TS and I only really apply effects to those tracks which need something special outside the five inserts you can use on the TS. However, I'm noticing that some of my TS insert effects are superior to some of my pc plugins so I may do some tracks separately, but on the TS using 5 + 2 effects and then recombining the tracks on the PC. I may even try this with my vocals because they are the trickiest and yet I love the reverbs and delays on the TS they sound so smooth and clean. And since I"m actually doing the final mix on the pc, I can separate out certain tracks and apply effects specific to them and then load them into soundforge and audacity where I'm currently mixing my tracks.

As for adding guitar, intersting. Stephen wants to work on my new ballad, but I don't see why you couldn't download my Mines of Mars or another older one and take a guitar whack at it. Some of my tunes may not be that easy to jam on as I do it all measure by measure in the the sequencer so some of the changes are a bit bizarre. Actually, now that you brought it up. AFter the ballad I may be posting an electro rock and roll space boogey. That would be hoot with a real guitar. We'll see what happens.
_________________
George Nelson is 2loose
http://www.cdbaby.com/artist/2loose for my cds
http://www.soundclick.com/2loose or follow my tweets = 2loose_buzzgoth (twitter name)

georgeinar · Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2008 11:15 pm Post subject:

I played around with some distortion effects and some reverb so I'm wondering if this improves the overall sound. There is more grunge on the guitarish synth and the voice is less dry. I tried to up the lows in the bass area just a bit too. Although this song really has no bass track. Maybe it needs one? I was thinking of some of Prince's songs that had no bass and how it improved the punch of the drums. Also Jonsolo had suggested changing up the voice on the chorus so i put on a delay effect on "sex annually" section?? Any thoughts? I still have the orig in case I've made it worse.

http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=6211592&q=hi
_________________
George Nelson is 2loose
http://www.cdbaby.com/artist/2loose for my cds
http://www.soundclick.com/2loose or follow my tweets = 2loose_buzzgoth (twitter name)