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Old 06-27-2013, 01:21 PM   #1
RacerX29
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Default modern rock song and jazzy song created in Reaper

Backstory:
I've been lurking here for a couple of years, starting to post recently. In 2011, I fell in love with Reaper, bought it, and started recording. A friend of mine is a great lead vocalist - he sang Alice in Chains and Stone Temple Pilots cover tunes and everyone always loved hearing his performances.

Anyway, we started recording a few original songs, over two years ago, that I wrote. I let another friend of mine listen to the recordings. He is a very accomplished professional performer. He really liked our stuff and said we should do something with it. We were just messing around up to that point but his compliments completely shocked us. Well, we're trying to do something now.

The music:
Here's what we consider to be one of our best songs. (modern rock) It's not a complete file just 1:00 long but it should give you an idea.
http://condition3.net/01%20-%20Do%20...Bsample%5D.mp3

We are mainly into rock but venture into a bit of jazz-fusion with one pop tune mixed in.

Here's the jazzy song we do.
http://condition3.net/12%20-%20Look%...Bsample%5D.mp3

Let me know what you think.

Oh, I also have to give big props to yep for his thread on "ass" recordings here in the Reaper forums. That thread is awesome!
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Old 06-27-2013, 04:01 PM   #2
mschuster
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hey RacerX

you're right! that vocalist has got some great pipes! great tone to his voice.. i liked the clip. would have been nice to hear the whole thing..i think a bigger picture would have displayed itself. my only comment on the mix (if you're even looking for that...) is the guitars seemed a db or two too hot. the drums/bass, at least on my monitors, sounded buried. with that groove you've got going, the drums/bass would ignite it if they were a little more present. my .02

the jazzy piece was nice!
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Old 06-27-2013, 04:15 PM   #3
RacerX29
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mschuster View Post
hey RacerX

you're right! that vocalist has got some great pipes! great tone to his voice.. i liked the clip. would have been nice to hear the whole thing..i think a bigger picture would have displayed itself. my only comment on the mix (if you're even looking for that...) is the guitars seemed a db or two too hot. the drums/bass, at least on my monitors, sounded buried. with that groove you've got going, the drums/bass would ignite it if they were a little more present. my .02

the jazzy piece was nice!
Your 2 cents is worth a million to me. Really!

Thanks for the comments. I worked with mixing in Reaper for so long and I was trying to do it on my own to see how far I could get it.

I probably could have spent another year tweaking and testing on multiple systems. I am looking for critiques. Since this project is done, I am looking to make any future work better.

I have already learned better recording techniques and some of my newer stuff does sound better. I did those recordings over a year and a half ago and have been mixing ever since.

We made a decision to keep the samples short but I know the complete songs would give a better picture of the flow.

Thanks again!
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Old 07-16-2013, 02:06 PM   #4
RacerX29
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Here's our title song in complete form on Youtube, if anyone is interested.

Just some video while driving around Cleveland at night to bump with the music.

http://youtu.be/pQu6PQnkL9w
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Old 07-25-2013, 06:20 AM   #5
kindafishy
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Listened to the youtube post. I like the grooves you get into here, particularly in the verses. Reminds me a lot of stuff I was big into in the 90s.

I also like the subtle accent guitar(? - might be a synth) delivering the counter melody over the verses.

Good vocals all around. The chorus has a good contrast to the verse musically, especially the shift mono focus to stereo focus (I also like that you do this in the verse a / verse b transitions), but I was hoping for a bigger change in the vocal delivery here. The vocal melodies were sort of a continuation of the verses, and could have potentially gone futher with melody, phrasing or intensity. Still, the vocals are strong. Nice tone.

Good effort all around. I don't really have any nits on the mix. It's quite a dense piece and must have been a challenge in getting everything heard, which you did well.
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Old 07-25-2013, 07:39 AM   #6
RacerX29
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Thank you for the compliments and critiques. I really appreciate you taking the time to listen.

That was one of the first songs I wrote. There are just two of us, the lead singer and myself. I write the songs, record the music, and then I put down the vocals with my voice as a road map. I am not a singer by any means. So, that really limited where I went with the notes.

You are exactly right that there isn't enough change during the chorus to make it feel like a chorus. My friend, the lead singer, has a great range that I just didn't take advantage of when deciding on the notes.

I've been trying to improve my vocal range so that I can do better road maps for the songs we create. I've also made an effort to let my friend push the vocals into a range where I can't go but he has no problem with. I'm now singing some of the song ideas that I write with a terrible falsetto voice just to show my friend where I think the notes should be. I'm sure it was painful for him to listen to but luckily no one else will ever hear that.

As for the accents, there are some guitar accents and an underlying synth throughout the whole song.

Lots of people we know have been saying that we have a 90's vibe. That's kind of what our influences are. Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, and stuff like that.

Thanks again!
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