Feedback - Cover Challenge N

idiotwind

I don't feel particularly qualified to start handing out criticisms of what other people have done, but I'll mention two little things that caught my ear enough to sway me from voting for the song.

First has been mentioned already, but @TTony I found the guitar too dry and it was slightly distracting when it went to absolute silence at the stops.  As @monquixote suggested, maybe just a touch of reverb to make it sound more natural.

Second is @stickyfiddle on Not Strong Enough, I thought the vocal sounded slightly muffled, like there was a blanket over it.

I'm happy to get some feedback on mine.  I enjoy doing these, knowing I'll never win as I can't sing and there are many here who can.  I've been getting much more into things like compression.  I also now always do an initial export of the mix and load it into a mastering template that includes a limiter and a maximiser set to -11 LUFS so that all mine come out at a consistent level.

Like @TTony I'll add my own thoughts on my tracks

Nashville West/Never Gonna Give You Up
I guess Rickrolls are a bit passé in 2024.  Nashville West started with transcribing the drum and bass parts from the Live at the Fillmore 1969 version.  I enjoy transcribing drum parts, though it can be time consuming.  I think I got this bit done back during the J or K challenge (I'm a forward planner).  The main tele part is straightforward enough, though I find the bend from 2 to 4 on the G string tough and listening back I think some are a bit flat.  There's then a behind the nut bend on the top string (tuned down to D) which is good fun but again a little tough to keep accurate.  I set it aside because after a couple of goes round it gets a bit looser improvised and I couldn't do it justice.  So when I later decided on NGGYU I thought it was an opportunity to stick on the first minute as a tease.

Never Gonna Give You Up was meant to be a fairly tongue in cheek club singer version.  I picked a nicely cheesy Hammond organ tone, but feel I didn't commit enough to the character for the vocals.  Listening back I can hear myself running out of steam.  The little segue into Eight Miles High for the break was just for my own amusement and the fact that it'll be years before we get back to E.  That's an acoustic 12 string with some fiddling - since recording I've bought one of those Squier Jazzmaster XIIs.

Nine Times Blue
This was a fairly late decision to do.  I got introduced to the song via my Youtube feed, a version done by the Monkees on the Johnny Cash show with just an acoustic guitar.  I thought it was great so worked out the chords from the video and recorded it.  I then dug around various other versions of the song, both demo versions and from Michael Nesmith's solo career.  There's two tele parts, an electric piano and an organ.  I then spent a long (really long) time on the vocals, transcribing the harmony and really trying to hit the notes.  There's a couple of lines where I don't quite know how he sings it in one breath, and I can hear myself running out.  I struggled a bit with the reverb on the guitar and vocals and am concerned that the mix in general is a bit cluttered with the various instruments sat on top of each other.  I have to record acoustic guitar with my mic (a £18 SM57 clone) and it just never sounds quite good enough.

No Limit
No effort either.  A goof that started with a beat I put together with something else in mind.  Single take on the guitar, then a load of different pads and synths found in Analog Lab.  Again, single run throughs with lots of wiggling of the mod wheel and pitch bend.  My only regret is forgetting to put in "techno techno techno techno"

stickyfiddle

I don't think I can add much to what's already been said, but here goes: 

 @monquixote Your voice is way better than you think it is and anyone who said otherwise in the past is a dickhead. 

New Test Leper
- I don't love the leslie guitar sound. Maybe just a smidge high in the mix for me, particularly the first time it arrives 
- try opening your mouth a little wider than feels natural when you sing (*super* picky mode here...) 

Neverending Beast
- this just works so well. I wonder if putting it up a 3rd or so would suit your vocal range better, but otherwise no notes


@thecolourbox ;
Numb 
Really great arrangement. Vocals occasionally seem a little rushed. It's ok to take it a line at a time and focus on breathing and delivery. Realising how easy it is to do that and what a difference it can make to the end result is a gamechanger 

Northern Sky 
Vocal is a little more wobbly here but Numb shows how much more you can push without it sounding raucous - just as Monq you've got more in the tank than you probably realise  

Needle of Death
Vocal suits this really well. I'd love to hear the guitar with a little less reverb - not sure if that's from the room or post, but ideally my instinct on this would be to record guitar & vocal both dry and only put reverb on at the master bus


@TTony
No More Hereoes
Loved the vibe on this. Synth in particularly is great and vocal is fab - really works for the track. 

No Moon in Paris
Not my favourite song but executed v well. I really love the strings/wind. Slight guitar tuning issue - D string sharp I think? 

Never Going Back
Great song choice and lovely playing. I agree with @fnpt on the silences between phrases. Feels like it needs at least a bit of reverb tail carrying through those. 


@fnpt
NIB 
Just great. I honestly wondered at times if you'd just pinched Ozzy's vocal 

@stickyfiddle ;
Not Strong Enough
- I did this before attacking my band's recent recording session and really getting to grips with how to mix shit better (which has been a combo of a tonne of reading and a lot of youtube as well as 20+ hours in Logic...)
- Not thrilled with the vocal in retrospect, particularly the mix of the lead line in verse 2 and the outro. As noted above this one is brutal for a baritone. I was very happy with the harmonies at least. I bloody love singing harmonies.
- Electric guitar is a tiny bit busy & aimless in chorus 2
- I'm very happy with the drum performance itself but fully agree that the kick is lost rather than giving punch, almost to the point that I wonder if I switched something off by mistake. 
- I could now fix the mixing stuff in literally 10 mins so might try a refreshed mix when I get the chance. 

Nude
- Very happy overall but I don't like the vocal that much, particularly the long and exposed "You'll go to hell..." line which is just absurdly hard to sing
- Snare volume is probably fine in terms of db but EQ is definitely too boomy. Rolling off some of the lows would help it a lot
- Guitars were a lot of fun here - this stuff is my happy place. Main plucked part just a dead simple ES-355 into (iirc) Deluxe Reverb in Helix. Then in one channel there's the shimmery thing which is one of the Helix reverbs plus an octave, and the other channel has something similar with my trusty EB volume pedal which I honestly hadn't used in 10 years but I used to do loads similar. Big fun getting all of those parts to play nicely with each other. 

I have 60+ songs in a playlist for potential O options. Trying not to repeat styles too much so thinking maybe a bit of Motown and/or classic rock. I may also rope in one of the girls from my band.  We'll see... 

TTony

Thanks for the feedback comments @stickyfiddle ;

stickyfiddle said:

I have 60+ songs in a playlist for potential O options. 

Have you nominated one yet as the default track for the challenge?

fnpt

Btw, many thanks to @Bezzer , @thecolourbox , @mrkb for kindly providing killing vocals to some of my submissions.

stickyfiddle

TTony said:

Thanks for the feedback comments @stickyfiddle ;

stickyfiddle said:

I have 60+ songs in a playlist for potential O options. 

Have you nominated one yet as the default track for the challenge?

I have! New thread will be forthcoming, I'm sure

thecolourbox

stickyfiddle said:

@thecolourbox ;;;
Numb 
Really great arrangement. Vocals occasionally seem a little rushed. It's ok to take it a line at a time and focus on breathing and delivery. Realising how easy it is to do that and what a difference it can make to the end result is a gamechanger 

Northern Sky 
Vocal is a little more wobbly here but Numb shows how much more you can push without it sounding raucous - just as Monq you've got more in the tank than you probably realise  

Needle of Death
Vocal suits this really well. I'd love to hear the guitar with a little less reverb - not sure if that's from the room or post, but ideally my instinct on this would be to record guitar & vocal both dry and only put reverb on at the master bus

Re my recording methods - i tend to like to do as much of the singing and playing in one take as possible, for my own satisfaction. Hence the chorus of Numb is actually one of the first things I've done where I've recorded one line at a time and I hated it. It feels like saying I've done a marathon when actually I've just done 26x 1 mile runs over a period of time. I'm never going to need to release these to anybody so I don't think I can really be bothered with doing one line at at time to be honest! 

Your point re Needle of Death and recording guitars then vocals - I struggle with this. If it's playing to click then yeah it's fine but I don't do that for the guitar+vocals songs so the only way to get my timing how I'd like it is to do both at the same time. I pull m timing all over the place if left to my own devices because of my classical piano background where flexible timing is vital to performing. The New World one I did was problematic with that as well, as it's really hard to stay in time with a "rubato" style accompaniment when you're recording over the top of it. I don't know what the answer is to how to do that as I've scrapped loads of songs because I don't know how to do proper natural tempo changes that would be easily done in a live playing situation

stickyfiddle said:

I have 60+ songs in a playlist for potential O options. 

O is looking like a particularly barren letter for me to be honest, only 6 in my playlist of possibles and I don't really much like the idea of more than 2 of them - one of which my vocals won't work for, and the other one I don't think I'll be able to get the drums sounding any good so you may all be treated to a Colourbox free cover challenge this time around haha

idiotwind

@TTony are you able to add my tracks to the playlist?  I would quite like some feedback as well if that's ok with everyone?

monquixote

stickyfiddle said:

I don't think I can add much to what's already been said, but here goes: 

 @monquixote Your voice is way better than you think it is and anyone who said otherwise in the past is a dickhead. 

New Test Leper
- I don't love the leslie guitar sound. Maybe just a smidge high in the mix for me, particularly the first time it arrives 
- try opening your mouth a little wider than feels natural when you sing (*super* picky mode here...) 

Neverending Beast
- this just works so well. I wonder if putting it up a 3rd or so would suit your vocal range better, but otherwise no notes

Thanks man, (especially the first comment, I needed that)


The key for Neverending Beast was a problem. 
Neverending Story is in C, but is too high for me and too low an Octave down.
Number of the Beast is in D 
As a result I put Neverending story up a tone, but sang it an octave lower than the recording. 
As you say I probably could have done with putting it up at least another tone, but then you get problems with some of the guitar (it already has a bend on the 22nd fret in the solo) 
It's almost like those songs weren't meant to go together 

stickyfiddle

monquixote said:

stickyfiddle said:

I don't think I can add much to what's already been said, but here goes: 

 @monquixote Your voice is way better than you think it is and anyone who said otherwise in the past is a dickhead. 

New Test Leper
- I don't love the leslie guitar sound. Maybe just a smidge high in the mix for me, particularly the first time it arrives 
- try opening your mouth a little wider than feels natural when you sing (*super* picky mode here...) 

Neverending Beast
- this just works so well. I wonder if putting it up a 3rd or so would suit your vocal range better, but otherwise no notes

Thanks man, (especially the first comment, I needed that)


The key for Neverending Beast was a problem. 
Neverending Story is in C, but is too high for me and too low an Octave down.
Number of the Beast is in D 
As a result I put Neverending story up a tone, but sang it an octave lower than the recording. 
As you say I probably could have done with putting it up at least another tone, but then you get problems with some of the guitar (it already has a bend on the 22nd fret in the solo) 
It's almost like those songs weren't meant to go together 

Honestly finding a key that works on both guitar and vox without also sounding weird is half of my issues… 

Thats the main reason why I’m happy to keep 3 singers (and me) in my band - between a baritone, an alto and a soprano we can pretty much make anything work without changing key! 

TTony

idiotwind said:

are you able to add my tracks to the playlist?  I would quite like some feedback as well if that's ok with everyone?

I certainly am - and have done @idiotwind ;

TTony

@idiotwind ;

I can't really add anything to your own self-criticism!  

I liked the creativity of the tracks/arrangements, but - as you said yourself - vocals aren't your strong point.  And I completely empathise as I find the singing by far the hardest part of these challenges.  I guess that's why there are more instrument-players than vocalists in most bands!  You can obviously sing in tune though, so practice, strengthening your voice and getting the breathing right (another part I struggle with), are all things that are perfectly do-able. 

Also, just a little intimidating that you managed to pick up 1,100+ plays for the first track    you've either got a big fanbase out there, or there was something in the track that the SoundCloud algorithms loved.