Song for my Daughter

joshofalltrades

I'm posting this song that I wrote for my new daughter 8 months before she was born in the hopes that you all have some good advice.

On Your Way, electric demo mix

Just a heads up before the onslaught:

Things I already know:

1) The drums are not very interesting. I'm not a drummer, but I don't know any other musicians around where I live and so every instrument you hear was recorded by me.

2) My voice just inherently sounds like I'm 15 years old. I'm 27 next month. Sorry for the eternal youth.

3) The mix sucks ass. This is one of the things I was hoping to get constructive criticism on; I was never an audio engineer.

4) The guitar solo needs to be redone, I was thinking of trying a harmonica instead since that's the instrument I am actually known for.

5) The lyrics are cliche. I wasn't trying to reach a wellspring of deep thoughts, I just wanted to write a sweet song for my daughter.

Now that you all think I'm going to be horribly defensive, please do tell me how to make it better.

Allan

If I were your daughter and you were my father I would be so impressed.

I can't really offer criticism since it sounds good to me (other than the quality of the recording) but I, too, have no idea about mixing blah blah blah.

Also I dig the guitar solo, but a harmonica might be cool too, I guess?

Edit: also the line about tiny hands and tiny eyes is creepy, imo. Dunno why, since it is also accurate.

RubberAC

joshofalltrades wrote: »

5) The lyrics are cliche. I wasn't trying to reach a wellspring of deep thoughts, I just wanted to write a sweet song for my daughter.

If this is what you really wanted to do, stop worrying. This is great, Allan's right, if i was your daughter I'd be thrilled

Mustang

Snot bad, however it's very thin, you need some bottom end on it. Do you have access to a bass or a piano to compliment it? Drums okay, they need to be turned up a bit though, and once again they sound a little trebbly.

All in all the composition is fine (good length too), just needs some touching up in the recording.

joshofalltrades

Thanks everybody, after lurking around this place for a while I was expecting some nastiness along with the genuine criticism.

One of the problems is that I don't have studio quality monitors or headphones, just the crap I've got at church. I used Cubasis VST (I think...) and recorded my vocals double-tracked with one take panned to the left and one to the right. I had troubles getting the same mix when exporting this particular file because I was a retard and exported mono when the mix was stereo. I fixed the problem and then the vocals were buried in the mix. GRAR.

I'll get a good mix sometime soon and upload that. In the meantime, I have a song with a horrible vocal take that I recorded in order to try something more bare-bones and melancholy.

My ReverbNation page

The song I'm speaking of is Half a Man. Perfect is a horrid 4-chord love song abomination I wrote when I was 18 years old. The only good part of that song is the harmonica solo, which I actually think is pretty badass. If you can endure the crap to get to it, give that one a listen too.

Aronaxx

In response to the first song, I agree with Mustang, if you layered some more sounds in the back, it would really help. I feel like the guitar riffs themselves are really well done, remind me something of Dinosaur Jr.

Overall, it's a damn good start, you just have to do a bit of tweaking.

I'm just throwing this out there, but maybe if you opened with just the drums for a few seconds, sort of just the one sound to focus on, and then came in with the guitar, it might add a little something.

All that being said, I really like the song so far.

joshofalltrades

Thanks, I will try to get some work done on it this weekend.

Anybody listen to the other song? I plan on re-recording it soon and would like suggestions. The vocal take on that recording sucks major colon; it was a one microphone, one take sort of recording.

AgentofOrange

I'm sorry that I can't offer much more criticism, but I just wanted to jump in here and say that I really liked the song a whole lot. It was very sweet.

southernmagnus

The best way to deal with a mix is to go work on something else for a bit, go listen to something else for a bit, and come back a couple weeks later.

With your own voice on there, it's very hard to be objective, but some time/distance between the recording sesh and the mix should do the trick as much as possible.

Keep writing/recording.

joshofalltrades

Thanks, I'm going to take one more crack at it this week.