Song is called Vista. www.myspace.com/larrylevin or www.reverbnation.com/larrylevin

Drums painted by mouse generated by PSR-S900
Bass painted by mouse generated by Novation soft synth
Piano and vibraphone performed on PSR-S900
Real acoustic and electric guitars
Vocal harmonies created in Melodyne Celemony 3 Studio.

I would love to get feedback on this one. I'm waiting to get a subwoofer (Behringer B2092A) shipped to me so that I can get a more balanced mix. Hope you like it.

Beakybird

The tune seemed pretty cool...definately has your mark on it...

The thing that stands out to me is how much your intonation has improved.

On my low end computer speakers the bass is dominating the mix...


Good work with that...

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Bill in Dayton

Great tune, Beaky...really nice hook and nicely balanced verse and chorus, both contributing equally to the song's message.

Harmonies well chosen and situated.

I don't usually comment on vocal tunes, but this one really caught my ear.

Very professional work.

Ian

I loved it Larry!

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God Bless,
Mikey

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Yeah, this got my juices flowing, Larry... Much better than the last one, IMO.

However, I'm going to offer one criticism, if you don't mind. I think it is time to collaborate with someone about the drums. Painting by mouse is a pretty difficult way to get a good drum track in this genre, even with the S900 drum track as a starting spot. The area that blows it for me are the fills. Listen to ELO, or the Beatles (once again, you seem fairly grounded in their harmonic structure and arrangements) and try to spot two identical fills. You won't find them. Grooves, on the whole, will stay consistent, and song 'signature' fills like the opening pickup will also get played repeatedly. But you'll rarely find a fill other than those that remains the same for the song.

This is the bane of arranger production, and the reason why I always cry out for more fills from arranger manufacturers. A real drummer will take pride in making each fill musically independent, all the while fitting the song at each point. Repeated fills are the signature of automated production, and often lead to inappropriate moments. Believe it or not, a GOOD drummer will adjust his fills depending on emotional intensity, or word structure, even if only a LITTLE bit between different verses and choruses, but often quite a bit. It's their time to 'speak', to be creative, even if the groove remains constant.

So try varying those fills a bit more...

Oh, and one other thing... Your 'live' guitar playing is sitting a hair 'up' on the beat compared to the track. You might try to either relax a hair, or maybe just slide the guitar tracks 'late' just a few ms to line up with the drums. You'd be surprised at how effective that can be...

But I DID think the track very good, a strong melody and chord progression. As I so often say to those that start to get it right, it is perhaps time to stop hampering the song by using too much machine. Get a real drummer (or at least get a drummer to help in the track editing), get a real bassist, BV singers, etc., and start to do the song justice. Perhaps get a good drum library like EZ Drummer or BFD if you can't record real drums. At least then they SOUND like real drums...

Time to take it to the next level... You're ready

Thanks everyone. RE Diki's criticism, hmm, will look at fills. I thought I did put in a lot of variety, but maybe there isn't enough, or maybe I did too much of the same thing with too many fills. I will go back.

And I will try delaying the electric guitar about 10 ticks. I assume you're not talking about the acoustic guitar, because that is sitting pretty deep in the mix.

Beakybird

Drums sound great to me, Beaky, even on repeated listening.

Fills were not overdone, in my opinion, and any sameness actually contributed to more cohesiveness in the song than any sort of distraction.

Remember, the vocals and lyrics are what people hear, and what I focused on when I first heard it....I played it for my girlfriend, who said the same thing.

The percussion works fine in the context of the tune, unless it's a part that you want to feature?

The more I listen to this song, the more I like it.

Nice piece of work.

Ian

Larry ... nice work ... not that your earlier tunes were bad, but you've come a long way ...
great job ...
t.

Wow, Larry, this is bordering on sensational. You sure do have a McCartney / ELO connection. And that's a good thing!

I don't know what you have done but man, your vocals are 1000% better than a few months ago. I don't know what kind of processing you are doing but it is working!

My first reaction to this song was a bit of frustration. It has a very busy lyric and I thought the song did not build enough in the beginning. It required me to concentrate hard to understand what is going on. I am a stickler for being able to understand words and I struggled in spots. But the beginning is the most important part of the song. I would work on enunciating as clear as you can. Plus, maybe build a bit. Your intro was very short and then the song just kind of took off full tilt. On second listen, it wasn't as bad but still, I struggled to get it.

Overall, this is really good and you have much talent, I'm impressed with this. You have some major league changes going on in that song, haha. Excellent job on such a seemingly complex piece.

And I would like to know what you are doing to your vocals, if you have time to comment.

Good Stuff!

R.