Dirty Games (original song)

[paulman]

I posted this at HR a while back, but I've done more work on it since then. My main struggle with this has always been the bass. It wasn't recorded very well, but I liked the spontaneity of it. When I recorded this I had no idea what I was going to do on bass. I wanted something fairly busy to fill up space, because the song structure is dead simple. This was my first run-through of this song on bass, only meant to be practice, but I really liked it and couldn't get another take that I liked as much (it's hard to recreate happy accidents). So I've spent hours upon hours trying to mix this song where I want it as far as not blowing out the bass, and having a clear yet beefy overall sound. I think it's there. Thoughts?

[miroslav]

You may want to put it up as a more common audio format.
It comes up as M4A...which isn't.

I am not able to play it without downloading an appropriate player. I think Quicktime can play it, but TBH, I stopped using it a long time ago.
MP3 or WAV are your best bets for most common that most everyone will be able to play.

I would like to hear your song.

[Greg_L]

I got no problem with the bass. It's subtle and slinky, a little boomy but not too much. I think maybe you have an idea in your head that you're not achieving, but to the rest of us, we won't know what that is so we just take it as it is, and it's fine to me.

I think the mix is overall pretty good. I'd like a little more slap from the kick. Not like metal clicky attack, but just some punch. It's a little fluffy and too soft. Some kick slap will actually separate it from the bass a little better and the bass will stand out more cleanly.

[JD01]

Paulman - working at home today so I just have this playing on my Stereo while I'm working. Doesn't sound like there's anything wrong with it to me.

Just sounds like the Eagles... now that's either a compliment or an insult... but I mean it sounds like a quality commercial release to me.

She sounds hot!

[rammer24]

Sounds good to me. Seems like you might have more going on on the right than on the left, or at least at the beginning. When the congas and the main acoustic both play at the same time, they give the impression that a lot is happening on the right and not much on the left. Maybe one of those can go left. Nice, Laid back, soft rock tune. And I love your voice on this one, too.

[rayc]

I agree with Rami re the lean.
The bass is busy and reminds me, ever so slightly, of the electric and double bass sound of Walk On The wild Side.
It does sound very American: the vocal and melody are laid back in a Jimmy Buffet way.
Other than the stereo image I have nothing to comment on other than that it sounds great and finished.

[paulman]

You may want to put it up as a more common audio format.
It comes up as M4A...which isn't.

I am not able to play it without downloading an appropriate player. I think Quicktime can play it, but TBH, I stopped using it a long time ago.
MP3 or WAV are your best bets for most common that most everyone will be able to play.

I would like to hear your song.

Here's the wav:

I'm curious, what are you using that won't play m4a? I think the only thing I've ever had an issue with it on is my Android phone, and it's what I've always posted mixes as. Better quality than mp3, lighter than both mp3 and wav. I know it's an Apple thing, but lots of other players play it too including WMP. I don't have a problem posting wavs, though. Maybe I'll just start doing that. Thanks for the heads up!

[paulman]

Some kick slap will actually separate it from the bass a little better and the bass will stand out more cleanly.

Ooh! Thank you. I will try that.

[paulman]

Just sounds like the Eagles... now that's either a compliment or an insult... but I mean it sounds like a quality commercial release to me.

She sounds hot!

Thanks man. I'm not particularly an Eagles fan, but I don't take that as an insult. This is a pop song. Quality commercial release is what I'm going for.

Yeah, she was hot, but we all know how that goes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jokc2Bo2ghw

[paulman]

I agree with Rami re the lean.
The bass is busy and reminds me, ever so slightly, of the electric and double bass sound of Walk On The wild Side.
It does sound very American: the vocal and melody are laid back in a Jimmy Buffet way.
Other than the stereo image I have nothing to comment on other than that it sounds great and finished.

Sounds good to me. Seems like you might have more going on on the right than on the left, or at least at the beginning. When the congas and the main acoustic both play at the same time, they give the impression that a lot is happening on the right and not much on the left. Maybe one of those can go left. Nice, Laid back, soft rock tune. And I love your voice on this one, too.

Thanks guys. I'll check out the panning thing. Thought I had all that fixed.

[miroslav]

First off....I'm on a laptop, so I have no idea what works on cell phones (nor do I care)

On my computer, the M4A is looking for Quicktime in order to play.
It's not really like a common audio-only file format...OK, it is an audio file extension, but it's an MPEG audio format used more for multimedia....created by Apple, which is why it's probably looking for Quicktime.
I've used in when creating AV media in like Vegas...etc...but I don't install Quicktime by default on my computers anymore.

Not saying don't use it...just saying that for the basic audio crowd across the interwebs...MP3 is now THE standard (love it or hate it) and if you encode at like 192 and higher, it will be as good as the MPEG stuff, which also can compress the audio data.
If you want a clean, uncompressed audio files, then WAV is the most common across all computer platforms...but it does create much larger files.
On the MAC side...the true uncompressed audio format would be AIFF.

The whole Google drive thing is kinda wonky, IMO...but it's usable.

Anyway...good song, it's a solid mix.
You can tweak it some more...but nothing stands out as really needing a lot more work.

[paulman]

Anyway...good song, it's a solid mix.
You can tweak it some more...but nothing stands out as really needing a lot more work.

Thanks Miroslav! It seems I gave the impression that I was still struggling with it. I'm happy with it now, I just wanted to make sure that others thought it was done as well. I'm accustomed to posting what I think is a finished mix and then basically starting all over again based on critiques. Hopefully the fact that that hasn't happened here yet (it will, I know) means that I'm finally getting decent at this. I am going to try out a couple of suggestions from this thread, though.

[Armistice]

Sounds pretty good to me paulman - the aforementioned stereo image comments I agree with. You could maybe sharpen up the bass a little with EQ, but it's nice enough - try Greg's suggestion though, just to see how that works.

Nice mix.

[paulman]

Sounds pretty good to me paulman - the aforementioned stereo image comments I agree with. You could maybe sharpen up the bass a little with EQ, but it's nice enough - try Greg's suggestion though, just to see how that works.

Nice mix.

Thanks Armistice! Yeah, I'm kind of excited about Greg's suggestion.

[miroslav]

I'm accustomed to posting what I think is a finished mix and then basically starting all over again based on critiques.

Don't do that...unless you get everyone saying the same things...like the vocals are too low or something that's truly not right in the mix.
Otherwise, when it comes to just tastes...everyone is different.
Someone wants guitars to be loud, someone always like hear a lot of snare...etc....and with that shit, you have to first and always please yourself, and not get too worried about trying to please everyone's tastes...it just won't happen, no matter how hard you try.

You have to be honest with yourself, though.
If you can say that your hitting all the right marks you wanted to, and in your gut, you're not having any doubts about your mix...then you're probably good to go.

[ido1957]

Yes other than the lean to the right this is good as is. Nothing jumps out - even on a preference basis.
Nice easy to listen to song to start my very busy Saturday of work, jamming and brother's birthday dinner.

[paulman]

I'm accustomed to posting what I think is a finished mix and then basically starting all over again based on critiques.

Don't do that...unless you get everyone saying the same things...like the vocals are too low or something that's truly not right in the mix.
Otherwise, when it comes to just tastes...everyone is different.
Someone wants guitars to be loud, someone always like hear a lot of snare...etc....and with that shit, you have to first and always please yourself, and not get too worried about trying to please everyone's tastes...it just won't happen, no matter how hard you try.

You have to be honest with yourself, though.
If you can say that your hitting all the right marks you wanted to, and in your gut, you're not having any doubts about your mix...then you're probably good to go.

Oh trust me, I don't just believe what everyone says. That's exactly what I meant, that I get people pointing out the same things, things I didn't notice. Or sometimes it's a thing that in my heart I knew needed to be fixed, but it takes people mentioning it for me to do it. There are plenty of critiques that I ignore because they miss the point of what I was doing or because I just don't think it's important. But there are a lot of good critiques, and a lot of people who have great technical advice that I wouldn't have known to do myself. Every time I've posted a mix, the critiques have pushed me to improve it several times over. Hopefully I'm at the point now that any mix that I post won't need serious reworking, but we'll see. Now that I've jinxed myself, it's time to get to work on a new recording.

[rammer24]

Sometimes it's a thing that in my heart I knew needed to be fixed, but it takes people mentioning it for me to do it.

I'd say that happens to me 90% of the time. So often, someone with great ears, like Greg, will mention something about the level or sound of something, and I'll think "I sort of knew that. Sub-conciously, I already said that to myself." Just needed someone to say it to me.