Leia - original song

[paulman]

I'm not sure what I want out of this mix. I figured I should just go ahead and post it and see what ya'll think before going down rabbit holes. I don't want to spend too much time poring over this one.


NEW MIX

Leia master 10.mp3

second mix

Leia master 4.mp3

first mix

Leia master.mp3

Leia

you’ve been my bright baby girl for all of your days
and what feels like all of mine
but all I’ve got now is whiskey and old sitcoms
to drown the memory of your decline

I drove a hundred thousand miles with you by my side
we saw all there was to see
but when I come home and you’re not at the door
well that’s a brand new place for me

you came out of your cloud to give me kisses
for the first time in a very long time
just before I sent you off
to brighter clouds than mine

I told you I loved you till your very last breath
and how good you were to me
now that your soulful brown eyes are closed
mine can hardly see

I hope like hell that I was good enough to you
please know that I gave it my all
you’ll have to sleep in your own bed but it’s forever next to mine
just on the other side of that wall

I have oceans and oceans of photos
you were always the prettiest sight
I’ve got your flowers growing outside my window
brown eyed bees are buzzing with your light

The bees are all buzzing
The trumpets are coming
To celebrate your new life with them
They’ll all be so happy to see you
when you come marching in

2023 Paul Hallman

[SweetDan]

Nice tune.

Even if it's not, I'm going to imagine this song is about your dog.

And my dog.

And all the dogs there ever were that are no longer here with us.

All good pups, everywhere....but mostly, of course, about your dog.

(I'm not crying, you're crying!)

---

Mix sounds good. Something about the acoustic guitar for the first 25 seconds (and again at 2:59-3:04) sounds different than the rest of the song, kind of like that first :25 is "real" and somewhat unprocessed, then the processing kicks in and it sounds more "produced". I wouldn't say the difference is jarring, but nearly...for me, it's definitely noticeable. I wonder what's different, I wonder what you could do to even those few seconds out.

[Lt. Bob]

don't like to be reminded of that loss, makes me sad .......... but nice song

[musicturtle]

Well sung, well played and well captured @paulman

No nits from me. As you mentioned elsewhere, laying this down had to be tough, good work.

[vomitHatSteve]

Mix-wise, the only critique that's leaping out to me is that it feels a little airy on the high end.

(I have to assume it's about a dog - or other pet (could be a fish) - since there aren't many humans in our lives that we expect to see waiting for us by the door their entire lives)

Harmonies are very nice.

[paulman]

Nice tune.

Even if it's not, I'm going to imagine this song is about your dog.

And my dog.

And all the dogs there ever were that are no longer here with us.

All good pups, everywhere....but mostly, of course, about your dog.

(I'm not crying, you're crying!)

---

Mix sounds good. Something about the acoustic guitar for the first 25 seconds (and again at 2:59-3:04) sounds different than the rest of the song, kind of like that first :25 is "real" and somewhat unprocessed, then the processing kicks in and it sounds more "produced". I wouldn't say the difference is jarring, but nearly...for me, it's definitely noticeable. I wonder what's different, I wonder what you could do to even those few seconds out.

It is. I lost her in March, less than two weeks after her 14th birthday. This is probably the only song I've ever written that didn't have some kind of embellishment. Even with personal stuff, I usually dramatize it more for the sake of the song. This one is all dead on personal and real. Hopefully that translates to something a lot of people can relate with.

I'm not sure what the guitar thing was, but it probably had to do with the Ozone mastering. I changed the settings on that as well as some other things. I think the guitar sounds beefier all the way around now.

[paulman]

Well sung, well played and well captured @paulman

No nits from me. As you mentioned elsewhere, laying this down had to be tough, good work.

Thank you. It was tough. Writing it was easy. All the words came the day after she died. The music came the next day. That part was therapeutic. Recording it was like self-flagellation.

[paulman]

Mix-wise, the only critique that's leaping out to me is that it feels a little airy on the high end.

(I have to assume it's about a dog - or other pet (could be a fish) - since there aren't many humans in our lives that we expect to see waiting for us by the door their entire lives)

Harmonies are very nice.

Thanks man. Yeah, it was kind of brittle and the bass was too low. I believe I've fixed that. It's a lot fuller now. Hopefully the bass isn't too much, I still have to listen to it in the car and other places. But I think it's there.

I'm glad it's fairly apparent that it's about my dog. Otherwise people might wonder who the hell I have buried in my backyard.

[vomitHatSteve]

I'm glad it's fairly apparent that it's about my dog. Otherwise people might wonder who the hell I have buried in my backyard.

Yeah, new mix is definitely warmer and less crispy.

It's also way quieter. Is there some mastering tricksiness in the first one?

[WhiskeyJack]

Well done @paulman The kazoos really took the vibe to a new level. I felt less like going and laying down for a good cry and more like celebrating a nice full life of a loved one gone to soon after i heard those. Well done man!

I didn't listen to the old mix but the new mix sounds really good i don't really have nits really other than it feels like the guitar get's slightly buried under the bass here and there. usually when you do a run up the neck on the bass.

Your guitar sounds great! Did you solve any string mysteries on this recording?

[paulman]

Yeah, new mix is definitely warmer and less crispy.

It's also way quieter. Is there some mastering tricksiness in the first one?

I didn’t realize it was quieter. I actually thought it was maybe louder, but I haven’t compared the two back to back. I changed the Ozone preset I was using, so that’s almost certainly where the difference is. I do use other plugins for mastering besides Ozone, but the other changes I made had to do with EQ and turning the bass up a tad.

[paulman]

Well done @paulman The kazoos really took the vibe to a new level. I felt less like going and laying down for a good cry and more like celebrating a nice full life of a loved one gone to soon after i heard those. Well done man!

I didn't listen to the old mix but the new mix sounds really good i don't really have nits really other than it feels like the guitar get's slightly buried under the bass here and there. usually when you do a run up the neck on the bass.

Your guitar sounds great! Did you solve any string mysteries on this recording?

Thanks man. The strings on this recording are John Pearse phosphor bronze. So far they’re the best ones I’ve tried. I got some bone bridge pins to replace the plastic ones, but they didn’t come in until after I changed the strings so they’re not on the recording. Some say bridge pins make a difference, some say they don’t. I’ll find out on the next string change.

Yeah, I wanted the bees and trumpets to celebrate her arrival, so that’s where the kazoos come in. I had my girlfriend’s 12 year old son play trumpet. I paid him $20 and a pack of sushi candy for his first studio session. I tried playing it myself but I haven’t played in well over 20 years so my lips almost fell off. But I think it turned out pretty cool having a kid play on it, especially since Leia was kind of drawn to him for some reason. I had to use pitch correction, and I used a pitch shifter to move a copy of his part up an octave so it sounded like a group of trumpets playing. My best friend was a trumpet player, and he passed away a little over a year ago. I was thinking of him when I wrote the line about trumpets coming for her.

I appreciate y’all’s feedback on this. I know it’s sad, I’m sorry. It means a lot to me to get this done and put it out into the world to honor my baby girl. Next week I’m going on a solo camping trip to just read, write, not drink or smoke, and get my head right so I can move on. This song, and the video I’m about to finish, had to be done before I could do that.

[SweetDan]

(Who's cutting onions again?! It really is a lovely tune and sentiment, though. Sorry for your loss.)

2nd mix listening notes: the solo guitar now sounds balanced in relation to the rest (the transition at :25...). I think the bass is up a touch too much in the second mix. So maybe split the difference on the bass between the two mixes? (I also didn't think the first mix was too bright, so perhaps my ears are off?)

It does sound like the 2nd mix has less reverb, which after listening to mix 1 again, seems like a bit more reverb on mix 2 would be nice.

[JD01]

I'm coming straight in on the 2nd mix.
First thought, is that the acoustic sounds great.
Piano and bass work great.

Really love your harmonies when they come in.

Kazoos?!? WTF? They sound pretty fun actually and are uplifting at the end of the song.
Only criticism is that the ending is too long before it fades and you could do with adding more and more instruments to the melody to keep it interesting. Maybe even some "do do, do dooo"s

Good mix.

[paulman]

New mix in OP.

[paulman]

I'm coming straight in on the 2nd mix.
First thought, is that the acoustic sounds great.
Piano and bass work great.

Really love your harmonies when they come in.

Kazoos?!? WTF? They sound pretty fun actually and are uplifting at the end of the song.
Only criticism is that the ending is too long before it fades and you could do with adding more and more instruments to the melody to keep it interesting. Maybe even some "do do, do dooo"s

Good mix.

Thanks JD. I just posted a new mix. I brought the trumpet up at the end, because no one has acknowledged its existence. So I guess it blended too much with the kazoos. That is no longer the case. I brought the level up a tad, and made two more copies of his part and panned all the copies all over the stereo spectrum. And I put an echo on it. If I still had my ace trumpet player around, this ending would have been a different thing. I would have let him come up with his own harmonies to the melody I wrote, and have him improvise. Since what I do have is a child who's been playing trumpet for about nine months, I went with more of a children's song kind of thing for the ending. Simple and imperfect. And it makes sense because Leia was like my child, the closest thing I've ever had to one. I even switched from the amped-up bluegrass bassline I was playing up until that point to a McCartney-style straight bouncy bassline, with the handful of children's song type things that the Beatles did as an inspiration. I experimented with adding different things, instruments and harmonies. But nothing worked for me. Not saying nothing could, but I didn't come up with anything I liked. I did consider having kids do gang vocals, but... I don't know, maybe that would be a good idea. But I really really don't want to work on this anymore.

[paulman]

(Who's cutting onions again?! It really is a lovely tune and sentiment, though. Sorry for your loss.)

2nd mix listening notes: the solo guitar now sounds balanced in relation to the rest (the transition at :25...). I think the bass is up a touch too much in the second mix. So maybe split the difference on the bass between the two mixes? (I also didn't think the first mix was too bright, so perhaps my ears are off?)

It does sound like the 2nd mix has less reverb, which after listening to mix 1 again, seems like a bit more reverb on mix 2 would be nice.

I've just posted a new mix. My intention was just to bring the bass down a tad and make the track louder, but I ended up doing a lot more than that. I put all the vocal tracks on a vocal buss with some reverb and a Fairchild compressor, so they blend better and it has that extra reverb you were looking for (as opposed to putting more reverb on the whole track). Also beefed up the slapback slightly on the lead vocal. Also I realized that my double of the lead vocal was terribly out of tune. When I manually double track I can never hear myself very well because I keep the original vocal pretty loud so I can duplicate it as best I can. So apparently in not hearing myself I sang a few notes way off. I have no idea how that got past me, but it was the cause of some weirdness I was hearing in the vocal. So I deleted that and created an artificial double.

I fought with the bass more than anything, and I'm still not sure it's right. I like how it sounds on my speakers and in the car, but I don't know how well it will translate to other systems, because it is borderline heavy.

[Alison]

Just coming in on your last mix.

Dang, the song brought tears to my eyes! Nicely written, nicely played! The kazoos at the end were a bit of a shock but they did add a bit of a lightness to the end. Great idea!

Loved the whole thing!

[rayc]

latest, 3rd, mix.
The intro of the piano seemed straight up country from the early 70s.
The harmonised vocals seem a little strident...must be the 2nd voice as the sensation isn't there during the single vocal parts.
Well done on all levels.

[paulman]

The intro of the piano seemed straight up country from the early 70s.

Thanks Ray. I was channeling my inner Floyd Cramer.