My Music (calling you)

[jxeboy]

Hello everyone. I've been floating around the last few weeks. I love half life, i just beat 1, 2 and the episodes and I thought they were all magic. I hadn't noticed this part of the forum until now, and I hope it's not against the rules to post your own music, but I figured i'd try to see what some of you think of it. Its acoustic/rock/indie/pop. I don't know how to define it acctually, but I have some songs up at
http://www.myspace.com/callingyou478
http://www.soundclick.com/callingyou
tell me what you guys think, im always interested in hearing feedback about the songs, or about the recording or anything. Good or bad I don't care. Don't try to sugar coat it either.

Thank you

~jake

 

[Daggett]

damn, this stuff is really damn catchy.
very nice.
bright lights is up on my page at the moment.
keep up the good work

 

[Emporius]

This is quite good! I am a fan!

Do you actually have a CD? I am quite tempted to buy it if you do.

 

[dfc05]

Your music is indeed good. I like "Hello Hello."

 

[Pulse]

Some good stuff there man, good job. Mind telling us what you used recording/instrument/mixing wise and stuff?

 

[theotherguy]

Very good recording and mixing, and chord structures.

I don't like your voice that much, but that's just a personal preference. Its sort of an off-the-shelf emo/indie voice. But the good backing music greatly compensates for this.

Awesome harmonies. You have a natural talent for composition.

 

[StardogChampion]

It's good, but it'd be better if the lyrics weren't just about some generic girl. There's more to write about.

 

[Unfocused]

Good stuff. Your voice reminds me of Gavin DeGraw's at times.

 

[JFry]

It's good, but it'd be better if the lyrics weren't just about some generic girl. There's more to write about.

I have to agree with this. It seems like high quality stuff and you seem pretty talented from a technical standpoint. However it does seem very generic and "safe" from an artistic standpoint. Give it some personality, write a song about your 3 legged-gimp dog that you think no one wants to hear about. Write a song about how your little sister has turned into a whore. Write a song about how you tricked everyone on the internet with the band name thing. Give your music a soul.

 

[Dalamari]

Wow, I like this quite a lot, I agree with theotherguy about your voice though, it seems to stand too far above the rest of the mix, seems out of place or something

 

[Dinkleberry]

Not really my kind of thing, but I quite liked Hello Hello too

A few mix-related things you may want to try (I'll admit I've done very little mixing of this kind of thing myself, so they're probably not very accurate - I'm just putting them out there in case they help):

- There were weird things going on with amplitude of the drums (especially around the crashes). Maybe too slow/fast an attack/release on a compressor or gate that you used?

- About 12 secs into Daisy girl, when the guitar riff changes, there is some string resonance or something which could possibly be tamed with a bit of high cut EQ around 4 to 6 kHz. Although if you lose some sparkle it might be worth re-recording the guitar parts if you were so inclined.

- On Bright Eyes (this wasn't as evident on other songs), did you use some kind of Auto-tune software on the vocals? It squashes the natural variations in the voice pitch, and because of the intimate, direct nature of the vox track, it makes it sound a little lifeless (noticeable esp. on the end of each 'can't' lyric).

- The vocals in general sound a little under-processed and cold, not fitting in with the rest of the mix. Perhaps try a little band boost EQ around 1KHz (then move around until it sounds nicer), and pulling the level down in the mix. They sound a little out of place - somehow the balance between intimacy and distance is askew?

Please correct me if these turn out to be bullshit.