Friends New Band

[Koury]

A friend of mine and her band just put out a new song. Their first, actually. It can be found here (http://www.last.fm/music/Park+Street+Menace/Park+Street+Menace/Dinah).

Any comments or advice (preferably helpful) to pass on? Thoughts on the song?

[Moff Chumley]

Found 'em on Myspace.

Guitarist and bassist are solid; that's the first thing that I noticed. However, the mix is awful; vocals drown everything out, the drums are inaudible, et cetera. Getting a live drummer'd be really helpful, honestly, and the singer doesn't really sound like she knows what she's doing.

That said, they're not bad songs. Without a doubt, there's room for some cool stuff. :smallsmile:

[Koury]

Cool, comments passed on. Any specific tips for the vocalist (who happens to be the one I know)?

[Moff Chumley]

A couple. The first, especially with this type of music, is that the band has to be a lot louder, while recording. She sounds really nervous, which usually happens when the singer is louder than the band while she's recording. Second, she should probably try to sound more... hmm. Hit each not precisely, without sliding around, I guess. Because some singers are going to slide around, inject uncertainty, no matter what they do. When they don't try to control it, it can get to the point where it's distracting.

EDIT: In the spirit of tit-for-tat, check out my good friend's band, Handshake (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQdC7h609k8). I've watched 'em achieve fairly appreciable local success over the last two years: internet radio play, opening for some relatively successful bands, professionally recording an album. If you like 'em, I can get 'em to email you some of their demos... :smallsmile:

[Wargor]

A LOT of work is needed on the vocals really. They're very...choppy at the moment. I'm not quite sure how to explain what I mean. Live bass and drums and a better mix is definitely needed too.

[Koury]

Comments again passed on. She said thanks for taking the time to give her band a listen and that yeah, she was nervous while recording. :smallsmile:

[Gaelbert]

My first suggestion would be to add moar cowbell.
On a more helpful note, the vocals sound squeaky at times. I also had a hard time understanding her voice. I could hear her, but it sounded somewhat muffled. And the vocals felt a little off-tempo at some parts, particularly around the 2 minute mark and before.
It also felt like it was missing something. My first thought was to do something a little different with the guitars, vary it up a little. The more I listen to it though, it could be the problem of the bass and drums so once that gets sorted out it'd be better.
On the whole, though, I enjoyed it. I absolutely loved the singer's voice. I think her voice has a lot of potential if she can just work through some of the aforementioned difficulties.
And I'm not just saying I loved her voice because she's your friend. I've been looking for a voice like that for a long time and when I started playing the song I cracked a smile because it was exactly what I was looking for.

[Koury]

Gaelbert, your comments make my friend happy. :smallsmile:

From her (little bit, uh, unedited): aw :D whos that friend that said they liked me voice and was looking for one like that for awhile? thats awesome to hear people say things like that..its a shame im so aweful on myself and have panic attacks when i let anyone listen to my voice :/ if most people knew how much i love singing and song writing..woo...98 recordings of mus...ical notes and lyrics ona voice recorder, over 100 songs ive made up on my itunes by me, probably another few hundred saved bits on my garageband program..note books full of forgotton lyrics and a huge bag full of casset tapes from when i was like 11 recording over other tapes to save my songs id make up. even a triple track recording i did at 15 when i triple recorded my voice with just tape cassests a stero and a tape player..its sad its taken me till 22 to finally just START bereaking out of my shell :/

[Gaelbert]

Gaelbert, your comments make my friend happy. :smallsmile:

From her (little bit, uh, unedited): aw :D whos that friend that said they liked me voice and was looking for one like that for awhile? thats awesome to hear people say things like that..its a shame im so aweful on myself and have panic attacks when i let anyone listen to my voice :/ if most people knew how much i love singing and song writing..woo...98 recordings of mus...ical notes and lyrics ona voice recorder, over 100 songs ive made up on my itunes by me, probably another few hundred saved bits on my garageband program..note books full of forgotton lyrics and a huge bag full of casset tapes from when i was like 11 recording over other tapes to save my songs id make up. even a triple track recording i did at 15 when i triple recorded my voice with just tape cassests a stero and a tape player..its sad its taken me till 22 to finally just START bereaking out of my shell :/

I played in a screamo band, vocals and guitar. I have a gawd-awful voice, so it took me a while to feel comfortable with it. What I realized though, was that if you look like you're having fun, the audience will have fun too. You have to get rid of your inhibitions in order to sing properly, or you're not going to get any better. The most fun I've ever had was a live concert put on by decent, not too great, musicians. The thing about it though, was they were having fun. The chemistry between the band was good, the lead singer was clearly excited to be singing, and it just felt good.
Of course, these sentiments didn't fly too well with my screamo bandmates, and I promptly got the boot. But fear not! I know from personal experience indie, alt, and folk bands are not nearly so morose.

[Moff Chumley]

I can't stand still when I play. I'm always all over the stage. That's actually why I switched from keyboards to keytar to bass: increased mobility, more room for jumping around. There's no point if you're not having fun.

[kyoryu]

Like the voice. It's pretty unique, she should capitalize on it.

As others have said, the mix is pretty bad.

There's some weird vocal inflections going on that I'm not too fond of - a few times when she tries to emphasize something ("DI-unah") the emphasized syllable sounds like a squeak. This also seems to happen a lot on the last note of a phrase.

She could use a bit more confidence in her vocals. This would improve the song a lot.

The composition is pretty boring, frankly. The melody is okay, but the vocals, guitar, and bass all seem to just be echoing the melody. Even the drums are playing right along with it. It's not terrible, it's just pretty dull. Having a single song be that straightforward in a group of songs is probably okay, but it's not a great first impression.

A few times during the chorus, the timing between the guitar and vocals seems off, like someone's missing the beat. It's just enough to be distracting.

I know this sounds pretty harsh - it was actually a pretty decent song, especially for a first effort.

[Brewdude]

In addition to echoing the other comments about the vocals, there is a clear accent. The singer will need to take lessons from an accent removal coach if the song is targeted at Americans, unless there is something else in the song to emphasize or celebrate the foreign aspect. The other bit is lack of emotion. There needs to be anger, sadness, joy, wistfulness, SOME emotion to carry a song. This recording came out soulless, and that's just a matter of putting out the right take.

The instrumental intro is too long before the vocals start, as the repeating of the same phrase as new instruments come in is too long and not catchy enough. I.E. it ain't no Crazy Train or Hells Bells or Stairway intro, which were so good the rest of their song quality didn't matter. I'd cut the phrases to about half their length each. Either that or those phrases need to change from slow burn cool to "different from the beat that will run through the song".

When the song switches tempo, the instruments aught to be doing something noteworthy rather than just following the vocals. Perhaps a different one each time to make each chorus unique.

I guess my suggestion boils down to, as far as songwriting goes, time to go back and take a listen to greatest hits in the genre for pacing. Especially female rockers: Joan Jet, Pink, etc.

[Wargor]

The intro is, in my opinion, the perfect length. The biggest thing is getting more live instruments, and getting the vocals to be a lot slicker.