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  • "Not Sure" A Genre Bending Piece with Vocals

    Greetings,

    If you have some time I would appreciate some feedback on this genre bending piece I collaborated on with a talented English songwriter named Tony Harris out of Bristol, U.K.

    http://www.sonicpsyops.com/music.html

    This link will bring you to the page where the song is called "Not Sure."  Just click on the song and it should start.  For some reason, a direct link to the song doesn't work, so sorry for the extra click.

    The vocalist, Daisy Chapman, has a very charming voice that sparkles and she's a talented pianist who is known for doing Classical covers of Pop styled songs.  She is supposed to be a rising star in the U.K. music scene and I think you'll understand why.

    I guess the song can best be described as an orchestrated Pop song of sorts.  My contribution to piece is performance (VSL) Arranger and Producer.  I used VSL Chamber Strings I, Solo Strings I, Woodwinds I  and the Bosendorfer.

    Enjoy and thank you for listening.


  • Well, after looking at the stats for "Not Sure" from my website it appears that the song was accessed from this site (VSL Forum) 22 times.  For those of you who took the time to listen, or the single person who listened 22 times, I appreciate it.

    I'm sorry that you were a little too shy to leave a comment but that's OK.  As long as I know that somebody's listening.


  • Hi Jasen,

    I like the song a lot, the melody is uplifting and beautiful.

    Unfortunately,in  general imho your sound is too much synthy and too obvious that it is coming out of a computer, even for the untrained listener.

    I think you need to work more on creating a natural room sound, and making the best use of the articulations and expression to obtain more convincing sounding instruments.

    Also the piano is played to mechanical to my taste. More work on the velocities could improve that.

    I learned a lot from Beat Kaufmann's VSL tutorials, I recommend to check them out on his website.

    Jef

    www.aeronaut.be


  • Hello Jef,

    First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to stop and listen to the piece.  I'm glad that you enjoyed the song.  

    I'm sure your ears are more educated than mine but I think the reason that the piece sounds "synthy" is because IMHO it was VERY much processed during the mastering stage which I had no hand in.  What you're hearing are the compressors, boost limiters and tape saturation effects that were added to give it a more 'Pop song' feel as opposed to a Classical or live sound which the songwriter didn't want.  Also, they used a room pack impulse to make it sound like it was recorded in a recording studio as opposed to a stage.  Daisy's voice is the nucleus of the piece and the songwriter made it clear to me that he didn't want the instruments clashing with her voice.  In Pop music, uniformity is crucial which is why they use so much compression in everything because it reduces the dynamics natural in performing acoustic instruments.  Which is also why real acoustic instruments, such as string and brass ensembles, sound artificial in most Pop songs.

    I am familiar with Beat's excellent tutorials but I don't think they would be relevant for this piece because of the heavy processing that I knew the songwriter was going to put it through.

    I posted this as more of an alternative to the Classical orchestral works that most users post here.  Again, thank you for listening and for the constructive criticism I will consider it for future pieces.  


  • PaulP Paul moved this topic from Orchestration & Composition on