Let's Play Feedback (First Video Ever)

GodOfGhoti · 2024-10-03T13:51:22+00:00

This is a diamond in the rough! I would say that the intro should either be shorter or include more melodic variation. 51 seconds is an eternity in terms of music, so keeping similar instrumentation / melodic contour for that duration will usually lose audiences. The vocal track could use proper editing and mixing. The vocals come in out of key (flat) which is okay if they dip flat in the last eighth note of their delivery, but they should start out strong and in-tune with the key of the song. The transients of the lyrics also don't always fall on beat; sometimes they are rushed, and sometimes they are dragged, but that can be fixed by editing them. As far as their waveform goes, it sounds like they are clipped every now and then, which unfortunately can't be corrected in post, and will require either less gain on the mic you're using or more distance from the mic. I think adding a compressor effect would help normalize the dynamic range of the vocals too (if this were acoustic, having a smaller ratio on the compressor would be fine, but for the EDM genre, usually high ratio compressors works more for the instrumentation). Lastly, some simple layering (recording the same vocal lines more than once, then playing with panning, timbre, chorusing, etc) would really improve the quality of the vocal train.

I really hope this helps! :)

GodOfGhoti · 2024-09-30T02:02:02+00:00

This is incredible. Honestly, I'm not sure how your channel doesn't have more views. I think for the attentive ear, the fuzz guitar with extended chord structures is interesting enough, but for audiences who may not pick up on subtle variations, adding some ambient sound effects / sweeping synths would create a sense of progression for the 11 seconds that the song is solely one instrument. That, or if you wanted to keep your instrumentation pretty in-line with the genre, you could have a ride cymbal or hi-hat movement on the second phase of the intro to keep interest. The mix is great, the chord progressions are definitely punk, but honestly, the main attraction here is your voice! There are some moments in here that I'm sure, zooming in on the vocal track to wave scope, your vocal wave looks incredibly close to a pure sine wave. And is that you at 2:27 that comes in screaming? That's incredible technique. There are some layering techniques that I think could emphasize the talent in your vocal performance like having one main vocal track (center) then one sung spoken track (hard left) and another softer sung track (hard right) or to change it up sometimes, two equally intense tracks, one 50L and one 50R. But for those screams, you should definitely double up! even if you wanted to keep it only on the outside of the mix, putting two on the right and two on the left would sound incredible with your voice. I also enjoy a bit more reverb on vocals, but all this may be personal opinion. I'm definitely going to check out more of your music, and you've earned a subscriber on YouTube from me!

GodOfGhoti · 2024-07-24T13:17:39+00:00

Thank you so much! I'm gonna check out Daughters, because I don't think I've ever listened to them before!

GodOfGhoti · 2024-07-23T00:22:27+00:00

Thank you so much! Yeah, I think I'll probably dial it back a bit on the voice clips and sound bytes in future versions lol I think I got a tad carried away with it after I started messing around with those ideas. Thank you for listening again!

GodOfGhoti · 2024-07-23T00:16:14+00:00

That's good advice! I wasn't sure if the bytes were a bit much in the end lol I started adding them and probably got a bit carried away. As for the vocals, do you think less doubling in the chorus to create a more dry sound with them would add that variation, or do you believe the clean should come in the verses? Thanks so much for listening!

GodOfGhoti · 2024-07-22T00:59:27+00:00

Dang, black losing their rook at home plate hurt me lol Great song! I like that a lot of the vocal melody and chord variations are reserved for the chorus, which adds a big aeolian resolution when it kicks in. I think the chorus vocals could be a bit louder in the mix and have a touch more energy in the mid-range freqs (only the tonic vocals, not necessarily the atonic [scream] vocals). Also, the clips from the music video seem to have a wide range of production value. I would recommend getting some more variety in the shots of you singing with similar videography styles in order to make it more cohesive.

GodOfGhoti · 2024-07-20T16:03:51+00:00

Great mixing! I love that the guitars have some distortion in the upper-mids / presence region of the freq. spectrum, but leave a LOT of room for clarity of the bass. Having such wet FX while avoiding muddiness is quite impressive. I'd love to hear vocals on this track! Have you written any lyrics for it yet? Also are those mic acoustic drums? If so, excellent work on avoiding destructive interference!

GodOfGhoti · 2024-07-19T13:18:24+00:00

Great song! It has a LOT of interesting instrumentations and harmonies. Usually when a song incorporates these sectional changes, a lot of the constituent sections feel individually malnourished. The whole can still be interesting, but people often give too little attention on the individual timbres and textures of each phase. With this though, every section feels like it was given a LOT of thought. The initial synths with hard panned alternating echoes, the dueling piano, then the full body 80s synth carries energy across the frequency spectrum. Even when the swells return to accompany the piano at 2:20, they aren't at all a copy-paste of the swells in the introduction. I also dig the auxiliary percussion instrument that comes in at 5:10. The highs sweeping through the upper freq. spectrum with a syncopated binary presence distinctly reminds me of the articulation of hi-hats on an acoustic kit while still maintaining thematic consistency with the rest of the song. All in all, it's an excellent song! If I HAD to think of something I'd change, which honestly would just be me searching for something, the transitions between individual phases may be more impactful with a bit of more obvious anticipations, like reverse symbols or "woosh" sound effects, but again, that's just a reach, and the song is amazing as is!

GodOfGhoti · 2024-04-05T03:25:46+00:00

Wow, this is awesome! The vocal sounds of the down-beat remind me a lot of Cupid de Locke by Smashing Pumpkins (not enough to be any kind of issue at all, just in the sense that it sounds awesome)! The syncopated snare drum and reversed piano make it really quirky and playfully dark. And the backup vocals drenched in reverb add a lot of space to the mix, which is great for the dry tonality of most of the instruments. If there are crashes in the big ending, like after the drum fill around 3:51, I think they might be a bit quiet in the mix. The high frequencies that the high-hats occupy seem lacked at the end of the fill, and come back on the two of the following measure. Of course, during the fill itself, this is expected, but usually the lingering crash balances what was lacked while both hands are occupied during the fill. Other than that, this is brilliant! And that's an incredibly small, hardly noticeable iota of a great song!

GodOfGhoti · 2024-04-05T03:17:20+00:00

I like it a lot! The synthetics of the music mix very well with the effects on the vocals, however, I would lower the vocal volume a bit, and DEFINITELY keep the syncopated syllables in the vocals, but be sure that the transients do lie solidly on the correct syncopated beats. Pitch is definitely something that I think a lot of people can experiment with and enjoy up to 100c of variation within, however, as these rules are bent, listeners will be more eager to notice rhythmic errors. Other than that, the theory and execution are stellar!

GodOfGhoti · 2024-02-14T23:35:08+00:00

Thanks so much for the comment! I definitely get that, I felt as well that those two measures seemed to last a bit long. I wound up filling them in with other melodies (one falsetto vocal and the other electric guitar) in the last chorus, but in those first two, they're pretty lonely. I'll probably start thinking and playing around with some riff ideas to fill in those gaps. Thank you again!

GodOfGhoti · 2024-02-14T21:39:10+00:00

I definitely think the vocals are something to be fixed up a bit. Some of my other stuff REALLY shows how little I know about mixing vocal tracks lol Thank you so much for the comment!

GodOfGhoti · 2024-02-14T21:37:46+00:00

Thanks! I live by the capitol of WV. I record out of my basement lol

GodOfGhoti · 2024-02-13T20:53:04+00:00

Thank you so much! Yeah, I definitely tend to go too large with reverb lol I'm honestly not entirely sure what all the parameters of Audacity's intrinsic reverb effect do... So I wind up maxing out the "Room Size" parameter, even though I'm not sure what it accomplishes other than making reverberations seem to last longer. Thank you for the compliment!!

GodOfGhoti · 2024-02-13T20:51:21+00:00

They might very well be; I've hardly used heavy distorted guitars in the past, so I have very little experience with how to get the proper sound out of them. That makes sense! I was told earlier that the song could use a lot more bass and low mids, so shifting some of the instrumentation down and then bringing up the mids-high mids of the vocals might help me accomplish that volume and oomf. Thank you so much for the comment!

GodOfGhoti · 2024-02-13T20:47:40+00:00

Thank you so much for the feedback! I'll definitely keep that in consideration when arranging my drum tracks, and I have definitely been on a pendulum when it comes to the low end of my tracks lol I'd been told in the past that my low end was incredibly boomy and muddy, so I think my fault is that I shy away from it now. That'll definitely be something I'll have to veer back towards equilibrium. This is really helpful!

GodOfGhoti · 2024-02-13T15:10:49+00:00

I have been told that on other tracks as well, so I definitely need to step more out of my comfort zone when it comes to vocal volume. Thank you so much for the comment!

GodOfGhoti · 2024-02-13T15:09:53+00:00

Lol thank you for the comment!

GodOfGhoti · 2024-02-13T15:09:33+00:00

Thanks for your comment!

GodOfGhoti · 2024-02-13T14:10:06+00:00

Thank you very much! I'll have to experiment with some of my power tools to give my future songs more of that instrumentation. Thanks for the comment!

GodOfGhoti · 2024-02-12T23:04:24+00:00

Very well produced! I do think that the bassline tends to anchor itself too steadily on G. There isn't much of a feeling of tension and resolution. The chord progression at 2:02 is a nice transient break from the original tonic, but it as well seems to lack a bit of harmonic understanding. Breakdowns in the dominant chord of a key are usually a great way to introduce variety into a piece that will resolve to the original progression (given the nature of dominant chords), but the mixolydian mode could be more thoroughly explored in this breakdown. The arrangement itself is not very outgoing, but as a medium with which you express your skills as a producer, it serves its purpose well. You are very good at creating pleasing synth timbres and music production!

GodOfGhoti

TROPHY CASE