Sunday, November 30, 2008

King of Plugins

Hello!

I have just posted my track to the MediaFire site. It's called "King of Pirates," and features a special guest, my sister Maria. She plays Mary Ormond, Blackbeard's teenage wife.

Obviously, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the song, but I'd also like any input on the mix and the technical side of things. There's plenty of time before the deadline and I'm sure I'll have time to remix it, unless that's against the rules.

As I said, there are a LOT of vocal tracks: 18 of them, although not always going at the same time (I think the most at once is 10). So, this thing was basically a nightmare to balance out...and mixing was never my strong point to begin with. My poor computer had to run close to 50 plugins for this song, and it was not very happy towards the end.

Overall though, I really like it, and I had an absolute blast recording it. There are some bum lyrics in there, but you can fix that in mastering, right Tim?

7 comments:

brownio said...

I think it sounds gorgeous and I love the angle of the conversation with his wife. As with a lot of the IML stuff, it goes against conventions of what people may expect for the subject. Mix, lyric and performance wise I've already listened to it about 5 times and wouldn't want to hear it any other way. Well done to you and Maria. Those harmonies are tight tight tight. I'd be interested to know how you write them? Do you improvise with the backing tracks or try them out on a keyboard first. Yours in admiration...

Layla said...

I'm really loving your track, it's just so darned pretty! Congratulations all round.

Tim Donderevo said...

Sounds ace, Dan. Great lyrics.

Portraits and Murals said...

LOVE this Dan! My 4 year old says it sounds like Daddy's music and my 6 year old says it sounds like a christmas shop. I think those are compliments! (i had an idea about the harmony mix and will email that to you)

It's got a lovely timeless, almost hymnal, feel to it.
I adore that balance of the male and female voices on the chorus. Really amazing.

Bob Rocket said...

Ha ha christmas shop, I'll second that! Brilliant Dan, it's a very catchy tune, a fine ear for a melody you be havin. The only comment I'd make about the mix is that in general the vocals sound a little loud to me in relation to the backing, however I wouldn't pay much attention to me because:
1. I generally always think vocals are too loud in a mix and am often wrong
2. It's sounds great as it is
A fine IML debut!

Dan W. said...

Yeah, my main worry was that the vocals were too loud...I couldn't really get them to sit inside the backing track very well, and I don't know why...maybe it's an EQ thing.

And to Mr. Brownio...I usually improvise most of the backing tracks...although after 3 or 4 tracks it gets hard to hear, so I play them all on a keyboard to see what notes might still be missing.

Thanks for the feedback/suggestions!

L'Nique said...

I'm not going to listen to it yet, because (a) my advice is terrible, and (b) I don't want to ruin the surprise! This album will be my 'main present' at Christmas, and I don't want to unwrap any of it beforehand.

Nick Nak