Songcrafters.org

At last... I've managed to finish something.

This was written months ago. I was about to try recording it with one or two others when this year's decorating started. With various buggered fingers, back muscles, etc, etc, I wasn't actually able to play properly for a while. Then, when it was all ok again, I was enjoying just lying on the sofa in the transformed living room too much.

But here we are. An uplifting little ditty that the missus is very fond of. I was less so, initially, I was worried it was a bit of a dirge when I heard my early attempts... but it's kinda grown on me (still think it's a bit of a dirge!!).

Anyway... Piano! And played live, both hands at the same time!! :D (it's not played as sensitive as I'd like, or quite as "in time" in places, but this is a big thing for me, as a life-long blues-rock guitarist!)

Now I need to catch up on my listening to everyone else's stuff - lots to catch up on. Many apologies for ignoring you all for a few months, I sort of went off music altogether for a bit... I almost felt like a "normal" human-being for a while there!!

What a ballad!! Fantastic piano playing, Andy! I'm loving the contrasts between silent piano/vocal spots and powerful "band" spots. The outro is perfect! Nice job!

Kari

different class, this is gonna get a few listens, up to your usual high standard, braw tell yer maw. lost for words brilliant.

back for some more, loving the chord progressions on the piano, bloody ab fab. is that a real piano?

What a cracker, piano and vox are just fab and the tune is really catchy too, can hear this on the radio. A radio two live session maybe ,  just magic!!!!

Well, you've done it again haven't you, and this might ease the play load on "With Mum Again" on my Ipod now, as can see this getting countless listens alongside it.

The piano hook got my attention from the first bar and the little rests between this and vocal are exquisite and help build up tension in the first verse, and love how if all builds up to a fuller sound for the second verse before it all returns back to just that vocal and piano for the outro.

Special, special song that has an instant likeability.

Hi Andy... this an outstandingly well constructed piece of songwriting  (not to mention performance)
............I thought I told you not to mention performance!!!!!!!!!!!

Great stuff

Bazz

I've listened to this 10 times at least today and I still don't know how to comment on this. It is so many lightyears away from what I'm able to do, so I'm completely lost for words. But I'll say a few words anyway.

FANFREAKINGTASTIC !!!!

The performance is so dynamic, sensitive and just shows what an amazing performer you are. And the song ... WOW ....

You are an amazing artist Andy !

I'm a fan !!!

oh and the fretless !!! my oh my !!! Is it the upright you bought some time ago?

Your piano playing sounds quite fine to me (I'm curious too - real piano?), in fact everything sounds terrific! You really hit an emotional chord with this, and it all sounds so natural, too - that's the talent.

Oh I like it - it seems much more organic than some of your other songs - like you haven't fussed too much over it, which knowing you, you probably have. If that makes any sense.

Classic Andy - cool  8)

they are all outstanding btw :)

Splendid! Bravo!

Thanks folks :)

Haylie - you would not believe how much I fussed over this one :D.

The piano, guitars, and bass parts are well over a month or two old. They are all pretty much 2nd or 3rd takes, and I've been obsessing over a) the guitars were too dirty and b) the piano and bass don't really play together too well in places.

But I knew there was something about them, which could take weeks again to recreate. So, instead, I worked on the drums and, eventually, the vocals to cover up the discrepancies. Right near the end I was still dreading having to redo the piano or bass. But the final vocal covered the worst bit, so I went with them (I figured out what the problem was, the piano and bass were played to DIFFERENT vocal performances with a click, not the final drums, so I was on a bit of a sticky wicket... I couldn't sing a decent vocal to re-record them to! :D So it was always going to be a compromise...)

Probably keeping those original parts (because I was scared of redoing them!) has worked in the track's favour.

But the vocal - complete nightmare to get right! Took about 3 weeks, recording 3 or 4 takes every day or so. I deleted a load the other day and then ended up with 8 new single-takes. I used "take 2" with one phrase from "take 6" because there was a nasty "dry mouth noise" on take 2's otherwise tasty version.

The problem was, I couldn't get straight in my head how the thing should be performed. If I could have done the vocal and piano live together, vocal would have been what I wanted. But I would also be presenting "creaky piano stool" and "andrew stomping on the pedal" noises.

By the way - what do you guys mean by a real piano? :D

If you mean acoustic, no, it's not. It's a Yamaha, er, P-60 (I think). About 5 or 6 years ago it was Yamaha's "student" stage piano. Feels a lot like the "real" pianos I've touched (although I'm a guitarist, remember). Not a lot of choices on board: two grand pianos, two electrics, two harpsichords, two organs I don't use, and one or maybe two string settings.

This was the brighter of the two grands, with all the on-board reverb switched off, straight into the BR. No compression, no EQ. I just added a reverb that was more under my control than the piano's.

What I did do, though, was use the BR's Mastering stuff separately on the three stereo sub-mixes of piano, mixed guitars, and bass before mixing with the drums and vocal. Using the multi-band compressor on them at that stage enabled me to smooth out the mix/performance more (it was all very "spikey" when mixed otherwise), but without losing too much "lightness". Then when I mastered the final mix I was able to be a lot more gentle, AND I was able to add dynamics during the mastering without it sounding obvious or squashing the loud bits. (I used to do this all the time on the old MBR, but it's more time consuming to do on the BR1600 because you can't use the Mastering algorithm on one stereo pair while listening to another)

I mixed it on the wednesday evening, wasn't too convinced, but Mrs R liked it. I did the final master of the 2nd of wednesday's mixes on the thursday evening, still wasn't convinced.... I checked it out Friday evening on various headphones and speakers, and decided it was probably "it". But I still left it til early Saturday for a final check before getting it off the box, converting to mp3 and posting.

It wasn't until I heard it on alonetone (before anyone else had listened to it) that I realised it was possibly better than I thought it was. I was relieved to finish, but a bit disapppointed - I really was posting it in a spirit of "oh f**k it, can't win em all" ... I was convinced that the vocal wasn't as good as I should have been able to do, and the whole thing had ended up as a bit of a plodder...

(The song originally started as a medium tempo country-rock thing on guitar, I got stuck on lyrics, so I took the pad and pen up to the piano. I was playing it at this speed for sorting out lyrics, Rachel heard it from her room and said "do it like that". Doing at this speed, the requirement for a chorus disappeared and the song was finished!)

... I'm already twiddling on the candidates for the "next one", trying to figure out how to avoid the fussing/obsessing phase (or at least reduce it somewhat! :D).

Magnificent. Roscoe

Wow. This is fabulous. The piano sounds great and your singing is outstanding. So full of life and emotion. I love it. This deserves a

(http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5ze0wmrEw1r5mzhho1_500.jpg)



JOA

Epic song...diggin' the drama - makes me think of Queen and Guns 'n Roses but your killer vocal makes this all your own.

Quote from: AndyR on August 05, 2013, 02:28:38 AM... I'm already twiddling on the candidates for the "next one", trying to figure out how to avoid the fussing/obsessing phase (or at least reduce it somewhat! :D).

Andy you are so talented you really don't need to worry - I challenge you to do the next one live, one take - come on now you know you secretly want to xx

Excellent song. I love the piano. It's the right instrument for this song. Brilliant vocals, as always. The drums sound great too. Not sure if they're a kit that you actually played, loops and samples that you selected and sequenced, or a drum machine that you programmed. But, however you did it, I'm sure that the drums were made for the song, as opposed to some preset patterns from a drum machine or a simple repeating loop. Well done.

Back for more of this stunner, it has been going around in my head all day

Loved reading the story of how it all evolved too.

Drums are the BR1600's onboard stuff.

I start with one of the preset patterns that seems to fit the vibe. There usually seems to be one or two candidates at least. When choosing between them, I'm most interested in the hi-hat patterns, I want to fiddle with the preset's hi-hat as little as possible, so I choose the one that seems to have most promise.

I then copy that pattern and set up a song that uses it exclusively.

That's the click track that I record to.

At some point I bite the bullet and start "doing" the drums.

What this usually involves (and did in this case) is taking various copies of the original pattern and tweaking it. Adding fills, cymbals, or changing the dynamics. On certain bars it also means removing kick or snare beats, or moving them sometimes.

When most of the "main groove" areas are sorted with their additional cymbals, we're almost there. In this case, I'd also created a couple of patterns with one Crash/kick or one Ride/kick at the front of the bar as well (copying the slight delay on the first beat that the original preset has).

After that, there's usually one or two places that "stick out". In this case it was hi-hat. One of them had "too much" activity (the hh pattern from the preset), the other had "too little" (none!). The patterns covering those bars had to be fiddled with for ages until it sounded close enough to a drummer doing what I wanted (with me not knowing what it was I wanted until I heard it!!).

So, yes, the drums were created for the song, BUT they were all based on the feel of the drummer from the original preset I used (without checking, I think that preset, copied but unadulterated, probably appears in bars 3-4 of the second verse).

Son of a gun man..............a worthy addition, a huge concept, a fantastic ......... I'm at a loss for words, so I will just listen.  Very well done Andy.  My only critisism is the lack of big ass guitar solo at the end would have really done it for me......but thats just me............I will never get tired of big asses of guitar solos to end songs such as this......I am thinking of the GnR feeling I guess.  Well done man.

:D :D :D

There was no way I was putting a big ass guitar solo on it... :D

BUT!! I did think of you personally while I was recording it -

"BB'll want a big ass guitar solo on the end.... oops, sorry BB..."

:)

PS. I've just checked, you'll be sorely disappointed with the the planned "next three" as well...
Oh dear...
Mebbe I ought to put them on hold and record an instrumental called "BAGS for BB"