Surrender - AndyR Original

[Bluesberry]

Son-of-a-gun, what a great little Gem of a song you have crafted here.......the lyrics really do it for me, and of course, your clean punchy BAGS at the end, just warming up nicely into the fade out, thats the way to tease.  Totally great in every way.  Possibly my new favorite AndyR tune.  I like it a lot.

[SE]

Big blues inspired tune, the vox are just the center piece, just looked up at 4.00 mins and thought, that's too short, that tells the story.

[The Gobi Desert Canoe Club]

Great job Andy, I can't pick out one part that stands out, it all sounds perfect to me. Roscoe

[chunk]

Wow, what a voice and recorded to perfection

[bruno]

Very nice song and very well and pro recording.
Excellent.
B

[AndyR]

Just realised I hadn't responded to any of this - that's not like me!!

MANY THANKS for your kind comments folks. When I first posted it it wasn't one of my favourites at all - it wasn't a "fail", but it was certainly a "could have been better, wonder what went wrong?". I'd had a definite idea of where it should go, but I'm not enough of a soul-man (verses) or new-wave-man (choruses) to make it go like that.

But, with all the nice responses here and on alonetone, and with a bit of distance from it now, I'm pretty happy with how it came out. Actually, very happy now!

I'm proud of the solo, but I'm STILL not sure it should be there. The original plan was fade the moment the outro started, and so the backing only goes as far as the end of the fade. When I got the solo going like it does, though, it felt like something else ought to be happening - another "BIG" bit. So it took a lot of fiddling over different fades to get it to an "OK, the party's carrying on without me, but I'm satisfied with what I've had" feeling when you're listening. (The problem for me, personally, is that I never intended there to be any "ongoing party" - emotionally, the song finishes with the last verse )

And definitely, the first few phrases of the solo should have been played a little more "staccato" or "damped" - in fact, earlier performances were, I just didn't notice I was drifting into "Hank" mode on the first section as I was practicing/learning the rest of it. I only found out when I was mixing, and it suddenly went all "smooth" when the outro started. I just about tamed it, but I still get a feeling of "hang on? is this the same song? what's happening next?" when I listen to it. This effect is gradually fading, though, the more I listen to it.

I was very pleased with the bass-part, and I suspect it has a lot to do with "making" this particular version, but I also think it's what dragged the arrangement away from what I was reaching for originally. Also, I'd love to find out how to get the bass sound that was in my head... this isn't quite it, but it will definitely do.

All in all, though, I'm kinda of fond of this thing now

[Greeny]

Christ on a bike, this is bleedin' awesome! Sheer quality and class running through it like a stick of rock. And 'rock' it certainly does! Love the solo at the end... clean and emotional. Really fantastic work! The opening riff reminded me of 'Too Late' by Carole King, but then it went off in it's own sweet direction :-)

[Ricky Kay]

Cool funky 60's feel nice no rhyme verses.your vocals have that rusty Dr. John groove great work Andy!

[Ferryman]

Hi Andy, haven't been here for a while so it's a pleasure to hear some more of your beautifully crafted work. Great dynamics and crystal clear mix with a great balance of instruments. I really like the drop out at about 2:50 and the way it builds back up for the end and the solo. I think the solo works well there and creates more interest at the end of the song instead of just repeating a chorus to fade.

What are the drums? The BR ones? If so, they sound great, you've done a good job of not making them sound like programmed drums. If they are played live, then nice job.

Cheers,

Nigel

[AndyR]

Thanks Nigel

The drums are the BR1600's (Room Kit, I think, that's what I usually use - except I have used STD2 recently, might be this? Can't tell! ). Very little, if any, EQ was used on them for this mix, and maybe some reverb.

An earlier mix was using "New York Compression" on the drums (copy the drum audio, compress the crap out of it and then boost some bits - kick 100hz and snare 200hz, in this case - and bring that up to taste against the original... HUGE sound!). But when I came back to the mastered mix a few days later I hated it... I experimented with remastering but eventually decided the mix itself was the problem. I remixed from the sub-mix bounces (guitars, keys, bass, lead guitars, lead vox, backing vox), and decided to ditch the NY compression idea (I ditched a bunch of other stuff as well - some low organ and another "extra spice" rhythm guitar in the verses that was on the lead sub-mix). Came out a lot clearer and punchier, missing some of the sparkles from the lead-gits sub-mix, but overall much better.

I tend to create the drum part itself in a fairly routine way now. I pick a preset pattern for a groove, copy it and rename it "Click". I do most of the tracking to that.

Then I base the drum part on that pattern, nothing else. I copy it and amend it as necessary for everything. First, though, I inspect it for nuances and any late hits (it was either this one or the previous one that had a slightly delayed "one" beat on the original preset). When copying and amending the original pattern, I stick to these nuances all the way through (most instruments were recorded to them, after all!).

(Btw, on the MBR, I was quite happy using the presets to build songs. I was expecting to do that on the BR1600 - it has the same structure of Intro, V1, F1, V2, F2, End patterns - but they're different (and not as tasty?) as the MBR patterns, and I could never find stuff I liked. So I ended up going this "one pattern for click, then edit pattern to create everything else" approach, seems to work well for me....)

When editing patterns (I do it all as Step editing - I find it a lot faster and less frustrating, it also helps me to think about the timing of the other parts when they're doing crazy shit they shouldn't be!!), I usually end up "fitting" the kick patterns to the bass part. And sometimes I re-record the bass part if this shows up something I don't like. Sometimes the bass part is just the flawed guide anyway. I can't remember which came first in this case, final drums or final bass. I do remember that I didn't re-record the bass after I'd got "the one" (actually, I think it was two, comped together), whether I was "doing drums" after that, I can't recall....

With the song I'm working on at the moment, I'm going a slightly different route. The acoustics and guide vox are over a year old. There's been lots of rehearsal takes of bass and electric and organ deleted. I'm currently rehearsing/working the bass part... and writing the drum patterns/song-arrangement at the same time. When the drums are locked in, I'll record the real bass, delete everything else (maybe even the acoustics) and re-track it. I'm hoping this might come out better... 


Actually, I'm beginning to wonder about my addiction to trying to sound like a "real band" - can't seem to shake it off at the moment, though