Leigh - "Happy Now"

[leighelse]

I wrote this song a few weeks ago, and have used it as a testing ground for my SP-606 sampling sequencer. The electric guitar is the BR1600's Fat Strat preset.

I'd appreciate critical feedback on the drum track in particular.

Happy Now

ridden and perforated by Leigh Harrison © APRA 2016

Your most intimate scenes are live in the cloud
Your virtual world more real than the shroud of our withering planet
You hear only what you want to hear
And live only what you want to live
But do your digital memes keep faith with your heart like our old dreams?
And tell me, tell me true
Tell me, tell me true
Are you happy now?
Are you happy now?
Are you happy now?

I have every convenience I can conceive
Leisure and ease paid by deceiving myself that's what matters
I'm deaf to the poor who serve my greed
Blind to the planet that keeps me fed
But can I buy off my heart with things I don't value forever?
So tell me, tell me true
Tell me, tell me true
Am I happy now?
Am I happy now?
Am I happy now?

We were marching in step towards a bright world
Threatened by hope, privilege hurled a mirage to deflect us
They promised us wealth, a life of ease
Yet now we're in debt. They hold the keys
To the future we fought for; instead they will own us forever
But tell me, tell me true
Tell me, just between me and you
Are we happy now?
Are we happy now?
Are we happy now?

[Oldrottenhead]

Not had a chance to listen, no bandwidth and run ragged. But the lyrics are fabulous. Very current and making me feel a bit guilty, will have a listen tonight when I get some quiet time.

[Redler]

Stunning!! I liked this from the first note!!

Nice ambient feel with very ethereal keyboard tones and your voice fits well on it! The vinyl record effect(?) was a fine idea on intro and outro!

Agree with James about lyrics!!

[Kenneth]

Leigh, terrific song - creating!
You wanted thoughts on the rhythm track... it reminds me of the rhythm that Dido used for "Northern Sky". Those kind of tracks have a place!
Nicely done!

[Johnny Robbo]

This is lovely... a very chilled out ambient track that draws the listener in. It's captivating! Love the 80s-style synth drum vibe you've got going on here - it really suits the "mellow electronica" feel of the piece. It's just struck me that the whole vibe of this song is reminiscent of "Drive" by The Cars, which is a great song to be in the same league as. Some gorgeous lead guitar on this too... lovely playing & lovely tone. Bravo!

[Oldrottenhead]

Finally got some bandwidth sounds fab, love the song. lyric and lead guitar are exceptional. Reminiscent of massive attack. Very chilled but with a great message.

[Mach]

Leigh your productions are always so clean and well balanced. You have all the instruments sitting in their places occupying (to my ears) the perfect frequencies. Do you do a lot of EQ-ing when mixing? Nice delivery on a great song and well thought out lyrics.

Mach

[leighelse]

Thanks for your kind words Mach.

Do you do a lot of EQ-ing when mixing?

Interestingly I almost never equalise anything. There may be equalisation in some of the BR1600 input presets, mind you. On this track the only EQ I've added is on the acoustic guitar as I thought it was a little dull - I could probably have achieved the same result by changing the strings on the instrument. I've not used compression at all either, apart from what may be in the input presets or the BR1600's mastering process.

When I was recording with Reaper, and before that N-Tracks, I tweaked equalisation on everything. I also used duckers to create holes in the mix for the vocals, compressed everything ... in short I micro-managed and over-processed everything, and often ended up with a brittle mix that, while technically laudable, lacked life and was hard to listen to.

With the BR1600s I've largely adopted a Countdown to Ecstasy philosophy - there's a note on the back of that album cover to the effect that no equalisers were used on the recording. Reading that as a teenager I imagined the engineers must have been superhumanly gifted to achieve such sonic purity while sacrificing what I regarded as a key weapon in a producer's arsenal. Either that or they were lying. Now I see that, if the raw sound is captured cleanly, very little processing should be needed.

What I have done for the first time on a couple of the tracks on Happy Now is to export the stem track to my PC and clean it up a little in Audacity, then import it back into the BR1600; it's a slow process. I did this because of background noise: we live on a street corner and the spare bedroom/office/studio is only three metres from the road, so otherwise perfect acoustic tracks sometimes suffer from undesirable artifacts. Also some of the noisier BR1600 guitar presets suck hum out of my $200 no-brand electric, despite having replaced the pickups with higher quality units.

Anyway, my aim is to get a sound that's warm and real and well-balanced across a range of sound systems (I find the BR1600's sound modelling is very useful when I'm mixing). Then I trust to the black arts of the mastering process to lift the output to the next level.

For mastering the BR1600's mastering process is very good, online services like Masterlizer and MasteringBOX aren't bad, but a sample track mastered by Mercury Mastering (a real person in a well-equipped analogue mastering studio) sounded immense! I think if I were to put an EP or an album together I'd try to scrape up the budget to have the tracks mastered by an expert.

Sorry Mach, that's a much longer answer than you probably expected.

[launched]

I can't do critical, tried that, doesn't work around here. But I'll tell you what I like!

I'm listening on laptop speakers, which is very telltale whether the mix is good - Which it is.

Crackly record effect in the beginning and end - cool.
Lead vocal - Stunning and unique, love it!
Subtle vocal harmonies - I want more, but I guess that's the point. I've ruined a lot of tunes by my vocal overdubbing obsession
Lead guitar work - Surprised me, that's cool too.
Production and mixing - Envious
Lyrics and song development - Double Envious

I'm a fan, what else can I say! Awesome tune!

Mark

[cuthbert]

I like the rhythm track very much - it reminds me of Momus, especially combined with the pad in the background. Is the rhythm coming from the SP-606 sampling sequencer? It's a great sound.

I also liked the vinyl intro/outro. Great vocal, too!

This bears repeated listening. On to another play...