Preview - ‘The Scar’
So we went through our final pass of mastering last Monday and have been letting the album sit for a while.
Here’s quick preview of ‘The Scar’ after mastering.
Does this song work for you?
Should we include it in the album?
What about the details of the sound? Anything we should re-track or re-mix?
“The Scar“ (mp3 4:30)
Please leave comments down below, text
or email me directly. :)
Hey -
Thanks for the preview.
Just my two cents on the production:
1) I think the vocals might be a bit high relative to the rest of the band, especially the guitar. There are some nice riffs going on that get covered up.
2) The snare is also a bit too high and does not sound very tight. It’s giving me a “pflat” instead of a more popped “tat”. Does that make sense? It may be the snare needs to be pulled tighter, but you can also have that fixed up post recording as well (that’s what my band did rather than re-record the tighter snare”.
Hope that is helpful, good luck!
Comment by bryan — July 25, 2010 @ 10:06 pm
Hey,
Overall it sounds really good!
A few details:
-The kids in the beginning should probably be quieter, or start fading out (getting quieter) earlier
-During the verses, the guitar arpeggios could be a tiny bit louder (maybe I’m biased as a guitarist)
-The transition at the end of the guitar solo is a bit messy, because I kinda lose track of when it’s ended and when it hasn’t. Maybe the solution is a cleaner break, or maybe it’s cleaner drumming during the “quiet” part… maybe something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuajHTR2_VE#t=2m40s
Comment by D — July 26, 2010 @ 9:09 pm
The masters sounds very professional now. The overall effect is very Dream Theatre-ish. The drums and the bass are gel-ing together well now - sounds great ! The vocals are great too - the reverb is not standard, but it suits the song. I think you guys are ready to cut the album now !
Comment by SC — July 26, 2010 @ 9:10 pm
As for the song - are you looking for feedback on the recording, the song, or both? I don’t hear anything funny or unpleasant, and I like the song for the most part…though it sounds a little hollow (not rich?) - which I think might be the recording? And I like the chorus quite a bit, but the vocals are just a little too - forced, too strained? Not sure what the right word is. Good to have edge for sure, but this goes a tiny bit too far? Not sure if that helps. I feel like I don’t have the best vocabulary for talking about music and describing what I hear.
Comment by SC — July 26, 2010 @ 9:11 pm
Ok - some folks were complaining about the vox being to harsh, so I dialed them back a bit and brought the guitars up. Let’s see what people think now…
This is the newer version:
http://seaofechoes.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/scar-joel-2010-07-26b-brighter-drums.mp3
and the original mastered version for reference:
http://seaofechoes.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/12-scar-1b-justin-master-1.mp3
Comment by joel — July 26, 2010 @ 9:11 pm
Keep in mind that I’m not really into this style of music, so is more reflective of my tastes than anything technically wrong:
I find the vocals a little hard to hear (too much reverb perhaps?). But I basically like songs I can sing along with, so I want the vocals in front.
Seems like a lot of bass (which maybe you like as the bass player
The intro’s also a bit long.
The chorus is not too distinct from the verse. I think part of it is that first chorus is an abbreviated one, and I’d probably prefer to hear that full chorus.
Comment by dp — July 26, 2010 @ 9:59 pm
if you’re really searching for critical input on the track, 3 things stood out to me (all are great as is, but you might consider the effect you’re going for):
- the intro will keep some folks from hearing the song (life’s short, people move on)
- the vocal tone changes pretty abruptly between maybe 3 different lead voices. nice range, but the change itself might be more memorable than the music
- the guitar solo, especially the beginning of it, sounds a bit disconnected from the drums. the ending of that part is great, but they kind of start sounding like they’re happening in different spaces..
random criticism is easy. filtering it to get something from it is hard.
Comment by brian — July 26, 2010 @ 10:06 pm
- takes a little while to get going. okay if it’s not a single, I’d say.
- feels a bit like there’s a spanish influence in the beginning, flamenco.
- interesting rhythm when the drums get going.
- has a big, spacious sound when it gets going — nice.
- after the first listen — has a summer-blockbuster-sound-track feeling.
- after 2nd listen — lead vocals could be made more present in the mix. a bit hard to make out the lyrics in chorus. “You don’t see what I’m seeing… you don’t feel what I’m feeling”?
- electric guitar solo is okay, but doesn’t blow me away.
thanks for sharing — good luck with the album.
Comment by lawrence — July 26, 2010 @ 10:06 pm
Awesome.
I would bring the vocals forward a bit (and the guitars back) in the
intense “You don’t see what I see…” section, especially the first
time around. Because the vocals get buried a bit there, they lose
their edge as the guitars overpower them.
I really love the way the bass guitar is recorded. And played. Props
to the player for being able to play it so consistently with the
treble on the bass instrument so far out front. Usually you get a lot
of slop and squeak when you go for a bass instrument sound like that,
but this is just right.
The drums are *awfully* compressed. I know that’s part of the sound
you’re going for, but I’d like it a little better if they could
breathe a bit more. Also about the drums: Did the hi-hat have its own
microphone? If it did, I’d try bringing it up a bit and if possible
EQing all the cymbals (including the hi-hat) a bit brighter. This is
just a matter of taste, but to me the entire drum kit sounds dark
compared to everything else.
The alternating half-step ending is the only part I really don’t like.
You find this kind of ending in all kinds of genres, especially this
sort of rock and also in “modern” jazz big band. I call it the “random
and loud” ending, and I dislike it. In other words, you choose
something unrelated to the whole rest of the song and do it really
loud, and call that an ending. To me it comes across as a cop-out.
Endings are hard; unfortunately I don’t have a specific suggestion for
what you should do instead, but the current ending sounds jarring and
like it doesn’t belong with the song. The song’s only real
chromaticism is the picardy third thing you’re doing all the way
through (which I love!), until this weirdness broadsides the listener.
Very nice song, well performed. I don’t know the rest of your album,
but this song definitely sounds like a keeper to me.
Comment by robt — July 26, 2010 @ 10:07 pm
Listening now…
I like the ambient, unintentional feel at the start, how it all comes in slowly. Kudos to production on that.
The first notes of the guitar sound like they’re trying too hard, but once the rhythm sets in, it grooves beautifully. Lyrics - first couple of lines seem undermixed. Perhaps too much reverb, not enough top end? Like they were recorded on a walkman, but after a bar or two, it seems to clear up.
Love the rhythm, and the way it’s building. Oooh - stop time. Nice. Still too much reverb on vocal - and and other stuff. Suddenly feels more like a Molly Hatchet concert (that’s a minus in my mind). The build and fade of the song are nice. Guitar solos go back to MH/ACDC for me - too much of a “let’s put a guitar solo here” rather than having an organic feel. But the stop time again after the first solo works gorgeously.
Okay - song’s over now. Crosses a few different styles for me - some I’m fond of, some not so much (but that’s a matter of style). For my taste, the loud bits go a bit over the top toward stadium-metal-concert, and lose the sophistication that you build up in the first bits. Maybe bringing down the reverb a bit there would help? Dunno. But I *like* it. There’s a lot there to like.
Thanks for sharing with us!
Comment by dpc — July 26, 2010 @ 10:07 pm
Listening again with earbuds and against Radiohead’s ‘Fake Plastic Trees’. In comparison, the radiohead mix feels more lush, especially the fullness of the guitar and organ tones. I head what folks are saying about the lyrics in the chorus, but other than that the two mixes I made are pretty close. Somehow the overall warmth, depth and fullness are missing for me on these phones.
One approach that I might need to take is to listen to the song in each band and see how the bands interact. I may be that I’m getting too much of my sense of warmth from the bass frequencies that are totally missing on earbuds. A lot to think about, but this is fun and I do feel like I’m getting somewhere.
Comment by joel — July 27, 2010 @ 12:27 am
Whoa good stuff!
I give it an awesome, and here’s why.
I’m up in the Sierra and I don’t have access to real speakers, so I’ve listened to the song on three different headphones:
V-Moda buds, very bass-heavy
Etymotics buds, very accurate treble but light in bass
Generic cheap Sony phones
First of all the playing and singing is very good: by the third listen I could pick out only a couple notes that weren’t perfectly top dead center but the good news is it sounds organic and human and that’s just excellent. You have no worries about performance; you guys are good and have sweated the takes.
The song itself sounds fine to me. I haven’t picked apart the lyrics yet or anything, but I like the overall feel, the 6/8 meter, the dynamics and crescendos, and the vocal performance.
Engineering-wise, the EQ and especially the vocal processing (reverb and echo) is very nice. Is that tape hiss behind the first bass part in the intro? The overall song sounds very compressed, even by modern standards. At first I thought that was an artifact of the V-Modas, but I heard it on all three phones. My personal taste is to have a little more air in the final mix, but I think you have made a valid choice here and it fits the style of the song. I’m saying of course it’s your call.
It’s got a beat, I can dance to it, I give it an eight. Congratulations. I’d buy your album.
Comment by mt — July 27, 2010 @ 1:30 pm
This is really impressive.
Great exposed based work at the beginning
Outstanding vocals–is that you singing lead and also harmonizing with yourself?
Excellent production work
The whole composition and production rate highly on the artistic merit scale, in my opinion. I like the intro and the large dynamic range. (What language are those children speaking at the beginning?)
Good use of 6/8 time!
Things that I might change (and these are a matter of taste more than anything)
I think a lot more could be done with the guitar solo. I actually like the expressiveness of the long pitch-bend tones. But I found it anticlimactic to settle into those square-sounding arpeggios at the end of the solo.
The unison half-step modulation of guitar and bass at the very end of the song somehow seemed kind of thin. Wonder if you could layer more and build more at the end into something richer.
Comment by dl — July 27, 2010 @ 5:44 pm
Hey Joel,
I really like the song, in fact it’s going on my mp3 player now ;=)
As some have questioned the length of the intro, I’d agree that it would likely not make the cut for a “radio edit”. But as a song for an album sounds great to me. In a way, the intro minus child voices would sound very Tool-esque to me. Child voices hmmz, recall those from Mgmt.
If the band/you got a mailing list for the album release, add me ;=)
P.S.: Been awhile you allowed me (Jörn’s brother) & our friend to crash in your house for a few days. Thanks again! Grats on Tycho, all the best to your young family ;=)
Comment by Nils — July 28, 2010 @ 7:52 am