Miguel Carzola

Garybrun: You're a great producer and musician. What's going on, brother?

Thanx, Wookie, KurtS, PhotoBrainer, Jack C, DeeringAmps, and Bajan Blue! I really appreciate you all taking the time to listen an help with your comments, especially without the benefit of the lyrics. It means a lot to me. I'm humbled. ?

Hello everyone. A long time ago there was a girl I liked and she was here as a student I knew she was going back some day so I couldn’t let it get too serious but dang it, I wanted to. I grew up on Cuban music among other things, and there’s a style called Bolero. The “trio” format of Bolero is mostly done with three male voices, a couple of guitars, light percussion, and lots of harmonies, and the songs are usually about deep and sometimes tortured love-which was exactly how I was feeling. Everything came quickly, wrote it on a piano but then had a band mate play a couple of tracks of guitar strumming and picking using chord inversions, panned them out, added light percussion and a faint bass line, and then we did harmonies. Anyway, made a whole pop arrangement after that and spent time making it sound commercial but I found myself preferring the demo version every time with all its mistakes and sour notes. It’s in Spanish so some here will miss “the why” for some of the musical decisions that go with the lyrics, but I hope you all enjoy it nevertheless. Ok…enough rambling. thanx \ ?

HEY!!! I resemble that comment!!! ☝?? I mean…ahem…I resent that comment ? No, but seriously though. That’s a great habit to get into. Thanx for sharing it here, Mark

Not a thing. It’s perfect as is ?

Nice one Kurt!!! If you’re still taking suggestions about percussion, adding layered shakers throughout the whole song may help fill out the groove so you don’t have to look for congas and bongos. You could use an egg shaker and keep it dry, and layer it with a soft shaker with a long bright reverb and it would tie the mix together nicely. Another idea is to get the biggest floor tom sound you can find, add a long dark reverb to it (with a long predelay so it stays punchy) , and place it in the down beat (yes, the down beat) of every bar in the “A” parts of the song. It will change the dynamics of those parts without making it sound busy. Great job with this piece as is though ??

Niooooo!!!! Buenisima compadre. Thanx 4 sharing it with us. ??

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You may have to use several instances of both on the same track so the “rules” become null. There are no right answers.

YouTube has tons of resources on this BTW

Thanx Mark MoreThan-Shaw!

I’ve been mixing with the earbuds that came with the phone I listen to music in (Best thing that has happened to my mixes) Obviously check on as many other speaker systems as possible before you consider it done, but this approach saves me a lot of time.

I’ve tamed proximity effect using a multiband compresor before. Throw a low cut EQ from about 250 Hz with a 6db curve and then add multiband compression. Pull the threshold down on the low band (not the subs), give it a 4:1 compression with a fast attack (5-10 mls) and a quick release (<50 mls) and leave the rest of the frequencies untouched on the multiband compresor. You can always add other instances of comp and EQ after this depending on what you want out of the mix. No one setting is good enough for an entire vocal track so you gotta automate the volume BEFORE the effects-In other words, the effects have to be post fader. Good luck ??

Great job Kurt! Really enjoyed it ???

Great piece Mark. Wow!

Mark! This is great. I'm a huge John Mayer fan and this reminded me of something he would do. I totally mean that as a compliment. Thank you so much for sharing it with us. Can't wait till you get WiFi in that barn of yours. ?

There's a lot of great videos in the tutorial section here and on YouTube about that. Recording is not only fun but incredibly rewarding. Once you learn the basics you can record on most DAWs out there and it becomes second nature. It's like driving cars. They all have the same basic things. It's up to you to determine where you go with it. Good luck with everything.

Thank you so much for taking the time, Jack. I really appreciate it.

Hey Dave! That was great. I loved the arrangement and mix choices you made here. You definitely pulled off the huge ambient pop sound you were going for. Thanx for sharing it here.

Kurt! That was a lovely piece. Really enjoyed it. Everything about it. Thank you for sharing it with us.

Hey Wookie, no politics please! ???? Just kidding, man. You are absolutely right. Thanx for checking it out ???

Hello everyone. This song was recorded on Cakewalk using a Quad-Capture interface, a Behringer V-amp 2 amp simulator, a Strat, a Yamaha Five String Bass, a CAD E 200 mic, and EZ Drummer and Dimension Pro as the VST instruments for drums and keys. We used only the included Sonitus Suite effects and automated the daylights out of the tracks to optimize the sound of a band format in comparison to the original, in which they used a band aaaaand an orchestra. The song is “Ilegal, Inmoral, o Engorda” by Roberto Carlos. It basically posses the question: Why are things we like often illegal, immoral, or fattening? I have loved this singer and this song since I was a kid but I always imagined him doing it a little tighter, a little angrier, and without the orchestra, so I did it that way. Bellow are the original and my version. hope you enjoy them ?

Mark! You always deliver such interesting stuff. Thank you for sharing this. Loved it ??

Esther. Thank you for the feedback and the kind comment. In your neck of the woods I’m sure you’ve been exposed to great vocalists of the Romance languages, so I’m humbled. Thank you ??

Bats strikes again!!! Man. You’re on another level. Thank you for allowing us bumpkins to hear this. Great stuff.