Barry Seymour

Thanks for the feedback, this is what I was hoping for. My ears are stale after working on this for so long.

I'm back with another Sunstone jam. More horn players, and I arranged the horns! Barry Seymour - Vocals, guitar, songwriter, arranger Jack Hill - Bass Steve Klenke - 1st Trumpet, Pseudo-bone Tom Berryman - 2nd Trumpet Dan Bob Jones - Alto Sax Here's the final video!

Thank you! These are all musicians from my high school rock band. A bassist, a sax player and a trumpeter. For the next song we're adding another trumpet player and an actual drummer.

Thanks! I had two horn players who tracked their parts at home; the alto sax player did his bit, then I tweaked and fixed it where needed. Then the trumpet player played his three parts using that as a reference track. I have them all on separate tracks but they're going through one bus, which I applied compression. I centered all the horns but then used a free plugin called 'wider' to give it a sort of faux separation; it gives the horns a more intimate, unified feel, oddly enough.

I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for letting me know. Gave me a chuckle.

Too late! It's out! I turned it up to 11. 😁 And yeah, those pix are from FIFTY YEARS AGO. 😲

FINALLY. This was a big one for me.

I originally recorded this without horns. I'll back it off and see if it helps clean things up.

This is new territory for me; I've never mixed horns before. Any feedback would be welcome. I know the solos need work - I've asked them for a few more takes. I'm asking about the mixing. Thanks!

I'm pretty sure this has been requested elsewhere, but I could not find it. I have a friend I'm converting to Cakewalk. He bought an external SSD and then installed Cakewalk. It only let him install to the 😄 drive. I told him to go into Preferences and set File Locations to the SSD drive wherever possible before doing anything. But it would be nice if we could tell Cakewalk to live, eat, sleep, breathe on an external hard drive - especially an SSD - at install time. Thanks!

There's the old joke - "I like Chinese food... or, as they call it in China, 'food.'" I'm a 70s guy. To me it doesn't sound like 70s music, it just sounds like music. 😁 Thanks for the kind words.

Thank you for this!

I used to work in radio. I often did just what you describe. But I never knew there was a term for it! Learn something every day.

What does 'duck everything' mean?

The new song is out! It's at the top of the page. Thanks, everyone!

I'm using a plugin called - wait for it - "Wider." It's quite remarkable, actually; it splits the sound without any chorusing or flanging effect. I used it on the bass and the vocals. It has the unique effect of making it sound more intimate; instead of the voice being 20 feet in front of you, it's like you hear the voice in each ear from much closer. It's fascinating. And it's free. Highly recommended. https://polyversemusic.com/products/wider/ As for the drums, I just panned the instruments a bit to left and right, nothing fancy. Thanks for the positive feedback!

Now I gotta learn about sidechaining.... thanks for the link.

Just heard both mixes, second mix is better by half, and I'd post that second mix confidently as a link at the top of your first post in this thread. Thanks! Why is the second mix better? Less vocal reverb, I think you did add some predelay? I am not sure what predelay is, so I suspect I didn't use it. And the bgv's are a must have for this song, I'd get them louder in their spots. Thanks, still fiddling with volume and mix. I may even add in a few more aahs. Your second mix solved a lot of problems that I heard, so well done. I'd say one area might remain to be addressed, and that is your snare is masking the vocal a bit when the snare hits. I don't know if you have already, but I like the snare's sound - just volume automate by hand a little dip in snare volume whenever it happens to beat down on a lyric. That should only take you another 10,000 hours, but well worth it. I'm pretty fast on a computer. I bet I could get it done in 80 hours. Lyrics are great. As for your hyper self-awareness of the vocalists' age, hey if your going to mention James Taylor and Dire Straits then we expect a seasoned vocalist. I think it works a treat. I guess I still worry about younger folks listening to this. I'm thinking I should cut that out. OK, so you aren't 38, but this is Special! I get that reference! p.s. your wife is right about Bruce, now I finally get it about that dude! I'm not telling her that. I'll never hear the end of it. 😆

Try now.

Okay, here's a new mix for 23 August. Background vocals! https://soundcloud.com/barry-seymour/katie-tuning-in20220823

So I've been thinking about the whole 'sound of my voice' thing, and I'm starting to think it's the sound of my diction. Which raises an interesting side question. My wife cannot stand Bruce Springsteen, because "he's from New Jersey, but he sounds like a cowboy." She sees that as insincere, as fakey. I get what she's saying, but at the same time it seems to me a singer can tell a story and use the voice of the character(s) in the story, so I don't have as much of a problem with it as she does. As for this song, it sounds to me like someone with good diction, careful enunciation and a college education is trying to sing a rocker. 😆 Heck, maybe I should try sounding like a cowboy, or at least someone who's more rough and tumble than I am. (I've worked in radio and voice over for decades, it would be quite doable.) I mean, I'm a nearly-retired old guy, but the protagonist of this song is a young guy going out on tour to forget an indifferent lover, only to find her indifference continues across state lines. Maybe I need to change things up a bit? Any thoughts? Just thought I'd spark a discussion whilst I refine this song. (Harmony vocals on the way!)

Thanks for the kind words.... but now I have a different, perhaps more awkward ask. The more I listen to my song, the more it sounds like the singer is not in the right genre. That this guy should not be singing rock. That this guy sounds like someone's grandpa, trying to be cool. Twice now I've borrowed a friend's rehearsal studio to sing this song. Originally this song was a step lower; after I sang it and started reviewing the recording, it felt like I couldn't push hard enough, couldn't push properly, since it was comfortably within my range; that the level of effort wasn't credible. So I rerecorded all the audio a step higher, and sang it again. Thankfully, since I was in a rehearsal studio, I was able to cut loose and sing loud, so I feel like my singing is better in many ways, more on pitch, certainly, but still... I sound like some old man. Of course, I am an old man, but I don't want to sound like one. Please feel free to be as honest as possible. I'm actually thinking of finding a younger singer to sing this. Let me know what you think. Thanks.

WONDERFUL sound, very appealing composition!

Yeah, the harmony vocals have a 60s tone quality, and everything else is very slick, as mentioned above like Steely Dan. Love the pizzicato strings, nicely played and placed. Electric piano is smooth. Very nice! So when was this originally recorded?

So sorry about your brother! Man, that's gotta be hard. Condolences. You did a good job cleaning this up. Bass sounds rich, which is especially hard with old tapes. Nicely done.