PhonoBrainer

He only left out that the best notes a jazz player plays are the ones in the gaps he plays that are left out.

wow! What a great collab, don't know where to start - how about the lyrics? Love those, the vocal delivery, the cadences, harmonies - really pulls the ear in. the guitars are so well recorded and played. The drums have a lovely tone as well, organic and live, the snare has a great crack/thump tone! I listened once on hifi headphones, and on my better monitors. Great sound on both!!! Mix ideas, you don't need any but you might think about how loud the guitars are in the first sung verse, they cover up the vocals just a bit maybe? Everything is killer but the vocals could pop up relative to the guitars in spots, to my ears. Other than that, maybe a few more drum fills towards the ends of verses - into - chorus? This is one of the best things I've heard around here. Fantastic! cheers, -Tom

No, I liked the amount of finger slides I could hear! If you have an eq with a good live visual waveform display (fabfilter pro-q 3 or equivalent) you might watch the upper eq area, above 10 kHz? Starting at 2:25 . . . I bet around 2:28 you'll see a bunch of high frequency drop off. Good luck, very nice tune!

This is a slow burn and a good ride. My ears and brain enjoyed every second, and the mix clarity is out-friggin'-standing! Well done!

Headphones should be mandatory for this! Those synths are well placed and sound very clear, well placed in . . . space. I thought I heard some space birds as well! I've heard a lot recently about the CS-80 and the different software versions, do you like or love the Arturia version? This is an incredible soundscape and it enhanced my morning. Thanks!

Thanks, Jack! Thanks so much Andy! I figured if a song is this slooooow, there should be cool things to look at. I appreciate your comments greatly, and I hope you have an excellent music-filled year as well!!! Gary, thanks, and I bet your winters are friggin' awesome. The piano is three instruments playing similar but not identical parts. The main felt all the way through is the Woodchester piano, which has a fantastic woody tone, that unfortunately comes with a huge raspy hammer-hitting-felt sizzle for each note, around 8 kHz I think. I had to come to terms with a big eq dip there to cut out the stupid fuzz rattle on each hit. To fill that 8hz hole back in, I duplicated the Woodcester track with a Noire felt, which also brought along some bass sustains that were pretty cool. LAstly, the upper, more melodic "bell" tone that comes in is the Atelier piano., for just the melody lines really. All of this got a bit thick in the mix but it's all good I think. It could be a bit cleaner below 500k but hey. thanks for the comments, Gary, and the subscribe, much obliged! Awesome, glad you liked it Noynekker!!! The ending works for me as well in a kind of "return to reality" to which we all must, eventually. I've always liked random radio chatter as a sound source, like "Windpower" by Thomas Dolby. Cool stuff that. Appreciate the remarks!

That was really nice and mellow. The fretless has a good tone and I didn't hear any bass humm thing, but I did notice a bit of air/slight hiss in the beginning when the two guitars were featured, it comes and goes, like some real-room takes were being comped together. Nothing bad about that, of course!!! You might check 2:28 - the air is there, and then it's gone. But you might get some upper-high eq curved off at maybe 15kHz and above, just to see if that "air" disappears. Or not. The point is, very clean guitar takes indeed inside a nice composition. cheers, -Tom

downtempo chill, originally 2017, remixed and reimagined for 2022 . . . with better video! Any and all comments are welcome, thanks! An audio-only Soundcloud link is below the video link . . . audio only:

Ok. If you say so. I missed the memo where you "officially" gave up the geetars . . . but at least you could play at one time - I have three and could never get my piano fingers to pretzel up on those barre chords. . . much respect.

You could teenage tell her "At least I'm not doing crack!" Unless you actually are doing crack.

4 guitars could be considered paltry. Just sayin'. There's your new horizon ?

Was that an oboe or something with a little lead line in the intro? Loved that. Very cool darker yet swinging vibe here. It's a very good mix, clear as hell. As an experiment you could automate the snare hits up .5db at least when you are not singing. The snare might drive it a little harder when it's just the instrumental. You might also draw that ending fade out a bit longer. Another earworm from Westerly Sessions. Hope there are many more volumes. cheers, -Tom

That was a fun listen, you got a lot of mileage out of the desk bells! I could hear you different parts coming and going. Would make a nice underlayment for something needing a Danny Elfman vibe . . . hope you win! cheers, -Tom

Hi Steve! The male/female universality thing actually came across strongly, so that's a win. And anyone who has been around the block a time or two will know the torture of relationship drama! Your video works. And I can 100% relate to media sourcing issues! Most of us are at the mercy of telling our stories with royalty-free stock clips . . . which is like making a collage using only the fake pictures they sell with the frames . . . Good luck to us all, making this have depth!!! You do good stuff, keep it up! Cheers, -Tom

Yes I liked it too, it reminded me of some cool early Deodato stuff, I really like the instrumentation and the effects go great together. I think more polish on that bass part when it comes in? There are some timing drags in spots with the bass, and maybe the bass could have a more robust low-end presence in the mix? Overall I'd say this is a composition that has an arc to it, great sonic choices and a chill listen. Kind of blissed out in a "I could do yoga to this" kind of way. Cool! cheers, -Tom

How did Buster not die? Cool vibe on this one, I like the instrumentation and the arrangement. The lead piano had a bit of chorus effect going which puts it in a more modern category, as did the lead guitar. Nice juxtapositions! cheers, -Tom

That's a great vocal, mellow yet emotional. Good work on this one! For me, watching a bunch of millennials in photo-romantic torture got a bit samey if not downright ridiculous, but that is 100% my age showing. I also found the string plucks cool but occasionally I wondered if they were being doubled, or were not in sync all the time? Might be worth a check . . . The Peter Gabriel comparison is apt but you have your own thing going fer sure. cheers, -Tom

I like the cadence/rhythm emphasis in this, and the sax was a nice add indeed! I do think there is a next level for this, maybe one idea is to get them all in the same room reverbically? Bass is super dry, piano a bit of room, and sax is very far away. Maybe less sax reverb? The ending was well done. You might also give the bass some, perhaps a solo section, a short one, where the piano drops out? cheers, -Tom

Returning to the subject, LARRY!!! Happy birthday, grab it early and live long! And for your birthday, I got you an old Lang sign.

No brainer. 100% useful, even if you can't control parameters like eq on the returns.

Well my Oingo stories don't hold a candle to yours, except I saw them three times when they played at UCSD in 1981/82. They were just starting to blow up, touring off the Only a Lad debut album, which as you know kicks total musical dancing art rock *****. I danced so hard in the front of those three shows, with my friends, totally drenched in sweat at the end. The small venue had us only feet away from the players. Perhaps it was the college environment, but the dancing was frenetic, yet civilized. Like a mosh pit without the mosh. No one lost any teeth. Absolutely fantastic. Any band with a guy named Vatos, AND a 64 yr old trumpet player, can't be all bad.

Internet rat-hole report: so I went looking for "Danny Elfman's wife" who it turns out has been Bridget Fonda since 2003. Which answers another long-posed question, why did she disappear from the movies? News comes slowly to these parts . . . very slowly.

Which is better, live or studio?

Is that a harmonizer going sub on your lead vocal? Sounds cool. Thanks for that light-hearted holiday romp! I liked your take on this classic. You could start metallizing 80's new wave and start a genre. Or a niche. Next up, maybe "Tainted Love?"

I listened to the promo vid and got pretty excited to use this in my tunes! I could really see this catching on, it's infectious! . . . hey fever.