Barry Seymour

BBC Orchestra plugin. Clarinets and bassoons, then a full string section. Thanks, Gar!

Thanks for the feedback. That's a Yamaha A1M Acoustic. I love the tone of Yamahas. I fingerpicked one channel and flatpicked the other, then panned them left and right.

Hey there groovy guys, groovy gals. Peace love dove, bells, incense and Hare Krishna... Sorry I've been absent for a while, but I have a new song. Let me know what you think!

Very smooth, very slick. Amazing playing, flawlessly mixed, pro quality. I used to hear stuff like this on the radio all the time on the 'Smooth Jazz' stations in San Diego in the 80s. Well done! PS: The more I go into this, the worse I feel about my guitar playing. ? Holy crap.

Thanks! Yeah, it's gettin' old. Good thing I work from home!

Here's the final video! Can you feel the anxiety? ?

Okay, this is a new mix. I also mastered it. I think this is the one.

I normally qualify my efforts by admitting "my music is 50 years out of date." Well, with this song, I'm up to being only 40 years out of date. ? Thanks for the compliment.

Thanks. I worked on this last night. I had applied a voice doubler to the track (just two voices) and a guitar amp - that latter made it really harsh. I took the guitar amp off, tried the 'AM Radio' EQ and that didn't work either. I ended up doing just the opposite - boosted the bass a bit and the treble a LOT and it works. It's clear, it cuts through a bit, but it's not so harsh. I also backed down the vocal volume a bit so it sits in the mix better. I'm at work now, will post that mix in a few hours. Thanks, @noynekker!

That sounds like a better idea. Thanks!

Yeah, still trying to figure out how I want to handle that. It's more harsh than I'd like.

Very foreboding, lots of cool sounds.

Going out on a limb here with something different. Still undecided about the sound quality of the vocals, may tweak that more. Suggestions welcome! EDIT: Final Mix!

Hey everyone; first time in this forum. I got a nice toy for Christmas, an AKAI MPK Mini 3. It's hooked up and working correctly - but can I configure it to use the drum pads as a control surface? I've added it into settings in MIDI / Control Surfaces, but now what? Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

I know there's another song making the rounds today... but here's the final mix and video!

One of the nice things about not having a record contract is I can make my songs as long as I want. ? Sorry guys, not shortening this one. Been down that road. Someone above asked what horns I used. Two guys! A trumpet player and a sax player. As for the screaming trumpet, that was sort of a Sunstone hallmark from back in the day. Getting ready to pull the trigger, after all.

I had this up a few months ago, but life intervened. Now I am close to finishing this, but am seeking further feedback from folks in the know. That means you! Let me know what you think and THANKS.

Okay, after months, here's a new mix. I think it's close, but I'd love some of your sweet, sweet feedback. ?

I've had conversations with my old band mates (emphasis on the "old," we're all in our late 60s!) about this very thing. Only one of the horn players is even close to being a professional musician - he still has his chops. The rest are more problematic. (We're not 18 any more!) I have told them my overriding goals are to write songs I want to write and have them play on them. I love these guys and want to give us an EP (at least) of professionally recorded songs, since in the early 1970s we had none of that. In the end, this means I have to spend a lot of time lining up horn parts. For now, it's worth it, but yeah, it can get old. This is a separate issue from the mix, which is where I've traditionally needed the most advice and constructive criticism. And I got some good feedback, including on the Facebook forum for Creative Sauce. A side note; I found some good brass/horn/sax VSTs, which I used on our next song. In fact, they were scary good, they sounded amazing. Then when the actual horn parts came in I was back to tweaking, adjusting, moving, stretching, EQing, etc. etc. etc. But as I mentioned, having my guys on the track is important to me. So for now, I put in the work. My conundrum is - do I crack the whip? Force them to do more takes until it's better? I have to think about that one.

Yeah, I'm afraid you're right. We've all agreed to avoid overcomplicated runs like that in future arrangements. I don't have a good enough installation of Melodyne to fix that. Plus I'm still unclear as to how to show multiple tracks in the Melodyne editor so I can line stuff up. Gotta go back to Mike Enjo's Melodyne tutorial...

Final Video! Thanks, everyone, for the feedback!

Okay, here's a new mix... More clean up of timing on the horns New vocal - strikes a good balance between the first two takes, plus better sound quality Added some sparkly guitar beneath the last two verses to add variety Let me know what you think.

I do use a plugin called 'Wider' - maybe I'm a bit guilty of overusing it. I'll take a look, thanks.

I've already spent too much time tightening up the timing for many of the horn parts, but those melismas are a bitch. I'll take a look with Melodyne... I suspect I'll have to learn more about the upgraded version I bought a few months ago. I had some weirdness I didn't quite understand with the vocal track - it was getting compressed, and I couldn't get rid of it, even when I re-recorded over it. The solution was to delete it completely and create a new track. Now it sounds 'Normal.' I'll be working on mixing that soon. Thanks!

Thanks for the suggestions. If by "timing issues" you mean horns, I'm afraid I've done all I can there. As for the "de-essing" and the "squeezed" sound, my guess is you refer to the lead vocal. I'll be cutting that track again today. I've not been entirely happy with it.