Original Rock Song, "Star Gazer"

[PavlovsCat]

I spent 12 years playing professionally as a drummer, but my first instrument was piano, then organ. I started playing with working bands in night clubs at age 18, but I actually started playing around Chicago with a family band at age 5. Because I was a very good drummer by 18, I was able to audition with working bands and knew agents that recommended me to the bands they booked and managed. While the most popular band I was a member of had a small record deal, the lead singer controlled the band very strictly and wrote all the original songs -- he wouldn't even listen to other band members' music. Consequently, in the mid 90s I formed a band of my own -- or at least tried to.  After several months of auditions we never found a lead singer and I threw the towel in on the whole thing. A few years later I got tendonitis and had to stop playing. Last year, for the first time in 21 years, I've been playing music again as a hobbyist and recording those old songs of mine my band was going to play.  I still haven't found a good lead singer and I can only play for a short while without pain from tendonitis. I actually had a fair degree of pain on the drum part -- which was meant to be more sophisticated, but I kept it simple due to the pain. 

Anyhow, I thought because this song was so simple, catchy and had a good groove, it would likely been a popular song for the band. But, since no one has ever heard this beyond a handful of musicians back in the 90s, I am curious to see how anyone would react to it now. It's a fun little jam. In all my years as a working musician and having used sequencers and Cakewalk since its early years, I really never learned how to mix or master properly and am trying to learn. So constructive advice is appreciated.  

UPDATE: BELOW IS THE LATEST MIX OF THE SONG. 

 

Edited March 22, 2022 by PavlovsCat

[KSband]

The mix sounds good to me. Interesting song, different sounds than the usual. So you are playing live drums on this?

[PavlovsCat]

Just now, KurtS said:

The mix sounds good to me. Interesting song, different sounds than the usual. So you are playing live drums on this?

Via midi. In this case, I played them live on my keyboard with my fingers (as opposed to programming them in with a mouse,  which I don't do; I enjoy playing, even if it's on my midi keyboard -- although I play a lot better on the V Drums or a real kit).  I have a Roland V-Drums kit and pads, but I didn't have them handy. I meant for the drum parts to do a lot more, but I was in pain when I was playing and kept it simple. 

[Wookiee]

Part of the art of mixing is practice just like learning to play an instrument.  Your mix environment is one of the most influential elements of the mix process a poor environment will nearly always lead to a poor mix, and whilst modern headphones are good it is always good to check on a pair of proper monitors.

Now for the controversial comment. 

Disclaimer. This is just my own personal furry opinion and is not intend to influence anyone else's opinion (much).

There is a lot of hype talked about Mastering because most people really do not understand the history of why back in the day of vinyl it was a requirement to get it to work on vinyl.  Too much bass and you limited the length and risked tracking errors to much treble and you risked grove jumping.  Level balancing in collections so the listener is not up and down with his volume control.

It is well worth reading about mastering and what a good mastering engineer will actually do.  A good mix will need very little mastering.

Now days I suspect a lot of it is about getting it to sound the same as all the other tracks out there, or making acceptable for "radio" air time.

Wookiee ramble over back to the track in hand.

Listening on my Event 20/20's (passive).
The Mix sounds OK here,  there are always going to be potential refinements but the real question is. "Are you happy with how it sounds?"

[mark skinner]

From one star gazer to another ..  I Loved the Song and Production , especially the drum tracks. Real nice change around 2:50          Enjoyed it ..    mark

[PavlovsCat]

22 minutes ago, Wookiee said:

"Are you happy with how it sounds?"

Well, I'm not really sure. I have a significant hearing loss and even as I'm learning about mixing techniques,  my hearing makes me a pretty bad pick to mix anything.  

[Wookiee]

8 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

Well, I'm not really sure. I have a significant hearing loss and even as I'm learning about mixing techniques,  my hearing makes me a pretty bad pick to mix anything.  

Do you have a partner or a trusted friend? 

I do sympathise with you though hearing loss is a trait of playing live.  Have you got any hearing aids?  You might want to have a chat with Bapu I am aware he wears aids.

[PavlovsCat]

3 minutes ago, mark skinner said:

From one star gazer to another ..  I Loved the Song and Production , especially the drum tracks. Real nice change around 2:50          Enjoyed it ..    mark

Haha! Thanks much, Mark. I had to play the song to figure out what happens at 2:50! Yeah,  that was the most fun part, except my tendonitis started giving me shooting pain during the drum solo part and what I  planned on was significantly scaled back, but I thought it was good enough to keep.  

My teenage son is contemplating a career in astronomy, so I thought,  if this gets a positive reaction,  I'll show it to him (yes, I am looking to this group to be my gauge) -- and maybe he'll be amused  as I mock my astronomy metaphors for what's really just a song about dating a woman you find is out of your league. Back in the day, I didn't want to write cliche love songs, so I always turned to metaphors.  

[PavlovsCat]

1 minute ago, Wookiee said:

Do you have a partner or a trusted friend? 

I do sympathise with you though hearing loss is a trait of playing live.  Have you got any hearing aids?  You might want to have a chat with Bapu I am aware he wears aids.

Bapu is super talented. My ENT doctor tells me that I'm borderline for hearing aids. I hate the idea of having to deal with them.  I have a wife and two kids. But I'm not going to be seeing them help me mix anytime soon and the truth is, only a handful of friends are ever going to hear this music. I was just a drummer a long time ago. I can't play very well anymore and as you can hear my voice isn't very good, so I'm mainly just recording these songs for me. This group here is as big an audience as they'll reach. I just want the mix to not be awful, so if three friends listen,  they'll judge the song itself and not be distracted by a terrible mix. 

[Larry T.]

the song: really, really good song....arrangement, playing, instrument choices, vox, tempo changes, breakdowns.

the mix: i'm at work so i must hold off as i don't have a decent enough sound system to offer a good opinion 

i like the song very much ????

[Wookiee]

@PavlovsCat as I said the mix works the other thing that is important for me is I enjoy what I do, if you do so to then I think that is a positive.

[Bajan Blue]

Really good song - like this a lot.

The mix is OK, but if you were looking to release this, I am sure it could be improved a bit.

Saying that, if for just "local" consumption, so to speak, it sounds good

Excellent stuff

Nigel

 

[David Sprouse]

The vox was a little buried on my headphones.  You were looking for a lead singer, when you should have just sung the songs yourself..:D  You have a great voice.  To make this a hit I'd add more lyric-content (maybe in a contrasting section).  Just a thought.  It's a compelling melody...p;[']0p-[=']

0-p[='

-0p[=]'

 

(my cat wrote that)
 

[PavlovsCat]

52 minutes ago, Bajan Blue said:

Really good song - like this a lot.

The mix is OK, but if you were looking to release this, I am sure it could be improved a bit.

Saying that, if for just "local" consumption, so to speak, it sounds good

Excellent stuff

Nigel

 

Wow, thanks a lot. I should note that I've been impressed with your music, which, of course, are professional, polished productions, unlike my little productions in my home studio doing songs I wrote decades ago and not having played for 20+ years.  Because my band project based on around my original songs never worked out, all I ever had were low quality demos I made by myself to show to other musicians to perform. So, I thought, it would be cool to do a better job than those demos, because while I had a good reputation as a drummer back in the day,  I never got to play any of my music live and only a handful of musicians ever heard any of it. To cut to the chase, I wanted to show my teenage kids that I was talented back in the day and see if they liked anything I wrote.  So far my daughter liked one of my songs and my son has liked a few. So, that's my main audience. I put this out there before I showed it to them. 

[PavlovsCat]

1 hour ago, David Sprouse said:

The vox was a little buried on my headphones.  You were looking for a lead singer, when you should have just sung the songs yourself..:D  You have a great voice.  To make this a hit I'd add more lyric-content (maybe in a contrasting section).  Just a thought.  It's a compelling melody...p;[']0p-[=']

0-p[='

-0p[=]'

 

(my cat wrote that)
 

Thanks so much for the kind words. There is actually more to the song, but I thought it was long enough as it is and decided to keep it short for my two kids and three friends who listen to these old songs of mine. Dead serious. There's an entire other section. The drumming on the solo part was originally a lot more interesting, but I was in pain when I played the drum solo part you hear, which definitely sounds very Bonham-ish to the point where I'm surprised no one has mentioned that yet! 

Edited March 22, 2022 by PavlovsCat

[PavlovsCat]

This is an alternative mix I made of the song based on the feedback of a very talented friend who composes music for video games. This doesn't fade out but has an alternative ending that I think is way better than the first version (I posted at the top of this thread).  It's still not a great mix, but I think it's better than the one above. 
 

 

Edited March 22, 2022 by PavlovsCat

[Eric Parsons]

I enjoyed listening to your tune.  It's got a great vibe to it and the instrumental and vocal tracks are performed well.

I have a few , very subjective, suggestions.  The mix feels quite static, which is fine, but the song structure

could benefit  from a more active approach: some panning changes,  variation of effects (delay, eq) .

I also think a little bump in the low end would give the tune a little more power (I'm a bass player) ?

 

Bottom line: it's a cool tune done well!  Keep it up and submit more tunes please.

 

[PavlovsCat]

3 minutes ago, Eric Parsons said:

I enjoyed listening to your tune.  It's got a great vibe to it and the instrumental and vocal tracks are performed well.

I have a few , very subjective, suggestions.  The mix feels quite static, which is fine, but the song structure

could benefit  from a more active approach: some panning changes,  variation of effects (delay, eq) .

I also think a little bump in the low end would give the tune a little more power (I'm a bass player) ?

 

Bottom line: it's a cool tune done well!  Keep it up and submit more tunes please.

 

Thanks, @Eric Parsons. I really appreciate your advice. 

I've never automated panning and I'm not very experienced at using delay effects -- although I own a bunch of delay plugins I've accumulated from being a Deals forum regular! If you could recommend some basic things I could try, I absolutely would want to try them. I really only worked as a drummer, and largely played in established bands in the Chicago area -- and that stopped in the late 90s when I had an injury. Consequently, I never really learned much about sound engineering. When I went into the studio or at live shows, I miced up my drums and let sound pros handle everything else letting them know my likes and dislikes. So, I never went into a studio where I had responsibility for the entire mix or got hands on, I mainly just had engineers asking me how I liked the drums in the mix and if there was anything I wanted adjusted. I actually still own a bunch of outboard gear, but it was largely all stuff I bought that a band's sound guy told me to buy! I didn't really know how to use any of it myself. I only ever focused on playing drums! I suppose I'm over explaining because, I think when you tell people that you played professionally for 12 years, they sometimes think that you know about sound engineering, and I don't. I just tried to be the best drummer I could be. Now I'm a terrible drummer and trying to be better at production. 

[PavlovsCat]

I had problems posting the remixed version I did based on feedback. I think this is a lot better than the mix I shared on the original post. Of course, I'm certain it can be a lot better than this, but this is at least a step in the right direction. 
 

 

[PavlovsCat]

Okay, I just played it for my teenage son. I said, "I thought maybe you'd get a kick out of this old song I wrote that uses a bunch of astronomy metaphors, but it's actually a love song." His response, "Let me guess, the first line is, 'You are a star.' " Okay, he might have heard me playing it, because the first line is, "You are the sun." Oh well, he liked the song and we both did a little disco move to the bridge.