The Wagtunes Corner

[wagtunes]

wagtunes,
'Still out of Sync': I like the way you layered and panned the vocals during the chorus. Singing during the verse is OK; sounds more impressive during the chorus. All melodies are pleasant. Violin and lead guitar sounds nice. Drums and percussion are catchy. Vocals at around 3:40 sound pitchy, or the melodies are odd for me; my only significant gripe. Otherwise it is a nice song. Your brain is fine.

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, the melodies in this are quite odd in places, all done intentionally. The entire CD is going to be that way at times. I'm hoping, eventually, the forum will figure out who this tribute is to.

[aaron aardvark]

Yeah, I did that for V6: paid $99 to upgrade. I am usually pretty patient to save money. One of the upgrades, I paid $199, and a couple of months later it dropped to $99. Learned my lesson.

[Rajiv]

Hello!

Doctor, Doctor... I really like it! This may sound strange -- but I got a Dire Straits vibe from this. Something about the sound of the guitar at the start and throughout the piece. It fits nicely into the mix (IMO), and complements well the other elements in the song. It reminds me a little of Espresso Love or Money for Nothing.

I appreciate the Tardis reference... you can't sing a song with the word Doctor without including reference to the Tardis. It fits better into song lyrics than, say, sonic screwdriver.

[wagtunes]

Hello!

Doctor, Doctor... I really like it! This may sound strange -- but I got a Dire Straits vibe from this. Something about the sound of the guitar at the start and throughout the piece. It fits nicely into the mix (IMO), and complements well the other elements in the song. It reminds me a little of Espresso Love or Money for Nothing.

I appreciate the Tardis reference... you can't sing a song with the word Doctor without including reference to the Tardis. It fits better into song lyrics than, say, sonic screwdriver.

Thanks for the listen and the feedback. Yes, you can't use doctor without some Doctor Who reference. Glad to meet another fan.

[wagtunes]

3rd track from my upcoming tribute CD "Still Out Of Sync"

I'm hoping that this one makes it a little more obvious who the band is. Of course, listening to all these songs, I realize that not sounding like the band's lead singer is a big part of why this may be a little hard to guess. I'm realizing how big a part of the band's sound this singer is.

Who Watches The Watchers

Dark night, back alley
The evil that men do
No one cares no one comes
Justice for who

But then, out of nowhere
Comes the judge and jury too
They clean the streets now
They are the few

Who watches the watchers
When the night begins to fall
Who watches the watchers
Who watches us all

We all want a savior
Careful what you wish for
Cures can be worse than the disease
Then you're no more

Blind faith never prospers
In whose hands we put into
They clean our streets now
Broke us in two

Repeat Chorus

Instrumental Break

Repeat Verses 3 and 4

Repeat Chorus

Who watches the watchers
Who watches the watchers
Who watches the watchers
Who watches the watchers

Fade Out

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim ... e-watchers

[wagtunes]

Thanks for all the wonderful comments on my last track.

Hmmm, I guess they must have all been removed by the mods.

Anyway, as nobody's gotten the tribute band yet, I made this one so obvious that it's a literal shout out to the song that inspired it.

While the melody is different enough, except in the obvious places, with the recent Robin Thicke fiasco, there is no doubt that if I tried to do anything commercial with this I'd be sued for plagiarism and probably lose. Fortunately, I have no intention of doing anything with this other than put it on Soundcloud.

The group is more than happy to write to me, asking me to take it down.

Anyway, this is who I was TRYING to do with the last 3 songs but obviously failed miserably.

4th track from my upcoming CD "Still Out Of Sync"

Girl Under Umbrella

Under an umbrella
She tries to hide her eyes from me
Puts on her mascara
I pretend I do not see

Then she glances over
Notices I'm mesmerized
I can see attraction
I can see it in her eyes

And so it all begins
Wait to see who wins
Waiting for a sign
That the girl under umbrella
Is mine

The rain it keeps on falling
As her makeup starts to run
Nothing stops the downpour
As our romance has begun

She cannot resist me
I can see it in her eyes
I can see attraction
As she now is mesmerized

Repeat Chorus

Finally she falls into my arms
Bells and whistles go off with alarms

And so it all begins
I'm the one who wins
Finally got the sign
That the girl under umbrella
Is mine

Girl under umbrella (Get the girl, get the girl)
Girl under umbrella (Got a big enough umbrella)

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim ... r-umbrella

[donkey tugger]

Some good bits in this - guitars in the verse (the picked bit) are excellent, not so much in the little up tempo bits where you can tell it's played on a keyboard. I would think about continuing the picking over those sections rather than trying to simulate powerchord type things. Lovely melodies at the end there.

Couple of more technical matters . I think the mix is over-saturated (and you know I loves a bit of saturation.... ) verging on distorting in a nasty way at times. Perhaps pull it back a bit?

Other thing is the vocal effects. I recall you've said previously that you have them all running on one track? You get much more control of things like harmonizers/chorus/modulation effects if you render the track as a totally wet signal so you have it on it's own and can eq/compress/reverb etc separately to the main vocal. In general I tend to cut much of the bass and roll of some of the high end from these so you still get the effect, but the main vocal is more clear. Another trick I worked out is to de-ess the f**k out of these - you'll have all the sibilance you need in the main vocal without these buggers duplicating it too.

[wagtunes]

Some good bits in this - guitars in the verse (the picked bit) are excellent, not so much in the little up tempo bits where you can tell it's played on a keyboard. I would think about continuing the picking over those sections rather than trying to simulate powerchord type things. Lovely melodies at the end there.

Couple of more technical matters . I think the mix is over-saturated (and you know I loves a bit of saturation.... ) verging on distorting in a nasty way at times. Perhaps pull it back a bit?

Other thing is the vocal effects. I recall you've said previously that you have them all running on one track? You get much more control of things like harmonizers/chorus/modulation effects if you render the track as a totally wet signal so you have it on it's own and can eq/compress/reverb etc separately to the main vocal. In general I tend to cut much of the bass and roll of some of the high end from these so you still get the effect, but the main vocal is more clear. Another trick I worked out is to de-ess the f**k out of these - you'll have all the sibilance you need in the main vocal without these buggers duplicating it too.

Thanks for all the tips DT. You duh man.

Still nobody knows who I'm doing?

[donkey tugger]

Still nobody knows who I'm doing?

Nope! One of those things where it sounds familiar, but can't bloody place it!

[wagtunes]

Still nobody knows who I'm doing?

Nope! One of those things where it sounds familiar, but can't bloody place it!

Then I have failed miserably. That I can almost blatantly rip off a group's song short of doing a cover and still you can't get it? Crying in my beer.

[wagtunes]

The reverb I put on a send but the other stuff, never tried that. Maybe I will next time and see if there's a difference.

[vurt]

its byrdsesque but not jangly enough.

is it a band we should know?

[donkey tugger]

The reverb I put on a send but the other stuff, never tried that. Maybe I will next time and see if there's a difference.

The way I tend to do it is get a decent enough vocal track with all pitch correction/edits and any volume automation etc done, and then render that as a dry track which becomes my backing vocal track. I then copy this as many times as I want on different mixer channels to use different effects. Makes it a lot easier too to do things like spot delay effects - you just chop or mute the bits where you don't want the effect. Depending on the song, sometimes up to 7 or 8 copies of the same vocal, but all effected/eq'd differently, and coming in at different points. See what you make of it...

[wagtunes]

The reverb I put on a send but the other stuff, never tried that. Maybe I will next time and see if there's a difference.

The way I tend to do it is get a decent enough vocal track with all pitch correction/edits and any volume automation etc done, and then render that as a dry track which becomes my backing vocal track. I then copy this as many times as I want on different mixer channels to use different effects. Makes it a lot easier too to do things like spot delay effects - you just chop or mute the bits where you don't want the effect. Depending on the song, sometimes up to 7 or 8 copies of the same vocal, but all effected/eq'd differently, and coming in at different points. See what you make of it...

Okay, that sounds really cool and involved. I'll have to write all this down because there is no way I'm going to remember all of that. Thanks for the tips.

[wagtunes]

its byrdsesque but not jangly enough.

is it a band we should know?

Unless you've been living in a cave since the 80s, yes, it's a band you should know.