(80s vibe synthpop) Lack Of Luck

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jappe
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Posts: 2437
Joined: 19 Jan 2015

01 Jan 2018

Another piece inspired by 80's synthpop



Another tune where I had luck in convincing my dear son to participate with backup vocals, heard in the intro.

Any feedback, impressions most welcome!

I'm specially interested if the balance between vocals/music sounds good to you.

----------------------------------------
* Soundbanks/refills for Reason by Bitley(bitley.laconicsounds.net). Details about the Bitley sounds used can be found in this post
* Jiggery Pokery's Steerpike Delay and Chenille Chorus to make anything shine
* Synapse GQ-7 EQ to cut and boost.
* Seligs Leveler for fixing vocal dynamics.
* Onyx Tube Limiter to tame the peaks.
* Ochenk's Carve to get things out of the way
* Adobe Audition for manual tinkering,
* Mastered through emastered.com

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RTFX
Posts: 329
Joined: 10 Jan 2016

02 Jan 2018

Very well balanced! But lets not kid eachother; youve got an impressive amount of experience under the belt.
Good lyrics too. Food for thought.
I myself would either turn down the vox a notch or turn up the synths. But thats because i’m a sucker for that 80s synth sound. I love that saw bassline!
I like your songstructure. Not your regular intro-verse-chorus-verse-bridge-thing, but it seems more progressive to me.
Keep it up! Let your son do more vox. On to the next.
All my tracks on my YouTube channel⬇️ https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLK0j ... P0EoiuUkNO

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jappe
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Posts: 2437
Joined: 19 Jan 2015

02 Jan 2018

RTFX wrote:
02 Jan 2018
Very well balanced! But lets not kid eachother; youve got an impressive amount of experience under the belt.
Good lyrics too. Food for thought.
I myself would either turn down the vox a notch or turn up the synths. But thats because i’m a sucker for that 80s synth sound. I love that saw bassline!
I like your songstructure. Not your regular intro-verse-chorus-verse-bridge-thing, but it seems more progressive to me.
Keep it up! Let your son do more vox. On to the next.
Thanks for feedback and kind words!

My son has a nice voice character, hope to get him to sing all vocals in a song before end of 2018☺️

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Namyo85
Posts: 228
Joined: 11 Mar 2017

09 Apr 2018

Not bad, sounds a bit like Jon & Vangelis. )

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jappe
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Posts: 2437
Joined: 19 Jan 2015

10 Apr 2018

Namyo85 wrote:
09 Apr 2018
Not bad, sounds a bit like Jon & Vangelis. )
Thanks for feedback!
I listened a lot to Jon & Vangelis in the 80s and beyond.

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raymondh
Posts: 1776
Joined: 15 Jan 2015

14 Apr 2018

I listened again to this track. It's great. The rhythm of it really suits the way you sing.

I also had a listen to another track "Sunray". I really liked Sunray up to 2:24, but not so much the last half of the song that is a much more staccato sounding and quite busy.

Lack of Luck flows really well throughout I think.

Memories Of You is also great with a more traditional timing that works really well with your vocals.

They're all great tracks of course! And very nicely produced!

cheers

WongoTheSane
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Location: Paris, France

14 Apr 2018

Wow, impressive. Driving forward all the way through. Nice voice too, and superb mixing!

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jappe
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Posts: 2437
Joined: 19 Jan 2015

14 Apr 2018

raymondh wrote:
14 Apr 2018
I listened again to this track. It's great. The rhythm of it really suits the way you sing.

I also had a listen to another track "Sunray". I really liked Sunray up to 2:24, but not so much the last half of the song that is a much more staccato sounding and quite busy.

Lack of Luck flows really well throughout I think.

Memories Of You is also great with a more traditional timing that works really well with your vocals.

They're all great tracks of course! And very nicely produced!

cheers
Many thanks for feedback!

For Sunray my idea was to make the song shift direction. I've got negative feedback more than once about doing this in some other songs. I think there's a part of me who wants to make a Genesis song that moves in different directions.
I'll put Wind and Wuthering on my play queue to get inspiration how to make those shifts more smoothly🙂

And the outro is quite busy indeed, my intention was to end the song while at highest intensity.
Basically I applied the as many bass notes as acceptable I could fit in the slots where the bass drum wasn't playing, and also added some distortion sharpness on the bass.

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jappe
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Posts: 2437
Joined: 19 Jan 2015

14 Apr 2018

WongoTheSane wrote:
14 Apr 2018
Wow, impressive. Driving forward all the way through. Nice voice too, and superb mixing!
Many thanks for encouragement 🙂

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raymondh
Posts: 1776
Joined: 15 Jan 2015

14 Apr 2018

jappe wrote:
14 Apr 2018
raymondh wrote:
14 Apr 2018
I listened again to this track. It's great. The rhythm of it really suits the way you sing.

I also had a listen to another track "Sunray". I really liked Sunray up to 2:24, but not so much the last half of the song that is a much more staccato sounding and quite busy.

Lack of Luck flows really well throughout I think.

Memories Of You is also great with a more traditional timing that works really well with your vocals.

They're all great tracks of course! And very nicely produced!

cheers
Many thanks for feedback!

For Sunray my idea was to make the song shift direction. I've got negative feedback more than once about doing this in some other songs. I think there's a part of me who wants to make a Genesis song that moves in different directions.
I'll put Wind and Wuthering on my play queue to get inspiration how to make those shifts more smoothly🙂

And the outro is quite busy indeed, my intention was to end the song while at highest intensity.
Basically I applied the as many bass notes as acceptable I could fit in the slots where the bass drum wasn't playing, and also added some distortion sharpness on the bass.

Good stuff! It is good to experiment and try different techniques.
A couple of things I've learned;
- keep it simple. I've tried some sophisticated timing things which fell flat and the advice from a professional Jazz musician was the reason is that people tend to like simpler stuff rather than complex.
- contrasts. Like you did in going for a different feel for 2nd half of the song, another technique is to have contrast between the layers eg a busy bassline contrast with legato pads, or a busy melody contrasted with a fairly simple bassline. Same with vocals. Quite a few commercial songs use this technique, and switch it around between verse and chorus as part of keeping interesting, building tension etc.

cheers!

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jappe
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Posts: 2437
Joined: 19 Jan 2015

15 Apr 2018

raymondh wrote:
14 Apr 2018
jappe wrote:
14 Apr 2018


Many thanks for feedback!

For Sunray my idea was to make the song shift direction. I've got negative feedback more than once about doing this in some other songs. I think there's a part of me who wants to make a Genesis song that moves in different directions.
I'll put Wind and Wuthering on my play queue to get inspiration how to make those shifts more smoothly🙂

And the outro is quite busy indeed, my intention was to end the song while at highest intensity.
Basically I applied the as many bass notes as acceptable I could fit in the slots where the bass drum wasn't playing, and also added some distortion sharpness on the bass.

Good stuff! It is good to experiment and try different techniques.
A couple of things I've learned;
- keep it simple. I've tried some sophisticated timing things which fell flat and the advice from a professional Jazz musician was the reason is that people tend to like simpler stuff rather than complex.
- contrasts. Like you did in going for a different feel for 2nd half of the song, another technique is to have contrast between the layers eg a busy bassline contrast with legato pads, or a busy melody contrasted with a fairly simple bassline. Same with vocals. Quite a few commercial songs use this technique, and switch it around between verse and chorus as part of keeping interesting, building tension etc.

cheers!
Thanks for sharing tips!

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Micha1973
Posts: 468
Joined: 24 Mar 2017
Location: Germany
Contact:

15 Apr 2018

A sweet 80s sound..and the voice too. there are some things to do but i like it*
Music Is My Life
&
Reason 12 sounds better :essentials:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsW3Wr ... gA05XklBng

FHtH
Posts: 138
Joined: 21 Jul 2016

10 May 2018

Very good sound!

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jappe
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Posts: 2437
Joined: 19 Jan 2015

12 May 2018

Micha1973 wrote:
15 Apr 2018
A sweet 80s sound..and the voice too. there are some things to do but i like it*
Thank you!
Any improvement suggestions on weak spots are most welcome!

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jappe
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Posts: 2437
Joined: 19 Jan 2015

12 May 2018

FHtH wrote:
10 May 2018
Very good sound!
Thanks for listening :)

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