"Sympathize"

KaiEllis

My dear KTVA friends! I decided to spend 2017 - and the foreseeable future! - learning this music game. Singing, songwriting, recording, production, all of it. I still have the rest of my life to climb the mountain... and I'm gonna need it! but here's one of my first finished songs, and I'd LOVE to hear feedback from any of you



"Sympathize"

Lying here
When you are near
I disappear to find you
Lying here
When you are near
I'm insincere to find you
I've been telling lies
that's how I tried
To come and find you
Get it up
Or give it up
Don't have to tell me why

It's hard to sympathize
When I've been telling lies to find you
I've been lying
You've been dying
To sympathize

Lying here
When you are near
I disappear to find you
Crystal ball
Don't tell it all
I've been so small to find you
Yeah, you're gone
But now I see
There's always been
Much less of me
Get it up
Or give it up
Don't have to tell me why

It's hard to sympathize
When I've been telling lies to find you
I've been lying
You've been dying
To sympathize

Yeah, I lied
And if I'm honest
It's the only thing I ever tried
Yeah, I lied
Just to meet you
It's not your fault
The way I treat you

It's hard to sympathize
When I've been telling lies to find you
I've been lying
You've been dying
To sympathize

[Deleted User]

I really get excited when people post original material recorded by themselves. It's what I do, and I'm pretty good at it.

The song itself sounds really good, but there are a few problems with the vocals, and mixing.

I'm not trying to beat you up because I really do like the song. I think it can sound a lot better though.

I'll start with the mixing. It's really tinty sounding. Did you use a mastering effect at the end of your mix? and what did you use to monitor the recording/mixing?
Guitars are too loud, and seemed to be EQ'ed similar to the vocals. You always want the vocals to be the loudest in a mix, you have to be able to hear what the singer is saying. As far as EQ, vocals, and guitars run along the same frequencies so you have to be careful not to EQ them the same. You want each instrument to be heard seperately. Also if you doubled the guitar tracks, one of them has to have the phase inverted, or you can get phase cancellation.
One thing that may help you with a mixdown is to draw the top half of a sphere (circle), and write down where you physcally want to place the instrument in the stereo spectrum

Now for the vocals, it's hard to critique because they were too low in the mix, but I did hear some pitchiness going on so you may want to tighten up the breath support some.

As far as originality, and melody it was really good.

Peace, Tony

KaiEllis

@videoace Tony thank you so much for your help! Your feedback is so helpful. I feel you - I think the song itself is pretty great, but the production side has been a huge learning curve for me. You know what I mean? Where I can hear parts that don't sound right... but I have no clue how to fix it haha so all your production tips are so valuable to me!

Everything was run through Ableton.

Guitars were recorded acoustic into my mic, then doubled in parts with an amp simulator to give it the electric sound. I'm gonna give the phase inversion a try!

Agree about the vocals. I kept second guessing myself on the level there. All right the vocal level sounds right! ... but now you can't hear that cool guitar lick very well. And on and on...

Was driving in circles!

The best sounding rock record I've ever heard is the Brendan O'Brien remix of Pearl Jam "Ten". EVERYTHING is clear and punchy and perfect.

The vocals in my song are probably my least favorite part of the song. Love the lyrics, love the melody, would pay someone else to sing it lol but I'll get there one day!

Thank you for your help!

[Deleted User]

You'll be able to sing it. Just have to keep punching at it. It happens all the time for me with my guitars. Sometimes a good lick will just present itself, and other times it may take walking away, and retrying in a month.

Distorted guitars are harder to mix, but clean guitars are very easy, but you never want anything in the mix louder than vocals no matter how good the lick might be, and if you mix it right, it won't be a problem anyway.
Distorted guitars are harder because it's hard to get a nice beefy sound from them, and if you try to compensate by cranking it up in the mix, you end up losing other instruments in the mix. Compression is good for this, but you don't want to over compress the sound. You can also use a limiter/compressor combo effect also.

The reason I asked if you used a mastering effect at the end of the mix is because its really compressed. It sounds like you may have over squeezed the sound.(compacted it)

My mixes usually go something like this:
Acoustic guitar 1 - panned full left, Eq'ed as natural sounding as possible, reverb 25%, chorus 12%
Acoustic guitar 2 - panned full right, EQ maybe pull out some of the low end, same reverb, and chorus with the phase inverted. When I do this, I keep each guitar at different volume levels to create my own effect instead of adding the effect to the track. You can play with this technique until you find what works best for you.
Bass - panned center, EQ I cut the mid, and add a small amount of high to give it a punchy sound.
Drums I like to spread across half of the stereo spectrum from high hat to floor tom. They will go from 50% left to 50%right with the snare and bass drum dead center.
Vocals - dead center, Eq will depend on your voice, and mic, I always record my vocals dry with no effects, and add them later just for enhancement. (not for corrections for poor technique) Just always make sure the vocals are loud and clear over everything else even if you think it sounds too loud. After mixing for a while you'll start understanding more.

Hope this helps

Peace, Tony