Demo Critiqes
Demo 1. Homemade, Obvious Loop based. Used Sonar 5 at my house to create the idea. Worked out the lyrics and timing a great deal. Still sucked, so I chopped up the voice a lot and sync'd it where I thought it sounded best. Obvious help was needed on the intro. I like the chorus and the way the 2nd 3rd and 4th body sound. I used some wah-wah and distortion effects to modulate the voice to reflect where i'd like a change up or some modulation done.. to make the voice seem distracted, away, distorted, distant, echo.....
Lyrics/Syllables go with the beat. I want the bass line carried over (the prevalent step up, and then the step down, then rebuild). Classic Structure, Build before the epiphany of the last body.
Demo 2. Studio. Lead Guitar, Bass, Drummer. The intro was far better then mine. I knew I wanted to build into the 2nd verse, slowly. And I didn't mind their approach. I modified the lyrics to fit. 2nd verse is a good improvement off my demo. They sound similar without that distinct dance/loop sound in it. Starts down low and let's it climb up. The chorus is where it fell apart, it went in the opposite direction of my original demo. Start low and let it climb up. This version started off too high IMO (which we corrected in the next session). Not enough of the bass stepping up and down like the original demo. I also wanted a drum hit and a chugga-chugga before the power verses and chorus (added that in the 2nd session).. The end is just chaos, it trails off without distinct direction and ends up in a chord I can't sing in.
Demo 2 - intro. This is based off the scratch vocals we did. (minimal post production) I had zero practice on the new song after they produced it, and introduced it to me. Like I said above I don't mind it, I wouldn't mind if it was sped up a touch, to get to the 2nd verse faster, and 'dug' deeper into the cord progression. No stepping with the bass But I had to cut it off before the chorus because it's (as you heard above) isn't where I wanted to be. There is obvious voice editing within it to clean up timing and to help 'fill out' my voice
After that was another studio session to quickly discuss what I wanted to change about that. We re-hired the musicians and everything went great, I heard the playback there, sounded very good. Paid up to date and was told 4-6 hours of production was needed to fit the tracks, produce the few tracks of lead and bass we recorded clean it up and time it. At that point an mp3 would be sent to me in order for me to practice to. And then we'd need 1 more session to lay the vocals on top of that, produce that and then done. Intro to demo to 2nd demo happened very fast, but then nothing for quite a while. And the timeline expired.
I like the tune of the lead guitar. I didn't want to keep the loop based/pop/synth sound. The tune is of course open to change, as this song is of course very pliable. Nothing risky, classic rock. The 2nd recording I requested a piano sound, or a higher 'pluck' on the lead guitar instead of over use of the high hat. That sound turned out very nice as well. Added wah-wah on lead at times (intro especially)