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Warning: This song would be labeled explicit lyrics. However it's being made for radio (eventually maybe lol) so, it's not chock full of it. He basically uses the N word a few times, but he is black, I feel like that makes a big difference lol. And I'm not in the habit of telling anyone what they can say or not say.

So I read the rules DonnyThompson posted. The guitar and vocals in the song are actually recorded. The drums are played also, but through a vst so I'm not sure if it counts.

I'll accept any advice given. What I'm most curious about is if you feel like the drums are too soft for the content? Or if I'm making the high hat too rhythmic with his lyrics?

What happened is I had original drums. I told the rapper what I wanted the song to be about, and he gave it life. So I wrote the instrumental, and the song idea...not the lyrics.

I'm also unsure if, or what direction (if any) I should go with the guitar. Am I confusing the song by using it the way I am?

I need to take his adlibs down a bit too. So, the mix is rough, but for learning's sake, I'm going to post it and see what people think.

Sometimes I use melodyne to put the artist more in tune. In this I haven't...thoughts on that?

(again it's really rough, some guitar parts I hit the wrong note and haven't fixed it yet. The attack of some of the strings isn't right yet, I'm just wondering what people think before I take it further in this direction...not so much a "fix the mix" (although I take what I can get), but more like, "help me clarify the direction" lol.

[MEDIA=soundcloud]brotherjunk/test[/MEDIA]

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Brother Junk Tue, 11/15/2016 - 15:13

I will have to take these down eventually but I put a different version up.

I did exactly what K said earlier about widening his vocal tone a bit, then added a little gloss at 12k-ish.

You can hear the samples plainly, but a lot of that is written. That horn is Vienna (God I love Vienna)

Any other pointers? I love that horn...and Shakunetsu O will blow up the rest of it. So, anything aside from accents people see needed here?

Edit- I plan to add some different horns, and vary that rolling progression....I can sort of hear the rest of the song from here (Completely thanks to DogsoverLava and his endless patience)

But now that I know the key, meaning I know CM now, C#, D#, E, F# G# A, B....I can visualize it on the keyboard even. (I'll have to learn that guitar scale)

But where I'm going with this is that if anyone has any musical suggestions, e.g. do a c#, f#,A progression right here, I'm all ears. I've spent the last few days doing nothing but play with the key and the options for the song.

I plan on cutting up that rolling progression to add some break and interest...but musically, when it's at this point, I would love to hear from people who hear a direction. I can also alter his vocals a little with melodyne. I have to mess with his timing a little in some spots bc of the beat alterations.

If you like Dire Straits, you will like at least 8 bars of this below lol. Vienna is the nuts. I wish I could afford the full boat. Also, kmetal is the reason I purchased Vienna, so, just thank you all.
[MEDIA=soundcloud]brotherjunk/test-2

kmetal Tue, 11/15/2016 - 18:06

Sounds good. Coming along nicely. I think adding more horns / reinforcement is a good idea. I think the background parts are a great improvement overall. The eq seems to have added a little bit of attitude and personality to the vocals and brought out a little distortion/saturation which is a good thing in this case.

Keep up the good work.

Glad your diggin Vienna, can't wait to dig in myself.!

Brother Junk Tue, 11/15/2016 - 20:16

Yeah, the saturation is a little high for all the doubles, ad-libs etc. It's one of the things I have to fix, but stuff like that is always on my "final things to do" list. You have good ears.

kmetal, post: 443503, member: 37533 wrote: Glad your diggin Vienna, can't wait to dig in myself.!

It's crazy good. That horn would be a pitn on anything else I'm aware of. And it only took me about 5 minutes to get the hang of the timing. It's a little bit funny , some of the instruments take a few minutes to get the hang of. You have to nail the velocity to get that note to sit in that pocket and carry, but it's easy enough. And the sound is addictive. I really wish I bought it a long time ago. If you take a day to mess with it with no expectations, it's a creative castle. It's just really, really good.

And it's not a cpu hog either.

Also the song might be E at this point cuz of what I did with the horn? I'm not quite sure how all that works yet. I know it's those notes. The song seems to like the E string so, I think I accidentally made it E from CM.

And if you weren't anal like me, you could just play the notes in Vienna and then nail the velocity after. I like to play like 100 times, until I land a take that is perfect enough but not too perfect. Not because I don't like perfection, but because I feel like it's that little bit that makes it sound different than everything else.