Moth

[awjoe]

Mix comments welcome.

https://youtu.be/BvPqvkkk4nI?si=ucAPytRDvlvJw4uk

[amanise]

Lovely! Sounded very well balanced to me, very wistful and well performed. I loved her dead pan delivery of the backing vocals!

Good 'un!

[Folderol]

Very enjoyable and smooth performance both of you.

[Dynamic Mike]

Laid back, dark & tasteful. It's what draught Guiness would sound like if it made a noise.

[Kwackman]

I enjoyed that.
Tasteful guitar playing, both the rhythm & solo. Nice!

[awjoe]

Lovely! Sounded very well balanced to me, very wistful and well performed. I loved her dead pan delivery of the backing vocals!

Good 'un!

Thanks. Yes, there's the contrast between, not only the voices, but the delivery style. Somewhere on the scale from effective to funny, I hope.

[awjoe]

Laid back, dark & tasteful. It's what draught Guiness would sound like if it made a noise.

Draft Guiness is pretty much my favorite drink in the world. In twenty-five years, that's the kindest thing anybody's ever said about my music.

[awjoe]

Will, Kwackman - cheers!

[Drew Stephenson]

Will have a think about critique after I've had a couple more listens for enjoyment.

[OneWorld]

That's good, really good and I say that straight off, instantly likeable, and as the song went along I got more drawn to the light, and I like the way the lady's vocals get more powerful, she got mothballs!

[Eddy Deegan]

Wonderful! There's nothing I'd change about it myself. Very well done indeed and I particularly liked the guitar solo towards the end

[awjoe]

That's good, really good and I say that straight off, instantly likeable, and as the song went along I got more drawn to the light, and I like the way the lady's vocals get more powerful, she got mothballs!

Glad you like it, despite the shortage of Mexicans.

[awjoe]

Wonderful! There's nothing I'd change about it myself.

Thanks, Eddy. Reassuring, because I suffer from the post-mixing version of buyer's remorse. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

[OneWorld]

That's good, really good and I say that straight off, instantly likeable, and as the song went along I got more drawn to the light, and I like the way the lady's vocals get more powerful, she got mothballs!

Glad you like it, despite the shortage of Mexicans.

Well they're getting Trumpled upon and thrown back over the fence into Mexico haven't they?

[Drew Stephenson]

Right, I have listened further and despite being a big fan of this I have three mix suggestions for you to ignore.
1) Bass. When Tarko goes wandering up the fretboard it leaves me missing the bottom end. Were it my mix I might add a duplicate part an octave down, suitably filtered and automated such that it only comes in when necessary. But I seem to like bass a lot more than other people so maybe just ignore me.
2) Lead vocals. Given that the video is the primary delivery mechanism I might have planned them a tad further either side of the centre. (I think you have a little panning on now?)
3) I think I would have gone for a less heavily processed sound for the guitar solo. I didn't think it fitted the vibe of the rest of the song as well as it could.

But fundamentally this is right up there with your best stuff and definitely one of my favourites.

[awjoe]

1) Bass. When Tarko goes wandering up the fretboard it leaves me missing the bottom end. Were it my mix I might add a duplicate part an octave down, suitably filtered and automated such that it only comes in when necessary. But I seem to like bass a lot more than other people so maybe just ignore me.

Tjarko did two bass parts for this one (high and low). The low bass predominates, but when the high bass comes in, sometimes it overlaps the low bass and sometimes it's on it own for a short time. It intrigues me what he did with this. When there's just the high bass, it's a bit like a whale breaching.

2) Lead vocals. Given that the video is the primary delivery mechanism I might have planned them a tad further either side of the centre. (I think you have a little panning on now?)

Exactly. But the thing is, Youtube's just the splashy premiere. As soon as I get over this killer cold, the tune's going up on Bandcamp in all its pristine audio glory for the sake of people who care about audio. (And then left/right vocal panning will make more sense.) When I got the master back, it sounded great. I bunged it into Vegas and rendered to mp4. I could hear degradation of sound at that point. Then I popped it onto Youtube, and their mangler made it sound worse yet again. Disappointment, frustration, anger. I'm absolutely convinced that video for music is superior to audio-only, but I'm an audio-first guy, so what's to be done? Bandcamp. (I panned the vocals for Bandcamp, not for YT.)

3) I think I would have gone for a less heavily processed sound for the guitar solo. I didn't think it fitted the vibe of the rest of the song as well as it could.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'heavily processed'. The Gilmour guitar's just guitar>tube amp. Maybe you mean the left/right distortion guitars that crash in on the first note of some bars?

But fundamentally this is right up there with your best stuff and definitely one of my favourites.

[Drew Stephenson]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'heavily processed'. The Gilmour guitar's just guitar>tube amp. Maybe you mean the left/right distortion guitars that crash in on the first note of some bars?

Sorry, heavily distorted perhaps. If I close my eyes it goes from mellow jazzy lounge to Pink Floyd rock with that solo and I just find it a little out of place.
But I am very conservative with my tastes.

[Dynamic Mike]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'heavily processed'. The Gilmour guitar's just guitar>tube amp. Maybe you mean the left/right distortion guitars that crash in on the first note of some bars?

Sorry, heavily distorted perhaps. If I close my eyes it goes from mellow jazzy lounge to Pink Floyd rock with that solo and I just find it a little out of place.
But I am very conservative with my tastes.

I take it you won't be a fan of The Carpenters 'Goodbye to Love' either. I think it it was Tony Pelusos' solo on this that made a young me decide I needed an electric guitar!

[Drew Stephenson]

I take it you won't be a fan of The Carpenters 'Goodbye to Love' either. I think it it was Tony Pelusos' solo on this that made a young me decide I needed an electric guitar!

Just listened to it and, guess what, you're right!
To be frank though, there's nothing about that whole production that I like - I feel like I'm digging through rivers of schmalz to find the actual song.
I'm clearly working on my Grumpy Old Man credentials today; if you don't already, ignore everything I say..

[awjoe]

Go ahead and be grumpy, it's not personal. Feedback like yours is really interesting - it lets me know how my stuff actually lands with other people, what they think and feel about it. And THAT might affect future decisions. (Whether to hold back on a certain approach or whether to lean into it even more remains to be seen. )

[Drew Stephenson]

The artist's dilemma!

Reminds me of a story I heard from a friend on Threads. She was in an art class back at school and one of the other students brought in a piece that was all sweetness and light, joyful and fun. The art teacher said, "I don't like it. But that's just me. This is you, so put everything in it, make me really hate it."

[awjoe]

Ha!

'You're not an avocado. You can't please everybody.'

[Martin Walker]

Wow, I've only just got around to listening to 'Moth', and I have to say that it's the best song I've ever heard from you Paul.

I think that these more 'fleshed out' arrangements of yours work really well, but this collaboration is a tour de force, particularly the contrast between your choppy vocal delivery and Amy's smoothness and harmonies, along with the lyrical bass lines from Tjarko.

Bravo!

Martin

[awjoe]

Thanks, Martin - appreciate it. Yeah, the contrast between her and me is pretty complete - age, voice, delivery style, boudoir.

[OneWorld]

Wow, I've only just got around to listening to 'Moth', and I have to say that it's the best song I've ever heard from you Paul.

I think that these more 'fleshed out' arrangements of yours work really well, but this collaboration is a tour de force, particularly the contrast between your choppy vocal delivery and Amy's smoothness and harmonies, along with the lyrical bass lines from Tjarko.

Bravo!

Martin

I agree, those bass lines really are something special as indeed the song is anyway