Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

[Smeefer]

http://www.camversion.org/boulevardofbrokennews

Seattle jazz singer Stringer and I made an old song into a new track using Ardour3, Yoshimi, JAMin, Hydrogen, and LV2 plugins. Free 320kbps mp3 download for the first month or so, which can be found at the link above.

Feedback is always very appreciated and I take criticism of all types with an open mind toward improving my future tunes!

[StudioDave]

http://www.camversion.org/boulevardofbrokennews

Well, just WOW.

I left a note on SoundCloud but I'll say again that this a great track. The vocals are lovely, and your arrangement is most surprising and enjoyable.

Wonderful work, please continue.

Best,

dp

[dednikko]

Very cool! I already loaded it onto my phone.

I seem to notice the vocals sounding like they are falling out of the mix in a few spots. They seem to be slightly undercompressed, allowing the vocals to get ahead of the music a little. Also, they might be EQed a little nasally. One last tweak was that I think the first stereo dun echo of the vocals is a bit louder than the rest of the track.

What did you to create all the glitchy/stuttering bits?

[Smeefer]

Hey thanks Dave, Stringer (the vocalist) and I will continue doing tracks. We work well together and have fun on tracks. A few months ago we did another track that Stringer wrote herself, called "Sydney The Millionaire."

dednikko, thanks for your critical analysis! The stereo echo at 0:57 almost sounds louder than the original vocal track because of the sharp edge on the front of the sound region. I could've crossfaded the begining of that region with a piece of silence in order to smoothen it out...but I didn't. I played around with it but decided that I enjoy the way that echo jumps out like that. The vocal track is not compressed at all. I know what you're saying about the vocals though...they kinda stick out alot...sound slightly offensive to the ear. Jumping out of the track. Do you think it would sound better if I compressed the vocals with a longer attack in the mids and highs? Also, what's nasal EQing? Too much low-mid range?

The glitchy stuff: my percs were self-recorded in the kitchen, so many of those sounds are kinda glitchy. Some of my Yoshimi synths might sound a little glitchy too. The stuttering with the percs were basically all done by hand (not really by hand, but you know, chopped up and re-arranged without any use of "stutter" plugins). Sometimes I will chop pieces out of my Perc1 track, arrange them into FX tracks (sometimes using various distortion plugins), then recorded them into a Perc2 track. With synths and bass, sometimes I play around with filters etc until I find an interesting/surprising sound, then record just a second of that, allowing it to jump out at a random part of the song. The glitch stuff that I do takes time...it's like audio surgery. And it's one of my favorite parts of making music. Just the same, I enjoy film editing more than I enjoy filming .

[studio32]

Great song, nice jazz voice!

[Veerstryngh Thynner]

Smeefer,

Just visited your website. Love to hear your song, but just don't get any sound.

Do I have to register/sign in first?

tnob

[Smeefer]

@tnob - No you don't need to register/login to the Cam Version site in order to hear the music. Is the player playing? Cam Version is full of tracks that have been embedded from other sites like soundcloud and vimeo. If the player is playing after pushing the play button, then check your audio connections. Depending on your settings, you may need to either start or stop Jack in order to get the sound. And by the way, most of the tracks are free downloads, so you can just download and play them if the flash plugin or whatever on your browser isn't working. The only songs that are not currently available for download are songs that will be released on my upcoming Cooking The Kitchen album and songs that (i feel like) I need to work on and improve, then re-release later.

Feel free to register though! Only a few people have so far, so there pretty much no comments, forum discussions, etc. Registration is totally open. I haven't worked on the site that much or wrote blogs or anything during the past six months. That's mostly just because i've had the feeling that nobody enjoys the site. But it feels like it's time for me to get back to work on it. I've become quite lazy, apathetic, unmotivated in the last few months when it comes to music. But what?! I'm getting back on it because it's what I love to do with my time! Cheers

[Veerstryngh Thynner]

@tnob - I've become quite lazy, apathetic, unmotivated in the last few months when it comes to music. But what?! I'm getting back on it because it's what I love to do with my time! Cheers

Hi Smeefer,

I think I'm familiar with the feeling. But in my case it lasted for years. And the accents in my story may be slightly different.

As a tenor banjo player, other musicians I'd like to play with always seemed (and seem still) of the opinion that my instrument is only suited to New Orleans/dixieland (= Trad Jazz) - and that I should stick to just that. In the end, this became a real "prison": you'll get inside the 'scene' alright - but once in, the wider world won't let you out. And besides: as a banjo player, you just can't be a serious musician, can you?

Slowly but surely, this drained all the fun out of me. And at one point, I even couldn't bear touching my instrument!

Since fairly recently, I own a (modest) audio home studio. it's the perfect way to give hands and feet to musical ideas that have been living in my head for ages, sometimes. Curiously, though, I find myself returning to the old stuff as well (albeit in slightly different form!).

Blood is thicker than water, they say...

tnob

[danboid]

Good work Smeefer! I really like the vibe on this one!

It's as if CocoRosie went FLOSS and decided to do a glitch parallel to 'The Streets of Philadelphia'!

You only get comparisons like that from me, thankfully!