My hopeful future hit with a 6/8 time sig

Carlsonscott · Post by **Carlsonscott** » Sat Jan 24, 2015 5:57 pm

I was watching one of the recent Taxi TV episodes with Jason Blume and I had that "uh oh" moment when someone asked asked, and I'm paraphrasing, "is the 6/8 time signature dead?" I'm still a new guy here who feels like he's walked into the middle of a conversation, and literally at that very moment I was writing a song in 6/8 and preparing to record it.

It was nice to hear Jason say to keep trying different things to stand out. And so...I went for it.

Let me know what you guys think.

https://soundcloud.com/carlson-scott/i-want-it-back

johnlewitt · Post by **johnlewitt** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 1:57 pm

Carlson,

Awesome vocal on this.

IMO the strummed guitar needs some work. I'm not sure if it's the treatment you are applying or the way you've recorded it, but it's distracting me from the vocal from time to time. To me, this tune calls for a very clean sounding, well strummed, confident acoustic guitar.

As to the time signature, I think anything that makes a song stand out, sound good, or make it catchy is always good. Being successful with alternate time signatures is definitely one way to go about that. So basically, if it works, it works.

John

Len911 · Post by **Len911** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 4:23 pm

Song is superb!! Love it!

Time signatures are somewhat of an enigma to me

Because you focused my attention on the time signature, and because it didn't seemed stressed and rather implied on the first beat, I followed the guitar strum, and ended up with 3/4

In other words it was easier for me, to do (3/4) TA tee tee tee tee than a (6/8) tee tee tee tee tee tee.

It's sort of my understanding that it mainly matters for readability of the notation, though I think if the first beat was actually stressed rather than implied it might make a bigger difference.

Most importantly, it's what the result is and I think you have a great result!

feaker66 · Post by **feaker66** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 7:38 pm

This is one of the best vocals I have heard here in all the years that I have been on the forum.

Some of the guys here that need vox help should look you up.

That said, the mix didn't let the vocal shine as it should have.

Gotta find a way to clean it up.

Lots of very sharp guys who could help.

Congrats

Sincerely

Paul

Carlsonscott · Post by **Carlsonscott** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 8:23 am

Thanks so much for the feedback and very kind words!

I'm going to take advantage of the snow days over here on the east coast to due to some mixing work. Clearly not my forte and would love any help I could get from the experts on the forum (I'm also enrolled in the Berklee online course starting in a couple days!). I'm going to pull back the acoustic in the verse and remove it entirely from the chorus, which should clear things up a bit. The guitar is dropped two major steps, so every pass I did there was a push and pull on the tuning and extra noise on each chord change, so that may have contributed to the harshness.

Carlsonscott · Post by **Carlsonscott** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 8:44 am

I got to work on this track. (1) Pulled back the acoustic guitar a lot in the verses and all the way in the chorus (2) raised the snare (3) warmed the bottom end

Let me know if this got better...or worse

https://soundcloud.com/carlson-scott/i-want-it-back-v2

johnlewitt · Post by **johnlewitt** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 9:11 am

Carlson,

The mix is better, however it's not perfect yet.

The acoustic in section 1:07 to 1:42 is the perfect level. Listening to this a couple times, I think I would mute the guitar completely from 0:00 to 1:07. With the bass, piano and lead guitar I'm not sure if you actually need the guitar (no harm trying, right?). In the end, this song is all about the vocal (which as I've said is awesome) and you want to complement it and anything that distracts from the vocal should be deleted. IMO there's still too much effects on the guitar - what does it sound like when it's completely dry?

John

nick.moxsom · Post by **nick.moxsom** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 9:17 am

Hey, Carlson,

Really nice song and a great vocal. I'm not great on technical stuff so I won't offer any mix advice, but I love that transition back into verse 2. I might accentuate the difference in arrangement between the verse and the chorus, if this were mine – get the most singalong chorus I could and burn it into the skull.

Great work. Isn't this just straight 3/4 waltz time, btw?

Nick

My hopeful future hit with a 6/8 time sig

My hopeful future hit with a 6/8 time sig

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