Our House ... kicked to the curb ... now homeless

[chaoticfractal]

I feel like this one ... wow, I really thought I had something that would at least get forwarded ...

Probably the most defeating rejection of the 60 rejected thus far.

The comments were really vague ... "more character and personality to your vocal..."

Well, granted I'm not British, but seems like my voice is similar to the original. I guess they were looking for something completely identical to the original.

Can't wait to hear what was forwarded. My luck, it will be set to private ...

Here is what I submitted, in case anyone feels I need a cold splash of reality because it is worse than I thought ....

https://www.taxi.com/members/gxYAbNZ8TI ... use-cover-

[cosmicdolphin]

The comments were really vague ... "more character and personality to your vocal..."ver-

I didn't see the listing but yeah vocally it's kind of robotic and overly auto-tuned, the tuning artifacts stand quite a bit whereas Madness are very much a " real " band in the traditional sense. Having a lot of obviously tuned vocals goes against the style , you'd expect it in a Pop record but not one of theirs. Coincidentally I just watched Madness live on the Jools Holland New show that's on here every year, Suggs very different vocal delivery style. I thought you did well on the harmony parts but don't know that they were looking for a mimic of Suggs as you're quite some way off it or after a new interpretation ?

The bit around 2:08 - 2:24 especially sounds rather odd, like you slowed the DAW down then sped it back up and the tuning software couldn't cope

Music wise some of it sounded too much like a Karaoke track to me, it was close but some sounds came across more midi than realistic.

[chaoticfractal]

That is interesting ... I'll have to listen to the vocals again. I actually thought I didn't have it tuned enough and it drifted too much in places.

Do you recall what musical parts sounded too fake by chance?

I actually loaded the track and would constantly flip back and forth comparing it. Maybe I got fatigue doing that, but so much of it, especially the music seemed to be very similar.

Thanks!

[cosmicdolphin]

Do you recall what musical parts sounded too fake by chance?

Drums, strings

[MBantle]

I was very sceptical when I saw the listing. I think this screams lawsuit if done 99% accurate (and I would be surprised if the client would fully indemnify you). The original song also seems to have some tuning 'instability' (I know there is a re-mastered version) which seems extremely laborious to re-create. I think you did a lot of things right and even though it was not a forward I am sure you learned a lot in the process.
Cheers,
Matt

[Ted]

That's too bad man. I saw this listing when it came out and thought about trying it-- what I was going to do was import a karaoke version of "Our House" into my DAW and then try to sing to it first to see if the vocals were going to cut it before going to the trouble of recreating all those instrumental parts-- and I got working on other things and forgot about the listing entirely.

I agree with Mark about the vocals not cutting it-- he described the issues pretty well. And I also agree that the harmony parts were better sounding than the straight up lead. I thought you did a pretty good job of recreating the instruments. It just sucks to go through the work on a listing like this and end up with something that you can't use for anything.


Matt brings up an interesting point. I have no idea whether that would be the case or not but it's interesting nonetheless.


Yeah it will be interesting to see if there were any forwards and if so, how they sound.

[Robertj64]

That's too bad man. I saw this listing when it came out and thought about trying it-- what I was going to do was import a karaoke version of "Our House" into my DAW and then try to sing to it first to see if the vocals were going to cut it before going to the trouble of recreating all those instrumental parts-- and I got working on other things and forgot about the listing entirely.

I agree with Mark about the vocals not cutting it-- he described the issues pretty well. And I also agree that the harmony parts were better sounding than the straight up lead. I thought you did a pretty good job of recreating the instruments. It just sucks to go through the work on a listing like this and end up with something that you can't use for anything.


Matt brings up an interesting point. I have no idea whether that would be the case or not but it's interesting nonetheless.


Yeah it will be interesting to see if there were any forwards and if so, how they sound.

I think this is a damn good replica of the original. I agree that at 2:08 the vocals are too autotuned and suffer a bit of clarity but man....this was an excellent attempt. I would check out the forwards to see what went out. Well done, sir!!

[chrishargrave]

I had a crack at this too, here's my version:

https://www.taxi.com/members/QUr1BUJQR3 ... r-hargrave

Got rejected with the following feedback:

The emotion and vibe in the song doesn't come close enough to the original which is crucial to setting the tone of the spot.

I was a bit miffed at the time but in hindsight I'm quite glad, apart from any legal issues that might arise I'm not sure of the morality of creating exact replicas of other people's work = surely it's just saving large corporations money on a sync licence of the original and denying the songwriter a decent fee?

I won't respond to a replica request again...interpretations yes, exact copies, no.

[Ted]

... a damn good replica of the original.

My guess is that is not what they were looking for. Usually the request is for covers, not replicas, but I don't have the listing in front of me.

Nope, they actually wanted the track to be as much of a replica of the original as possible. I've gone back and listened several times and I think OP did an awesome job of recreating the instrumental parts of the original-- which must have been incredibly time consuming. But the vocals were not quite 100% up to snuff, unfortunately. They weren't that bad either overall. I think Dolphin was accurate in describing why the vocals missed the mark. But then again, I think it's sort of an impossible standard to ask for the instruments to be perfect replicas and then to want the vocals to also sound exactly like the original singer in every way. I understand his frustration. If the listing was for a creative reinterpretation of the song, OP would at least have something he might be able to pitch for another cover listing.

I think the main parts where the vocals don't quite cut it are where they are alone with no harmony/backing parts-- they're in a lower/not-high register and I've found that I have the most difficulty getting a good performance myself in similar parts of the freq. spectrum. In my case, I am a tenor ( I wanted to be a baritone, but it is what it is) and I have difficulty finding the needed resonance for my chest voice in that same damn octave--where it's almost within the range of a speaking voice. For me it's like trying to fly a plane impossibly slow to the point where it begins to stall. I find my voice to have pitch issues pretty much only in the lower range. I don't know if OP has similar issues, hence the need for pitch correction on lower notes. I've had a voice teacher talk to me about certain breath control techniques being a help but tbh, it's been something I haven't yet been able to fix. I'm not saying the OP has the same issue, but I'm just throwing it out there based on what I hear and what I know from my own experiences.

Listening again to the entire vocal performance, maybe a good vocal doubler/stronger doubling during those solo vocal parts could have thickened it up sufficiently.

Like i said, for a listing like this-- where there is a lot of work in recreating instruments-- it might be a good idea to first locate a karaoke version of the track and put in into your DAW to see if your vocals are going to get the job done before going through all that painstaking work on the instrumentals-- which really do sound great here. And also most of the vocal parts in here (harmonies/chorus/etc) sound great to me too-- better than I could have done with this song for sure. Thanks for posting this, Brandon.


Again, I really want to see what (if anything) got forwarded.

[cosmicdolphin]

Again, I really want to see what (if anything) got forwarded.

I'd not seen the Listing ( always best to post them along with the track ) but if that's what they wanted it wouldn't surprise me if nothing got forwarded. You may as well just go out and hire a tribute act , none of them can play live at the moment.

https://youtu.be/ZhRuioazEwY?t=567

Like you say Ted, vocal delivery is closer to speech.