Christmas Came Early

[bmete]

Hello!I am almost finished putting this Christmas Co- Write with the lovely and talented Chits--. This is a beautiful Christmas story. I am posting to ask if you would be so kind to take a listen and make any recommendations. I've been so deeply buried in this song, that I'm sure I'm missing lots of things. This is also my first attempt at detuning the strings. Janet & I appreciate your time.....Christmas Came Earlyhttp://www.reddproductions.net/christmascameearly12100A.mp3Bob

[cameron]

Wow... what an ambitious project! That would take me five years to do, and my results would not be half as good.OK... LOVE the sax solo? Is it live or is it Memorex?The song is very sultry, and likely not something you're going to be singing along with at the supermarket, but I like it. Because of the complexity I suspect it is a song that will take a few listens to become completely comfortable with. In my case I equate that with Donald Fagen's "Maxine" off The Nightfly album, which took me a few listens to get into, but eventually became one of my favorite songs.OK, I'm going back to listen again.Cam

[slowdance]

Bob and Chits,Fantastic..................well done............soothing to listen to.I do think that the intro should be a little longer .....the vocals come in just when the music is trying to give the "feel" for the song...maybe another two bars in the intro.Bass could be a tad more pronounced.And with the little jazzy feel to the music maybe a little different drum patternJust my thoughts............but it is a song that could and should be associated with xmas....good luck with it.regards,Dick

[jchitty]

Hey, thanks Cam and Slowdance for your thoughts...you folks always give good critiques and there is lots of food for thought here if we tweak this. It was a pleasure writing this with Bob...he's so talented....he brings everything we co-write to life. I love what he did with CCE.I'm hoping to do more critiquing of member's music in the future....I haven't had an ounce of time to critique lately or post...the holiday are so busy around my house, but I just wanted to stop by and thank you for your thoughts.

[deantaylor]

Hey Guys,It has a smooth lounge type vibe. I like that. It would make good background 'mood' music. I had some trouble understanding the vocal, could be the singer's style or .....??Dean

[bmete]

Hi ,thanks Cam, Dick , Dean for the comments so far, Janet and I appreciate them.And thanks Janet for writing such nice lyrics...Cam- the sax is me playing, glad you liked it..Dick-- you hit on a question that was driving me nuts - the intro- originally I had the piano and vibes doing it three times and then the first verse- then I was going to have Madeline sing only the Christmas came early this year, then I added the one before it- I'll go back and try all three ways again.the bass is driving me nuts-- on my system- it seems overpowering so I keep cutting back the velocity and volume. I'll give it another look through.The drums- being so slow and with a lot of white space I had the drummer do brushes with a little more contemporary bass drum kick- I keep revisiting the drums-Bob

[zoom]

Bob!Great tune -- reminds me of some of the big productions of the 70's and 80's -- kind of Carpenters-esque (especially the vocal style, with the crisp pronunciations) with a modern sound. I don't really mind the drum patterns, but I would agree with the others about you needing more bass in general... though it sounds like you may need to EQ it a little differently to make it work. Playing at that tempo is really difficult, and you seem to have pulled it off very nicely!This would also make a great stand alone instrumental piece... something to think about for the future perhaps.Beautiful sound!

[heinsite]

hi bob, nice to "see" you again! (oh, you too chitly! LOL)this is what i got, only one listen, but that's how i hear anything in my opinion outta wack or weird. i did read the posts however after...so like always, take what i say with a grain. just one opinion...--first, very nice song, very melancholy--in the chorus, i'd occasionally sing a higher end note, i wrote down "ham" as an example, so wherever ham is..LOL...that's my example in a few more places to "raise" that note up, it was a natural thing to do to my ears and would add more interest to the tune...--the intro is a bit odd, and when i listened i almost wanted you to start it like the opposite of what slowdance said up there, with just the plaintive (sp) vocal opening, and nothing else, then continue...but i get slowdances point as well...--the vocal--i like it, however the high eq is too high for my ears, and the reverb just a "bit" too "reverby" as well--last thing i thought of toward the end was the title...Christmas Came Early is good, but my mind immediately wanted to hear (as i think i did in the tune "This Year"...but i'm thinking why, and have the postulate that by adding This Year to the title, as in "Christmas Came Early This Year" it makes the moment or helps bring home the whole reason for the song in the first place, IMHO, that it's different "this year" vs. the same old same old...--love the sax (almost wrote sex,,,but thats ok too..)--no, not a standard yet, but a very solid tune that somebody should buy my friends. ok that's it, just reread my notes,and if you can understand what this non-musician even is trying to say...LOL...i believe you've got something here. have fun, great to hear from you both!the best,warren

[billg]

Great song and an awesome production imo. Is it my imagination or does the bass come forward in the mix a bit somewhere around the 3min. mark? To my ears the bass needs some work (eq? compression? both ?) and that's all . . . this is really awesome.

[davekershaw]

Yeah, nice Bob and Chits.Chit's, you're sounding a bit like Helen Reddy there.Hope you take that as a complement! That's all I gotta say, 'cause Warren didn't leave me any more space! I'm off for another listen now!!