60's soul instrumental - does this fit the listing?

[nick.moxsom]

Helpmates,

The hugely supportive Georgina St. George suggested I might drag this track out of mothballs. The next day this listing arrived in my inbox:

A-List Music Licensing Company U-R-G-E-N-T-L-Y needs UPTEMPO SOUL, R&B and DEEP FUNK REVIVAL INSTRUMENTALS for a NETWORK TV SERIES. They're looking for "COOL" INSTRUMENTALS with a CLASSIC, RETRO sound a la THE METERS, BOOKER T. & THE MG's, THE JB's, SHARON JONES and the DAP KINGS, THE DIPLOMATS OF SOLID SOUND, THE BAMBOOS, SHAOLIN TEMPLE DEFENDERS, THE NEW MASTERSOUNDS... it can be an OLD or NEW recording, but must sound good enough for broadcast TV. They're looking for a FUN, POSITIVE and UPBEAT vibe. It's IMPORTANT that your instrumental sound like an ARTIST/BAND and NOT like a production music library track. NO SAMPLES of other songs or artists can be incorporated into your track. As always, do NOT copy or rip off the referenced artist or song in any way, shape, or form! The ESTIMATED fee for this license is $1,000-2,000. YOU WILL KEEP 70% of the ultimate fee, and you will NOT give up ANY of your Master, Publishing and Writer's share! You must own or control 100% of the Master and Composition rights to submit for this listing. Please submit one to three songs online. All submissions will be screened on a YES/NO BASIS by a person Hand-Picked by the listing company. ALL submissions must be received no later than Monday, August 13, 2012, 9:30AM PDT. TAXI #U120813SI

So I took the vocal off and remixed. Is this a fit? Should I submit?

Mix comments most welcome, but anything you have to say may be taken in evidence.

The piece is called 'Get Up (Instrumental)' and is up on my Soundcloud and Taxi pages.

Muchas gracias.
Nick

[nick.moxsom]

Oops! It wasn't up on SoundCloud. It is now. Sorry, guys.

Nick

[Casey H]

Nice track, Nick. Love the horns!

The weak part is the emptiness where you had verse vocals in the vocal version. As a pure instrumental pitch, I think you need to fill that it was something to give melody, such as more keyboard? There are keys there now but it has that "backing track to a vocal song" feel in the verses. The sections with horns are awesome!

I'm not familiar with the 'a la' acts other than Booker T and the MGs so I don't know if they do funk with horns like this. If they do and you fill in those verses, I think it would be a really good pitch.

Best of luck!
Casey

[nick.moxsom]

Thanks, Casey. Much appreciated.

I kinda knew the verses are a little empty. If I have time, I'll fix that. Glad you like the horns – I was worried they sounded too MIDI.

Cheers,
Nick

[Casey H]

Thanks, Casey. Much appreciated.

I kinda knew the verses are a little empty. If I have time, I'll fix that. Glad you like the horns – I was worried they sounded too MIDI.

Cheers,
Nick

Hey Nick
I'm not a good judge of how realistic the horns sound... You'd have to get some thoughts from others... I love the vibe and melody and how they feel. But as far as the whole MIDI vs authentic sound, I'm not the guy... I know the due date is 8/13, so that doesn't give you much time to make any adjustments.

Good luck!
Casey

[Kolstad]

I like this song a lot, nick. To me it sounds a la Cee Lo Green, so I would look at his "The lady killer" album for production reference tracks. You probably want that contemporary Motown sounds going on, and to my ears the drums need to be more tough/hiphop sounding with more ambience on. Also it needs more synth candy to maintain intrest troughout and get that more ambient contemporary sound, Cee Lo uses a lot of that, as well as plenty of harmonies (which you can do SO well!!).

I'm not sure this song is right for the listing, though. It sounds too contemporary for the references, allthough perhaps Jackson5 could be an a la to my ears. And you could argure Cee Lo Greens stuff sounds a la the listed references. But I would go for a contemporary Motown sound, though, and wait for the appropriate listing. At least to my ears, that would be the most natural direction, and push yourself in a good direction too.

[mikeymike2000]

Hi Nick,

I second what Casey said about putting the melody in there with a organ or something.

To echo Mange, when I was playing this song my roommate came home and asked if I was listening to "F... you" by Cee Lo Green. I had no clue what he was talking about. His opinion was that it was very similar. (yeah that is actually a song title... I hear there is a clean version called "forget you" but youtube has the dirty one too) Anyway I checked it out and I can hear a resemblance but don't think it is that as identical as my friend thought.

The horns immediately jumped out to me as being MIDI. I listened to some of the vocal mix as well and I prefer that mix all around. Maybe if you go back to that, mute the vocals and add the missing melody with a B3 it could work. The horns sounded a bit more realistic in the vocal mix to me, but still a little synthetic.

Hope that helps.

[nick.moxsom]

Magne and Mike

Funny how someone else hears something different in one's work. I hadn't thought of Cee-Lo, although I loved 'F––– You' when it was out over here. I've been going back and forth with this, wondering whether to go the synth candy route or try for an authentic mix. Either way, if the horns sound MIDI, it ain't going anywhere as it is. Thanks a lot for your thoughts, guys.

Nick

[mazz]

Nick,

I'm with the others on this:

1. Horns sound very synthetic, and that "might" be OK except that in the 60s they didn't have poly synthesizers or samplers so the synthetic horns over the nice 60s rhythm section doesn't match up.

2. I don't think there's a time length constraint on this so you could possibly start the piece with the drum fill and then go immediately to the organ solo then take it out from there, and mute the horns as well. You could play the melody on guitar to take it out.

3. The handclaps are a bit hot and when they are exposed on the ending they reveal themselves as a drum machine patch, again not very 60s, where the handclaps would have actually been several people around a mic clapping their hands! You might consider taking them out for the ending.

Cool tune, needs a few tweaks to make it as an instrumental.

Mazz

[nick.moxsom]

Thanks, Mazz. All good stuff.

Nick