First vocals on this track were laid down yesterday, and hence the first version of this song being posted. This is the first track post “Fire Fire Fire EP” to be worked on, and while we were looking through our “sketch” folder yesterday we realized we’ve got another four or so songs to work on in the near future.

Most likely we’ll try to finish this track before moving on, we’ve still got some work to do on the ending of this song, and this is a very rough mix, so there will be more work to do on the vocal track as well.

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It didn’t take long for Anders to make a new mix for this one. Nothing much has changed however, just slightly more bass and a more polished sound.

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I’m thinking we should maybe rerecord the main guitar. It was done quite fast as a guide track, but then we thought it sounded good and kept it. I think the playing is pretty OK (sloppy enough!) but the sound is too “country” and twangy. I would like a darker, more jazz-like sound. If I mute it in the verses there is much more room for the vocals, but then there is not enough drive in the music. I have a guitar with flatwound strings, so I might try that.

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We performed an advanced microphone test on these vocals. You can read more about that test here.

All in all, I am much happier with this mix and the sound of the vocals now. Before I felt that they were muddled but now it cuts nicely through. What do you think?

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In my opinion, this song is starting to become something more, and I will now go ahead and change the status from “sketch” to “song” here on moonpalace.se. I’m still not entirely pleased with the song structure, and I want to shake things up a bit to make it more interesting, especially in the second verse. I’m thinking of adding some vocal harmonies. We’ll see.

On the bright side, I think this is the best vocal sound we’ve had yet. And I don’t mean the cool tape reverb slap-back effect, but just overall “sound” of the voice on this track is better than what we’ve heard so far. I think. What do you think?

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This is a very rough recording, more of a vocal sketch really. This is something I like to do to give Anders the idea of how I envision the vocal sound and feel for the song, and then he usually thinks for a while, works his magic, and it comes back sounding really great. :)

There are a LOT of words in this song. Perhaps too many. I want to figure out a way to make the verse more interesting, either by adding another vocal track, or coming up with variations on the song melody. Anders suggested taking out every other line of the text and replacing it with an instrument “response”. I’m not sure, but I think something needs to happen to keep it from being boring.

I was trying to hold a specific image in my head as I wrote the lyrics, as is my current way of writing, but I kind of ran aground when I had no more ways to describe the scene, so the lyrics will most definately change over time, whether or not we take out lines.

Also, this mix is very strange. I did something weird with the compressor and as a result it all sounds… strange. But it’s a work in progress, and everything must be put on the blog – as bad as it might be! :)

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Also, Anders had previously tweaked the mix and sounds, so there are some changes, especially after the second chorus, during the break and outtro.

I made a mistake when exporting the song, so there’s about 10 seconds of silence in the beginning, before the song starts. Sorry about that.

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