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Post your songs. 
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vain dog
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Post Re: Post your songs.
[quote="Marekenshin"]Thanks so much, dude, I'm particularly proud of that one myself. :shred:

Regarding your lyrics, it's less about the content of what you're saying and more about the feeling of how your words stretch across the note lengths, and the rhymes or lack thereof. That first stanza feels VERY nice to me (and I like the last four lines as well), but the other sections seem to not be on the same level as those two bits. Maybe just give yourself more time to try and rework various versions of some of those sections if you also feel those chunks can be stronger lyrically - and don't be afraid to reuse that first bit instead of one of your other current stanzas, even imo. Song itself is good and it sounds pretty decent for a rough demo; I can get a sense of what a full band arrangement would sound like for sure.

One thing that I think might make the tune a bit more enjoyable and is a pretty standard technique for structuring songs is to take those two main melody/rhythms you have going ("soft, tender can be" and "I'll be your man") and think of how you're using them with and against each other. On the stanza that starts with "I'll be your man," you kind of just stick to the one pattern, while doing something like ABBB or AABA or whatever tends to be catchier to the listener.

TL;DR is I think maybe consider giving yourself more time with the lyrics to make them sound/feel better to yourself before you call them final and maybe consider some minor tweaks on the way you utilize the various pieces to make the structure flow in a more captivating way.[/quote]

Definitely keep those songs coming bud!

This is a song in progress when it comes to lyrics and sectional notes (taking advice from here and friends to demo a few songs before "mastering" in order to get feedback). I'll look into changing the stanza so it's not so repetitive; you have a point there on keeping the listener engaged with catchy, surprising rhythm.

Again, so nice to have feedback from various others on here! As always, there will be songs I'll be hard headed to change, but some of these songs are helped crafted and improved thanks to you all!

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Thu Aug 10, 2017 2:26 pm
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Post Re: Post your songs.
Well, it's a balance between new things that surprise the listener, familiar parts coming back around, and *variants* on the familiar parts which surprise the listener but still have that pleasant familiar sense. The parts I talk about lyrically are in the second two categories, being related sections and all. Definitely down to hear a future version of this, even if it's not the final one yet when you feel like showing something.

Also, lyrics are hard and stuff but you have some good starting material/lines in there to build off of already. :groovin:

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Fri Aug 11, 2017 2:34 am
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vain dog
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Post Re: Post your songs.
[quote="Marekenshin"]Well, it's a balance between new things that surprise the listener, familiar parts coming back around, and *variants* on the familiar parts which surprise the listener but still have that pleasant familiar sense. The parts I talk about lyrically are in the second two categories, being related sections and all. Definitely down to hear a future version of this, even if it's not the final one yet when you feel like showing something.

Also, lyrics are hard and stuff but you have some good starting material/lines in there to build off of already. :groovin:[/quote]

I am considering changing a few lines after relistening. It's definitely something worth improving!

Also! Here is something I've played live a few times and haven't had the time to record until a couple days ago:

https://soundcloud.com/dewith28/pump

Enjoy and always look forward to everyone's input! :groovin:

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Tue Aug 15, 2017 5:53 pm
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Post Re: Post your songs.
The second "pump full of stuff," you hit the vocals a lot better. I think sometimes your tone kind of shifts back and forth between too forward and too backward (nasal/vs in your throat), but when you hit the notes with confidence you get a pretty nice, slightly forward sound. Are you into Grandaddy? This one reminds me of Grandaddy, and I guess your style in general to an extent now that I'm thinking about it.

The bridge ("I couldn't find me" plus instrumental stuff) was really good, truly beautiful stretch you've written right there.

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Wed Aug 23, 2017 10:18 am
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vain dog
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Post Re: Post your songs.
[quote="Marekenshin"]The second "pump full of stuff," you hit the vocals a lot better. I think sometimes your tone kind of shifts back and forth between too forward and too backward (nasal/vs in your throat), but when you hit the notes with confidence you get a pretty nice, slightly forward sound. Are you into Grandaddy? This one reminds me of Grandaddy, and I guess your style in general to an extent now that I'm thinking about it.

The bridge ("I couldn't find me" plus instrumental stuff) was really good, truly beautiful stretch you've written right there.[/quote]

Yes. I need to work on hitting the vocals with more confidence. I loved Grandaddy's album "Sumday." Jason Lytle definitely has given me some inspiration from time to time. I like how they utilize different sounds from the keyboard, hence why some of my work may reflect that.

I personally really like the bridge. I sing it in that particular tone of voice live and people compliment me on the song, which is nice.
Thank you for the input! hearing this really pumps me for future work :D

here's another little something something. Short and more so of a poem for this song:

https://soundcloud.com/dewith28/feathered-glove-demo

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Wed Aug 23, 2017 4:34 pm
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Post Re: Post your songs.
I'm really hoping I can stay in the groove of recording things, but for now at least, I've got a new one done called Oklahoma if any of you fine folks want to check it out. :groovin:

https://soundcloud.com/aecolangeli/oklahoma

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Thu Sep 14, 2017 5:10 am
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Post Re: Post your songs.
Dude, I really dig this one so far - you should absolutely flesh it out fully with more guitar layers and fine-tune the instrument tones (eventually/whenever - this song is neat enough to be given full consideration for a "serious studio recording" imo, although if you plan to work it even further obviously could get even better in some ways, I'm sure). I really like the "moon/star/sun" stanza, great lines! The ending is super catchy, the lyrics are cute overall and I enjoyed them a lot. Nice. :groovin:

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Thu Sep 14, 2017 11:55 pm
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Post Re: Post your songs.
[quote="ShwahnStuff"]I'm really hoping I can stay in the groove of recording things, but for now at least, I've got a new one done called Oklahoma if any of you fine folks want to check it out. :groovin:

https://soundcloud.com/aecolangeli/oklahoma[/quote]

Wow nice work, it sounds like you're making a ton of progress! Vocals sound good here. One note though, you may want to consider tuning your guitar, and beyond that, checking out your intonation. Your guitar solo in particular sounded fairly flat/out.

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Fri Sep 15, 2017 3:50 am
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Post Re: Post your songs.
Agreed, that guitar tone is a little bit not my thing (I'm generally thinking that this kind of thing is known and people are mostly sharing demo recordings and ish in here; at least, that's what my lazy butt is doing haha).

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Fri Sep 15, 2017 9:38 am
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Post Re: Post your songs.
[quote="Marekenshin"](I'm generally thinking that this kind of thing is known and people are mostly sharing demo recordings and ish in here; at least, that's what my lazy butt is doing haha).[/quote]

Right, mostly when it comes to production I don't think we should overly critical here. The reason I mention tuning/intonation is just that I think a musician of any skill level should tune their instruments properly *unless* they're going for a particular low-fi/detuned vibe. Like Beach Fossils or something. Unless you're making stoner surf pop, it comes off to me as a glaring oversight - it's such little effort for a major difference.

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Fri Sep 15, 2017 1:39 pm
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vain dog
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Post Re: Post your songs.
Thank you both very very much, I appreciate the feedback immensely! :)
It was a fun little song to write, made for a friend for her birthday.

I would love to go and flesh it out further sometime - the second rhythm guitar track was actually added last-minute because it sounded really hollow with just the other one, so I put in a quick second track with the little riff, but mostly it was there to fill out the sound on a lot of the chords. It'd be interesting to go back and try for something a bit more unique when I can. Overall, though, with the whole birthday thing, I was on a time crunch with this one, haha.

As for the tuning, I'm pretty sure it was fine on that front, though in retrospect, I probably could have stopped at some point during recording to re-check that it hadn't come out of tune, but intonation, that's something that's definitely shown up on my radar only recently, and I've never checked mine or had it done, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's something off about it, and once I read that in your response, I started thinking more about how I'd really like to properly set that up, especially for future projects and performances, and, bandwise, we're just starting to incorporate some dual-guitar songs instead of just ones with me on the bass (our usual setup), with the first of those we've done being last Saturday.

So I read a bit about what to do for intonation, and it sounds like I'll need a much fancier tuner than what I've got, which is just built into my amp. If you all here have any tips for this kind of thing, though, I'm all ears, it's all new to me! Haha

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Sat Sep 23, 2017 5:03 am
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Post Re: Post your songs.
I think for intonation issues you'd need to get a guitar setup or mess with your truss rod and action yourself if you're more the DIY type.

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Sun Sep 24, 2017 11:17 pm
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Post Re: Post your songs.
[quote="Marekenshin"]I think for intonation issues you'd need to get a guitar setup or mess with your truss rod and action yourself if you're more the DIY type.[/quote]

Perhaps, but poor intonation can often be remedied the standard way (so I've heard): by using a screwdriver to move your saddles forward or backward, and constantly checking the tuning when open and at the 12th fret.

Also Shwahn, you should be fine with any tuner app on your phone - there are several good ones out there, perfectly fine for a bedroom guitarist.

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Sun Sep 24, 2017 11:48 pm
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Post Re: Post your songs.
Well yeah, you'd play with the action in other ways first before messing with the truss rod if you can get that to go since it takes a lot less work and all, but a lot of the time I would imagine that a full setup is better than just getting it close via one aspect, if possible. I'm lazy and just take my guitar to a tech once in a blue moon.

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Mon Sep 25, 2017 8:51 am
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Post Re: Post your songs.
[quote="GoldenRhino"][quote="Marekenshin"]I think for intonation issues you'd need to get a guitar setup or mess with your truss rod and action yourself if you're more the DIY type.[/quote]

Perhaps, but poor intonation can often be remedied the standard way (so I've heard): by using a screwdriver to move your saddles forward or backward, and constantly checking the tuning when open and at the 12th fret. [/quote]

This is the best method and it's easy to do, your truss rod should *not* need to be adjusted and if it does you've likely got other problems such as bowing in the neck or bad action on the upper frets. Intonation can go unnoticed even by an experienced guitarist who is possibly recording for the first time or playing in a band situation with other members who are properly tuned to pitch, drawing attention to the problem. It's very easy to check with the method GR suggests, I remember in some of the very first covers I recorded here it was pointed out to me and I was totally unaware prior to that point. If you don't point out the problem, how can anyone fix it?

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Wed Sep 27, 2017 8:05 pm
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