WIP - "This Love's for Me and Not for You"

[mobius017]

Hey everyone!

Can you give me some feedback on a new original I'm working on?


I think there are some moments where I should have the drums do something different, and I know the vocals are too loud currently, but do you have thoughts about the rest--the guitar, bass, anything?

This is also a song where I'm planning to try tuning a bit, rather than leaving it all up to Miku. But I haven't reached that point yet.

Your honesty is appreciated :) .

 

[MagicalMiku]

like it a lot!!ヾ(^▽^*)))
so.. first thoughts as i'm listening to it: I like the style, the lyrics and Miku tuning overall, energic and cute at same time! like you said, there is still work to be done in terms of voice eq with the instruments, but it's a tuning to be made later ^-^
I love at 0:45 the bass intro, it makes the song going to another step, with the gentle sound of the flute making it more relaxing, it was a very nice surprise. bass again, and I like that you make a good use of the bass in every part of the song.
in terms of tuning of the instruments, probably only the drums and guitar need a bit more of tuning, some energy in the intro, mid and outro of the song. You could try some bass also during guitar part, but only as a gentle accompaniment. the good melody is already there, I just feel there is something missing and you are able to put it ^u^
think for example of tiltsix's Hope Sound and overwriter, you can feel what I mean:

keep up with the good work!!

 

[Vector]

I like the bass, and the percussion seems good. Just a thought, I wonder if a quiet shaker or tambourine would fill a little space and keep the beat rolling forward? Might be worth experimenting with to see if it adds anything or doesn't work. The guitar also sounds good, and has nice presence that carries it.

The vocal has a little bit of a muffled, telephone like quality to it. Not sure what's happening with that by the sound. Gain issue, compression issue, something funky with EQ? It makes me think of what it sounds like when a limiter/compressor is stomping something too hard while bringing the gain up, but I don't necessarily have the best ear for that.

A bit of reverb will also help make Miku sound a bit more natural, and "pull" the vocal back into the mix a bit to blend with the guitar more.

 

[mobius017]

Thanks so much, @MagicalMiku and @Vector! I really appreciate you taking the time to listen and provide feedback!

A little under a week ago, I shared this song with a YouTuber who runs some music classes I've taken. His feedback was less positive, overall--he raised some music theory concerns that, while I intend to go back and review them again, I don't think sound entirely correct to me. Then again, there are some aspects of what he teaches that have always struck me as relying on an unrealistically formulaic thinking, if they're not outright incorrect...and I didn't adhere to those formulas when making this. So I wanted to not only get your feedback, but also get some confirmation of my own ears.

Thanks very much again for listening and commenting! I'm glad you liked it!

 

[MagicalMiku]

always follow your ears and your heart, mobius!(‾◡◝)
I don't want to say that his feedback isn't important, on the contrary, every feedback is very important, but he might have made those concerns regarding the music theory, and not thinking of the song itself.
it's also possible that he doesn't know about Vocaloid, voice synth and how things can change a lot with some tweak and tuning. he might be surprised after listening to the tweaked version of the song.
music is very, very subjective, and a song is made to give a feeling, give something that any other media can't.
some producers like to follow music theory, others just follow their ears and make songs literally by ears. each style is different and good at same time, and it doesn't matter what others think, you have your own style and you follow that.
think of producers like tilt-six, deco*27, kz, ryo and avtechno. they all have their own style and different sound signature

 

[Vector]

The important thing is if you like how it sounds. Art is a form of communication, so every rule is in service of whether it achieves what you set out to do. And it's very much something you learn by doing, and collecting feedback. My philosophy is to work on projects until I'm happy with them, release them and keep learning. I can see improvements with each of my projects. (Especially one of the ones I'm actively working on, because I'm revisiting the genre of my first song with two more years of experience.)

I definitely lean more towards the technical side of things. It's an engineering problem to me: there's a set of rules that help you make things sound good, it all boils down to physics in the end, and I can "program" notes and sonic properties and "compile" them to hear how they sound. So I'm really into the mixing/audio engineering side of things. I've taken some basic formal classes on music theory and can build harmonies/arrangements, read notation, etc, but I don't really have the trained ear or coordination for performance. (In contrast to my brother, who can pick up any instrument and quickly figure out how to play it by ear, but doesn't use notation beyond guitar tablature.)

So I'm kind of curious about their theory-related criticism.