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What CD Would You Like To Hear Me Do?

Modern Pop (Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, etc.)
8
5%
Classic Rock (Stones, Beatles, Who, Zep)
9
5%
Prog Rock (Yes, Genesis, Kansas, etc.)
18
10%
Show Tunes Style (Sound Of Music, My Fair Lady, etc.)
5
3%
Country (Alan Jackson, Garth Brooks, etc.)
4
2%
Disco (Bee Gees, Tramps, etc.)
24
14%
Metal (various sub genres)
16
9%
EDM (various sub genres)
24
14%
80s (various genres)
14
8%
Your Music Sucks. Please Stop Making It
52
30%
 
Total votes: 174

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PRODUCTS

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wagtunes wrote: Wed Feb 27, 2019 2:54 pm
Wopelka wrote: Wed Feb 27, 2019 2:52 pm Glad to have the opportunity to review one of your track...! Heavily compressed, but not squashed. Very clear mix and nice upbeat feel. Well thought out harmonic progression and subtile back vocals. Drums are present without being... too heavy. The lead guitar gets the job done as expected.This song is very solid, indeed. I like it a lot. Maybe it's my condition of foreigner, and not knowing you enough, but I cannot fully grasp whether the lyrics are genuine or full of irony.
Thanks for the critique. Lyrics are quite genuine, I assure you. I serve as church treasurer and fill in for minister when he goes on vacation. Also sing in choir and write anthems for the choir to sing. And I play the drums on the upbeat anthems. You could say church is a big part of my life.
Nice to learn, bro

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I stand on solid ground:
right off the bat i noticed less singing in the shower heavy reverb use
as had been the usual on previous work. the composition and lyrics are
well done as usual.
it is a wee bit overcomped. but trying to put a finger on what
is lacking was tough on this track. as i listen on phones,
i like a nice soundstage that gives a big natural sound.
as if i'm not listening on phones, but standing and listening
to everything live. (if that makes any sense)
anyway, i think the mix could benefit from using panning
and reverb to give everything its own space in the virtual
soundstage. as it is now, it sounds a little crowdwd in the
center, up front zone. overall, a great track once again, wags!
HW SYNTHS [KORG T2EX - AKAI AX80 - YAMAHA SY77 - ENSONIQ VFX]
HW MODULES [OBi M1000 - ROLAND MKS-50 - ROLAND JV880 - KURZ 1000PX]
SW [CHARLATAN - OBXD - OXE - ELEKTRO - MICROTERA - M1 - SURGE - RMiV]
DAW [ENERGY XT2/1U RACK WINXP / MAUDIO 1010LT PCI]

Post

layzer wrote: Wed Feb 27, 2019 4:40 pm I stand on solid ground:
right off the bat i noticed less singing in the shower heavy reverb use
as had been the usual on previous work. the composition and lyrics are
well done as usual.
it is a wee bit overcomped. but trying to put a finger on what
is lacking was tough on this track. as i listen on phones,
i like a nice soundstage that gives a big natural sound.
as if i'm not listening on phones, but standing and listening
to everything live. (if that makes any sense)
anyway, i think the mix could benefit from using panning
and reverb to give everything its own space in the virtual
soundstage. as it is now, it sounds a little crowdwd in the
center, up front zone. overall, a great track once again, wags!
I'm always told I use to much reverb, so I really cut down on it (especially in the vocals) on this one. Everything is close to bone dry, so yeah, it's going to have an in your face sound.

I kind of like it. I'm not saying I would start doing this for every track, but for a change I wanted to hear how it would sound. In phones, it sounds perfect. Live? Yeah, maybe not as much.

Still, I don't think I'm going to change it. I've already been through 4 revisions of this track. I'm kind of settled on this one.

Post

not demanding a new revision, but just something to take with you for next time.
thats always the intent of my critical observations to anyone.
its good enough, but its funny how sometimes we tend to "over correct"
things we are told are an issue.
HW SYNTHS [KORG T2EX - AKAI AX80 - YAMAHA SY77 - ENSONIQ VFX]
HW MODULES [OBi M1000 - ROLAND MKS-50 - ROLAND JV880 - KURZ 1000PX]
SW [CHARLATAN - OBXD - OXE - ELEKTRO - MICROTERA - M1 - SURGE - RMiV]
DAW [ENERGY XT2/1U RACK WINXP / MAUDIO 1010LT PCI]

Post

layzer wrote: Wed Feb 27, 2019 4:57 pm not demanding a new revision, but just something to take with you for next time.
thats always the intent of my critical observations to anyone.
its good enough, but its funny how sometimes we tend to "over correct"
things we are told are an issue.
Personally, I like a lot of reverb. Always did. Probably the biggest change was in how I processed the 4 electric rhythm guitars. They literally have no reverb at all, which is a first for me. I did put some on the lead guitar, which I think you can tell. The horns and strings used the MIR 24 Soundstage by VSL, which has a natural built in reverb. Had I put the guitars on the soundstage as well, might have made a big difference. Not sure.

One thing I do, constantly, is try to ignore the so called "rules" and just do my own thing. I get that certain frequencies you don't want to go blowing somebody's ear drums apart (I'm very conscious of my SPAN now) but other than that, I tend not to concern myself with what people consider a "good" or "bad" mix in regard to stereo, reverb, compression and so on. I wanted a real compressed sound on this one so that's what I went for. I wanted it relatively dry, so that's what I went for. Experimentation is never a bad thing. Ultimately, you keep the things you like and discard the things that didn't work for you. And you ignore the things that you never liked in the first place. For example, I hated the old Capital records "fake" stereo recordings of the 60s where the drums were on one side and the vocals were on another. So I'll never do a recording like that. But I will experiment. I mean if everything I do sounds the same all the time, it gets kind of dull, at least for me.

Post

no doubt everyone will have a preference on how loud, bright, reverby, or dry
a track should sound. i always try to shoot for a flat sound.
kind of like brightness and color saturation on a screen
when watching TV. you are presented with visual material
and you expect it too look natural as if you are
observing things in real life. (the bright, contrast and color knobs are
there to correct it if the engineer failed to make them flat)
anyway, it all boils down to a balance.
HW SYNTHS [KORG T2EX - AKAI AX80 - YAMAHA SY77 - ENSONIQ VFX]
HW MODULES [OBi M1000 - ROLAND MKS-50 - ROLAND JV880 - KURZ 1000PX]
SW [CHARLATAN - OBXD - OXE - ELEKTRO - MICROTERA - M1 - SURGE - RMiV]
DAW [ENERGY XT2/1U RACK WINXP / MAUDIO 1010LT PCI]

Post

layzer wrote: Wed Feb 27, 2019 5:28 pm no doubt everyone will have a preference on how loud, bright, reverby, or dry
a track should sound. i always try to shoot for a flat sound.
kind of like brightness and color saturation on a screen
when watching TV. you are presented with visual material
and you expect it too look natural as if you are
observing things in real life. (the bright, contrast and color knobs are
there to correct it if the engineer failed to make them flat)
anyway, it all boils down to a balance.
And then you have TV shows like Gotham. There is absolutely nothing natural looking about that scenery. It literally looks like something out of a dark comic book. Personally, I love it. But you can't tell me that's what the real world looks like. I'd have nightmares if it did.

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always gonna be 2 sides to the coin.
i like to see details. it drives me insane when
there is not enough light to see whats going on.
but some people like the dark. like to hide in it.
do their dirty deeds undetected in it.
but i, i place the lamp on the table instead of under
the table so everything can be seen clearly...

everyone that knows me in real life knows i
dislike deception of any shape or form.
HW SYNTHS [KORG T2EX - AKAI AX80 - YAMAHA SY77 - ENSONIQ VFX]
HW MODULES [OBi M1000 - ROLAND MKS-50 - ROLAND JV880 - KURZ 1000PX]
SW [CHARLATAN - OBXD - OXE - ELEKTRO - MICROTERA - M1 - SURGE - RMiV]
DAW [ENERGY XT2/1U RACK WINXP / MAUDIO 1010LT PCI]

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wagtunes,
Thank you for reviewing 2 of my tunes! Now your music: "I Stand On Solid Ground": I read the lyrics before I listened to the song. This is the most religious song I remember you doing. I am pretty religious myself, usually the spirituality in my lyrics is more vague and open to interpretation. It is good you are brave about the lyrics in this song. This song does sound like early 70's (not a bad thing). Not keen on the guitar note at 1:58 and 2:57, otherwise I like the melodies. Vocals are pretty good. They sound best during the chorus. Some of your better vocals. The song is a bit sugary, but that certainly was not unusual in the early 70's. Overall: good job! "Yesterday's Man": timing could be better on this song; could be tighter. Lead guitar sounds somewhat out of tune. It does have some good hooks. The song seems to have elements of the 70's and the 80's. A year from now, will we use the term "the 20's"? I always think of the 20's as the 1920's, but I was born in 1960. Singing is actually pretty good. I bought a Roland VS-880 in 1996, my first digital recorder (with multi-tracking I started with a 4-track cassette recorder by Aria); it died a few years ago. I think that if you could sing it as least as well as you did 10 years ago, I think it would be worth re-recording. It is a good song. Though only if you want to. I re-recorded a lot of my songs when I got the VS-880; but one day I hit a wall, and the thought of re-recording another song of mine made me literally feel sick to my stomach. As soon as I decided to move on with new songs I felt fine. Cheers!
You can hear my original music at this link: https://www.soundclick.com/artist/defau ... dID=224436

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@aaron:

Thanks for the detailed feedback. Appreciate it. Nice to see another "old timer" around here.

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Another one from my "Stuck In A Fantasy" CD from 10 years ago, where "Yesterday's Man" came from.

Same deal as "Yesterday's Man" though not quite as loud. Still, better be safe and turn it down.

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim ... arly-years

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13th track from my upcoming CD "Untitled Masterpiece"

Wagtunes does Broadway. Duet with Avanna. Set on an MIR soundstage. Only 9 tracks total. Not being a singer really puts me at a disadvantage when doing stuff like this, especially when leaving my voice virtually unprocessed. Just some EQ, Compression and the natural ambiance of the soundstage and and that's it.

Me Singing: Normal Font
Avanna Singing: Bold/Italic Font
Both Singing: Bold Font

Could I See You Tonight

Hi. What's your name
My name is Avanna
That's a nice name
I wonder if I could ask you a question
You can ask me anything you like
Well, what I want to ask is

Could I see you tonight
Could I take you out for dinner for two
Could I pick you up at eight
I swear I won't be late
What do you say
Just me and you

Could I see you tonight
Could we talk about our future too
Could I look into your eyes
Find wonder and surprise
Just you and I
Just me and you

And then we can talk about tomorrow
Wedding bells the angels ring (And we'll sing)
And the children that we'll care for
All the love that they will bring

Could I see you tonight
When I take you home a goodnight kiss (Just like this)
Could I hold you close to me
For all eternity

Could I see you tonight

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim ... ith-avanna
Last edited by wagtunes on Sat Mar 09, 2019 10:24 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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I love it. Excellent idea and good performance. My only recommendation would be to evacuate the many little pops and hisses and other mouth noises that are underscored by the somewhat excessive reverb used to make the voice shine as it deserves.

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Wopelka wrote: Wed Mar 06, 2019 1:24 pm I love it. Excellent idea and good performance. My only recommendation would be to evacuate the many little pops and hisses and other mouth noises that are underscored by the somewhat excessive reverb used to make the voice shine as it deserves.
Thanks for the feedback. Appreciate it.

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Something I've never done before. A friend of mine from here (won't mention name yet unless he pops in and comments) gave me the vocal stems from a song he was working on. That's it, just the vocals. He wanted me to come up with everything else. Having never done anything like this before, I figured I give it a shot. The girl sings a hell of a lot better than I do, that's for sure.

Anyway, here it is. Hope somebody likes it.

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim/hold-on

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