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Joined: Sep 2007
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It's been a long time since I posted music. Here's a brand new one, any comments or suggestions are welcome. A Part of the Planhttps://markkaufman.bandcamp.com/track/a-part-of-the-planLike a baby loves a mama Like a mama loves a baby Like a papa loves a baby It's a part of the plan Like a papa loves a mama Like a mama loves a papa Like a papa loves a baby It's a part of the plan And the sun comes up And the sun goes down And the moon comes up And the moon goes down It's a part of the plan And if you know you're breathing Don't you know that you are a part of the plan And a baby loves a baby And a mama loves a mama And a papa loves a papa And a baby loves a baby It's a part of the plan River rolls on top of the land Ocean lays a kiss on the sand It's a part of the plan It's a part of the plan And if you know you're breathing Don't you know that you are a part of the plan ©2019 by Mark Kaufman
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Joined: Nov 2011
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I'm really diggin this one Mark. Love the harp.
Regards,
Bob
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Hey Mark, It's been awhile...This picked my day up....Love the 60's harmonies....Fits perfect...
Just a real feel good song. Love the ocean lays a kiss on the sand line....
I think the second licks around I would swap out the harp for dirty electric guitar, tasty and not too loud...
This is BAS A$$
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Joined: Jul 2006
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Hi Mark, I love the rap elements mixed with funk and dance elements. Makes for something truly fresh. I hear music history from The Beach Boys to to Beck and Coldplay and I'm loving it.. Good message, too, especially stretching out later with rivers and ocean.. A little sibilance on those repeated esses mostly early on..almost becoming musical.. It gets a little busy late but so do most of my favorite Parliament/Funkadelic sides. Kinda represents "celebration" in this context and I can dig it! Very cool!!! Mike
Fate doesn't hang on a wrong or right choice Fortune depends on the tone of your voice
-The Divine Comedy (Neil Hannon) from the song "Songs of Love" from the album "Casanova" (1996)
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Disco...rap I see John Travolta in a dancing bar. Nice one.
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I'm really diggin this one Mark. Love the harp.
Regards,
Bob Thanks Bob!
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Hey Mark, It's been awhile...This picked my day up....Love the 60's harmonies....Fits perfect...
Just a real feel good song. Love the ocean lays a kiss on the sand line....
I think the second licks around I would swap out the harp for dirty electric guitar, tasty and not too loud...
This is BAS A$$ You've got me thinking on a guitar part...there's no guitar in this one! Thanks Steve.
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Hi Mark, I love the rap elements mixed with funk and dance elements. Makes for something truly fresh. I hear music history from The Beach Boys to to Beck and Coldplay and I'm loving it.. Good message, too, especially stretching out later with rivers and ocean.. A little sibilance on those repeated esses mostly early on..almost becoming musical.. It gets a little busy late but so do most of my favorite Parliament/Funkadelic sides. Kinda represents "celebration" in this context and I can dig it! Very cool!!! Mike Thanks Michael! The mix isn't there yet, still wrestling with All The Things...right now it seems too crispy bright overall, too much percussion gain, needs detail on the delays, on and on... Thanks for your input, those are the elements I've been trying to put across, and a simple message. I appreciate your thoughts.
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Disco...rap I see John Travolta in a dancing bar. Nice one.
LOL John Travolta! You know, I really want to find an animator to make a video for this with lots of sped up nature shots and such...and now I also want to see John Travolta walk into the video for a cameo, like in Pulp Fiction, lokoing around baffled, haha! Thanks Guy!
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Thanks Calvin! Peace & Love
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Joined: Oct 2017
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Great track. The lyrics take on a whole new context when sung in the track as opposed to reading on paper
Very entertaining, enjoyed.
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Joined: Jun 2019
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I want to know how you record your vocals! Great sound
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The song kept my attention the whole listen. I love how the vocals got real intense toward the end of the song.
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Really enjoy this song...I like the way you recorded the vocals...Is it just you singing ?
Regards Mimmo
Last edited by Mimmo; 07/21/19 04:36 PM.
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Great track. The lyrics take on a whole new context when sung in the track as opposed to reading on paper
Very entertaining, enjoyed. Thanks, much appreciated! Yeah, this is a good opportunity to talk about lyrics again, because lyrics just are not, in any way, a One Size Fits All aspect of any given song. Comparing a Merle Haggard lyric to a Joni Mitchell lyric to a Yes lyric to a Gershwin lyric is clearly pointless, because they all function differently. Some songs are conceived fully, like hearing them on a radio, but not this one. This was a built song. It started from a set of four synthesizer settings in a Cubase template for Electro music, and I started playing something on each of them until I had a chord sequence of those four voices interacting. Once it started sounding like something, I added more chords, more instruments, a chorus, and gradually fumbled my way into this sound. The sound reminded me of the rhythm of the planet, of the spinning and the repetition and the reproduction and the life force. So instead of telling a story full of subtle metaphors, colorful adjectives and an O. Henry twist at the end, I wanted to have babbling, repetitive images of elemental stuff, the basics of life on a planet, looking up at the orbs and living and dying. To me, this song needed more of a Talking Heads approach to lyrics than a story approach. It's a moving picture, a place in time, but not a plotline. The heart of the message is that we all belong.
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I want to know how you record your vocals! Great sound Thanks JAPOV! I'm still working on it. I tend to end up with terrible harsh frequencies somewhere or other, but I'm learning to tame them. I record in Cubase 10. In the verses I'm using Soundtoys Primal Tap delay, modeled after a late-70s/early 80s unit the Lexicon Prime Time, one of the first digital delays. You hear it all over Talking Heads "Remain In Light" and Eno and Byrne's "My Life In The Bush of Ghosts". It's set to repeat measure for measure, so I only had to sing half the time. For vocals, I always try to make good use of the stock channel strip for EQ, compression, saturation, and I also used Izotope Neutron Elements to shape the vocal sound. There is some use of a flange modulation on the outro vocals with the "ocean lays a kiss on the sand" bit. I've been letting go of the idea of incremental stereo panning...it only works just right in headphones. Lately I've been going old school and assigning parts strictly LCR—Left, Right, or Center. That way the stereo effect translates more effectively no matter where you sit or stand between speakers.
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Thanks Martin, I appreciate that.
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The song kept my attention the whole listen. I love how the vocals got real intense toward the end of the song. A full listen is The Brass Ring to me! Thanks Jane!
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Really enjoy this song...I like the way you recorded the vocals...Is it just you singing ?
Regards Mimmo Thanks Mimmo! Yes, no one else involved on this track, just me, some electronics and a harmonica.
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Joined: Jan 2005
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Funky good stuff there Mark,i really enjoyed this one. Mike
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Joined: Feb 2013
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Had me moving. How could you not. Very well done. Love when the vocal goes high. Great harmonies. Great separation in the headphones. Just sounds tremendous. Very, very well done.
Dave
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Joined: Dec 2016
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Mark,
Really, really cool stuff. Better than just about anything I’ve heard on (boring) radio these days. Love that bridge, with them slick harmonies. Expertly put together—good luck with this one. Deserves a lot of good fortune.
My best to you,
Deej
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I want to know how you record your vocals! Great sound Thanks JAPOV! I'm still working on it. I tend to end up with terrible harsh frequencies somewhere or other, but I'm learning to tame them. I record in Cubase 10. In the verses I'm using Soundtoys Primal Tap delay, modeled after a late-70s/early 80s unit the Lexicon Prime Time, one of the first digital delays. You hear it all over Talking Heads "Remain In Light" and Eno and Byrne's "My Life In The Bush of Ghosts". It's set to repeat measure for measure, so I only had to sing half the time. For vocals, I always try to make good use of the stock channel strip for EQ, compression, saturation, and I also used Izotope Neutron Elements to shape the vocal sound. There is some use of a flange modulation on the outro vocals with the "ocean lays a kiss on the sand" bit. I've been letting go of the idea of incremental stereo panning...it only works just right in headphones. Lately I've been going old school and assigning parts strictly LCR—Left, Right, or Center. That way the stereo effect translates more effectively no matter where you sit or stand between speakers. "saturation"..... What is that? Distortion? All I've ever figured out how to do is over-compress the signal to manage volume changes but that just exaggerates Ss-n-Ts and breath sounds... Then, of course, I try to Eq that out and it just makes the Vox sound dull. You've got great balanced and bright sounding vocals!
Last edited by JAPOV; 08/05/19 12:59 AM.
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Funky good stuff there Mark,i really enjoyed this one. Mike Thanks Michael!
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Had me moving. How could you not. Very well done. Love when the vocal goes high. Great harmonies. Great separation in the headphones. Just sounds tremendous. Very, very well done.
Dave Thank you very much, Dave!
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Mark,
Really, really cool stuff. Better than just about anything I’ve heard on (boring) radio these days. Love that bridge, with them slick harmonies. Expertly put together—good luck with this one. Deserves a lot of good fortune.
My best to you,
Deej So glad to hear this, thank you.
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I want to know how you record your vocals! Great sound Thanks JAPOV! I'm still working on it. I tend to end up with terrible harsh frequencies somewhere or other, but I'm learning to tame them. I record in Cubase 10. In the verses I'm using Soundtoys Primal Tap delay, modeled after a late-70s/early 80s unit the Lexicon Prime Time, one of the first digital delays. You hear it all over Talking Heads "Remain In Light" and Eno and Byrne's "My Life In The Bush of Ghosts". It's set to repeat measure for measure, so I only had to sing half the time. For vocals, I always try to make good use of the stock channel strip for EQ, compression, saturation, and I also used Izotope Neutron Elements to shape the vocal sound. There is some use of a flange modulation on the outro vocals with the "ocean lays a kiss on the sand" bit. I've been letting go of the idea of incremental stereo panning...it only works just right in headphones. Lately I've been going old school and assigning parts strictly LCR—Left, Right, or Center. That way the stereo effect translates more effectively no matter where you sit or stand between speakers. "saturation"..... What is that? Distortion? All I've ever figured out how to do is over-compress the signal to manage volume changes but that just exaggerates Ss-n-Ts and breath sounds... Then, of course, I try to Eq that out and it just makes the Vox sound dull. You've got great balanced and bright sounding vocals! Yes, saturation is basically a form of distortion. It is a way to emulate what happens when you record to tape. The internet says: "Distortion describes a more extreme effect than saturation. While saturation adds a warm characteristic to a sound without markedly changing its character, distortion breaks it up more radically. It can vary a lot in nature, from a smooth fuzz to harder-edged sound with a lot of high-end bite and a sort of buzzy sound." Tape saturation actually contributes to the harmonics. It's an effect you would use in the final mix on the output channel. It is very subtle, but it tends to smooth out a lot of the hard angles of any digital recording, and glue things together with a more pleasing sound. Hey I hear you on compression. I have trouble with it—I often tend to toast my audio to a crisp, so I'm always trying to learn how to dial it back and do it right. I'm getting better at using a De-esser to decrease sibilance without dulling down the mix, but it really depends on the De-esser...Cubase has a great one that allows you to dial in the exact frequency range you are pulling back, which I find helpful. Over the years, I have learned that pops are another story—it is a long, boring process to dial down all the P's, T's and B's, and I have learned in later years to sing like a Beatle: when you sing a word like "people", you actually sing something more like "beoble", with VERY light stress on the B. Even more important is to sing those poppy words to the side of the mic, so my head is doing a lot of bobbing and weaving when I sing into a mic. Lennon and McCartney were masters of mic technique that way, and I've been trying hard to do the same lately...it's a big timesaver when it comes to mixing time.
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"If one man can do it, any man can do it. It is true. But the real question is, if one man did it, are you willing to do what it takes to do it as well?" –Brian Austin Whitney
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