Hey Adam,

Welcome to JPF and welcome to a fellow Aussie. There's a few of us here holding up the arse end of the world ( so to speak ) smile

OK, because you're an audio engineer, and being a tough Australian, you get the "tough critique" .........

Firstly, you've got a great voice mate, it's pretty much spot on with pitch and vocal phrasing. As to the song itself, it's well written and well structured, so any comments here are to bring it along and to improve it. They're a tough bunch here, but very friendly, and the whole purpose is improvement, so here goes.....

The song itself has overtones of Farnham and also Savage Garden, who both write great songs, but what they also do is provide ebb and flow to the material so that it lifts , builds, dies down and therefor provides contrast.

In light of that, I would probably revisit the instrumentation.

Some suggestions would be.....

Kill the hihat at the beginning of the song,( until 0.50 ) and replace the current drum sound with a military style snare, snappy, which will provide momentum but also provides a rythmic beat. Heavy guitar wash would work well here too. Introduce the hihat at this stage.

It's an intersting keyboard patch, provides a point of musical interest and maybe higher in the mix ?

I would reinttoduce the hihat at 1.10 , there is a small dull point at about 1.20 - 1.24, probably halve the number of bars here fron 8 to 4.

The strings work OK, but how about raising them up an octave to use the whole spectrum ?

Acoustic guitar would fit well at the 2.14 mark. The use of drum phrasing will lift the song as a whole and provide dynamics.

A ghost harmony on the high vocal parts will add lift and really make those high notes stand out ( great high parts by the way ! )

The keyboards are very chunky and could be replaced with either a different patch, ( emphasis on the tops ) or bring in a keyboard player to play through the progressions rather than block chording them.

There is plenty of room here for sustained backing vocals ( probably female ) and especially at the breakdown which would work beautifully with 5 part harmony ( at least )

Technically, I would watch the pops ( easily edited out ) and a little more presence on the voice. No need for the bass at the end, your voice is rich enogh to carry it out.

Ok, there's my suggestions. I'm sure guys like Sub, Accel and musica will chime in and give a few suggestions also.

Just take em or leave em, hope you stay awhile, there's a lot of good folks here and are more than willing to help if not with the technical bits, then just support in general.

It's a well written song and with thought to arrangement and instrumentation, will work up well.

cheers, niteshift


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