Entourage Paul Tucci
EntourageForum Replies Created
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Michael,
I think the MP community is largely sleeping on this song. I think it’s a well constructed, intelligent pop song. As the kids say, “Hooky as A to the double F.” Do the kids still talk like that or not? Nonetheless, there’s a lot of good to grab hold of here.
The arrangement grows organically from simple guitar and voice to the full blown angst of the female protagonist. The story unfolds in accessible words and layers of instruments. Gorgeous BGVs in the arrangement, perfectly layered in. So well done. I like the use of stops and starts to build the song to a dramatic peak chorus. The dynamics of the song work well throughout
My mix feedback is the following. I wish you had a real drummer to match the dynamics.. The loop works for fleshing out the song but the aggressiveness that works later seemingly overwhelmed the intro when you went to the half time filtered sounds. The half time feel was the right instinct but the low passed kick / snare was too jarring for my ear. I took an aggressive approach to Ringo- the-drummer’s entrance. (See the attached remix.)
I dropped the bass player during the bridge (1:51) to create a bigger mood swing. (8th notes on the bass is just lazy after grooving hard) The tempo becomes driven by the low frequency syncopated (one, two and three and four) toms. Interesting and more audible. Bass fades back in for the end of the bridge to help build the drama into the big stop at (2:22)
The gems uncovered at (2:25) are my biggest observation. Underneath the bass and guitars was a gigantic hole for the tom fill to drive through, clearing the musical muck away for the vocal to be intelligible, then the bass to drop HARD on the 1 leading into the re-entrance of the guitar and out we go. That’s how I heard it.
YMMV depending on your vehicle. Mine has two bumper stickers, one says ” Less is more and more is better.” The other one says “The aliens are here to help.” That’s how the adults talk.
PT
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Dana,
I fear someone has hacked JLew’s account. There’s a hip hop drum loop AND a reversed snare inside the first 52 seconds. That’s as far as I got. It couldn’t possibly be him, could it? I’m confounded. Maybe someone spiked his eggnog and this is the result.We need your leadership now, more than ever. At least in the last year I’ve been hangin around.
PT
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Hey Joe,
I love Xmas music, so your solo guitar post got my attention, especially knowing what a gunslinger player you are. I was two songs into it when the YouTube-suggested backstory of the recording started speaking to me. I diverted thatta way, then got pulled into the rabbit/whole K1/Visa/pandemic/U-Haul/road-trip adventure and never got back to enjoying the music. Perhaps tonight, definitely before Xmas. 🎅
PT
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This reply was modified 1 month ago by Paul Tucci.
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This reply was modified 1 month ago by
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Jesse,
Hell yea it’s a good idea, however, I don’t think the most important point of the “Only mid-range” story is the most important one to be considered.. Certainly listening to a bandwidth limited mix will show you if the killer kick drum you’ve created that is shaking the NBA’s balls even makes an appearance in a small speaker listening environment. There’s harmonics of the low stuff and attack of the kick that can be used to imply the presence of the kick without the low end present. Does the musical story get told if the speaker system is less than ideal, and probably more typical of many listeners’ situation?
My takeaway is that the actual topic is about changing perspective whilst listening. The small mono speaker on the shelf listened to off axis or even from outside the room is like downing a couple slices of ginger to cleanse the palate when you’re out for sushi. New perspective to be sensitized to the new taste. …From the audio perspective, if I let go the attachment and pride I feel about inflating up those basketballs to above league standard and listen with fresh ears…am I still in the game? For the football fans amongst us, and Patriot fans in particular, it Deflate-Gate, but reverse polarity.
I used a version of this thinking in my years being responsible for making sure that what was in the preacher lady’s heart made it to the audience members’ hearts. Highly intelligible was the goal. When walking around the outer concourse and poking my head into every seating entrance area I could check my success. Also I could see which vendor had the freshest pretzels. A man has got to have hobbies, you know.
PT
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MP MVP All Stars,
It’s art, you’re moving the listener. Period.
I have nothing else to offer up other than suggesting perhaps shifting some of the production budget from the fancy ass helicopter shots to wardrobe. A rugged button down shirt or at least a wrinkle-free t-shirt.
With nothing but love,
PT
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Nate,
This sounds like a job for a detective. The YLM screenshot of the other song is a mere 10 seconds long. Not sure if that’s an issue here or not. I’ll go listen in on Spotify to both and see what you’re chasing.
PT
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Michael,
The more I listen the more I love this pop gem. It led me to this even newer interpretation.
The BGV and Ooh loh ohs were so stereo in the vocal stem separation I derived that I could separate the middle from the sides and grab a hold of them and make ’em a little louder where I thought they could shine. Mid side processing with a +4 dB shelf on the sides only and the Oh oh ohs were easy to extract and be made louder. I would love your or anybody’s thoughts on the arrangement/mix that differs from your offering. That return from the breakdown at 2:22 is just so much cleaner, accessible, and powerful to my ear. Can you dig it?
PT
Obviously, I have a bunch of free time.
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Michael,
My handiwork is just above Blisters to MP.
Stem separations into all vocals, all bass guit, all drums/perc and all others instruments lumped together.That gives me some degree of flexibility to rethink arrangements.
PT
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Thanks. I through this song up because of the seasonally timeliness of it, not its quality. I’m glad your earballs dug it. It’s like my photos on Instagram. I’d prefer my “make you think” pics got the views that the more mundane ones generate. I’m happy to have you a one of my milli-of – a -thousndth viewers/listeners.
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Nate,
Haven’t forgotten you. My curiosity has led me to some new-to-me info that I’m digesting before I nail the answer to your dilemnaa. A couple things seem obvious so far. Those with deep experience in record making don’t pay much attention to the LUFS. It’s like the plumber who can diagnose the problem and fix it in 15 but charges a couple hundred for the knowledge. Better yet, the analogy of Picasso pulling out a blank canvas and making a minimalist masterpiece in seconds because of all his previous work completed, having technique down cold, and then… intent. Those of us stumbling around in LUFS land currently will one day get it. So sayeth the alread -knowers.
I’m also thinking it’s possible to cheat the loudness numbers to make the Integrated number lower so as not to have the song turned down by the streamers. Because that Integrated number is averaged over the entire song, any EXTENDED sections that are above the threshold level of the noise gate will be included in the overall measurement and thereby “dilute” the time weighting of the loudest sections. Your reference track (Greater Heights) Integrated LUFS number was diluted by 2dB according to my experiment….I deleted the quiet intro and outro to that song and low and behold, the Integrated LUFS level jumped up by 2. This MAY be why you heard your track lower in comparison. If we’re only listening to which is the louder thing we hear and dismissing the quiet bits, we might could get fooled.
I’m not committing to that quite yet but am enjoying the exploration.
PT
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Dana,
Funny you say “killer.”
Once again, that’s my dead buddy, Skip, “sangin’.” He shows up often in my silly shit.
Your spidey senses were tingling, but might be in need of realignment.
🙂
PT
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Gracias, I was going for the Eeyore sings a Christmas song vibe. I thought my singer nailed it.
PT
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You know it’s true.
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Drew,
Happy to help and look forward to putting an ear to your creation. Do me a favor though, if Dana and my name are in the same sentence, please do put his name first. Know what I’m sayin? We are, after all, in his house. 🙂
-PT
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Joe, et al,
So i did the separation stem experiment today. Rather than use one of @dana ‘s pieces of work I used an old favorite mashup.
The idea is the same…
1) Listen to the original,
2) Listen to the post-separated stems recombined to see if it differs noticeably
3) The null test. Listening to original and the reconstructed stems simultaneously. (With the reconstructed stems version out of polarity added to the original would yield just the difference and should be evidence of any level overall change AND the artifacts of the separation process.
The level change and artifacts appear! Voila. science still works. At least through the end of the year .🇺🇸
4) Bonus track is the post-separated recombined stems with the vocal stem boosted 2 dB to see how far you can push the level.
5) Separated vocal stem to see the damage done
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This reply was modified 1 month, 1 week ago by Paul Tucci.
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This reply was modified 1 month, 1 week ago by