[Jesse Lewis]

Gosh darn!!! So beautiful, man! I LOVE this song. You have a way with making me feel the music. Another hit!

ps – I agree with Dana about the kick drum. It feels out of place with the organic vibes of the rest of the song. If it’s too late to swap it out, maybe just a bit quieter and filtering some of the high end off might do the trick too?

Again – I LOVE THIS SONG!!! congrats!!!

Best Wishes,

Jesse

[Jesse Lewis]

Hey! Thanks so much, Jeremy!

That’s cool about the whistle track you’re mixing. I’d love to hear it if you wanted to share when you finish!

Best Wishes!

JLew

[Jesse Lewis]

Hi Patrick! Agreeing with @-PT about the joy and spirit in both your playing, composing, and the piano itself. Removing that “mud” with the EQ really helped the presentation to my ears. I also wonder if a little transparent compression might also benefit the sound. It’s SO dynamic, and I know that a lot of the vibe and spirit are coming from your dynamic performance, but I wonder if a touch of compression might smooth it out just a bit! I’ll let the pros weigh in on that though! Such great stuff man! Keep em coming!

Best,

Jesse

[Jesse Lewis]

Thanks so much for all the good vibes and encouragement, David!

Best,

Jesse

[Jesse Lewis]

Hey thanks so much man! It’s only my second time singing on a track so it gives me a lot of encouragement that you thought the vocals were cool. I appreciate it.

Best,

Jesse

[Jesse Lewis]

Hi Patrick!

Just wanted to say I enjoyed the piece, performance, and I dig how “real” the piano sounds. So organic and full of vibe – which is refreshing!

Looking forward to hearing more!

Best,

Jesse

[Jesse Lewis]

Dana!!!

Wow! Thanks so much for making this video and giving me your feedback. Very illuminating! I’m going to make those revisions and submit another version!

ps – I’m digging this “live” feedback model:) Very cool!

thanks again!

[Jesse Lewis]

This is a quick revision I made with a more chilled out intro, and could be refined more i think, but maybe strikes a better balance between easing into the song and still honoring the original feeling? Curious which approach people like better? Thanks again…

Best,

Jesse

HOME-CHILL-INTRO.mp3 0 MP3 - Click to view

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[Jesse Lewis]

Thanks, Paul! That’s a very interesting observation, and one that I will definitely consider.

It’s funny – I was basing my song off of a reference track that inspired me, kind of following the format, which is how I ended up starting with the more “hitting” drums/synth intro.

As my production developed it got further away from the reference but I kept the format the same. This is a perfect illustration of why it’s cool to have a space like this to share music. You heard a very “big picture” concept in my song that I didn’t even consider because I was so in the weeds mixing, etc.

I’m not sure ultimately what I’m going to do yet but I’ve just gone in and taken out the drums in the beginning to experiment and I think it could work well.

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it!

Best,

JLew

ps – The reference track is called “Silver Pet Crank” by the artist, Clark. He’s one of my favorite electronic musicians, been on the scene since the 90’s. This is his latest album produced by Thom Yorke from Radiohead, although his second to latest release is better in my opinion. It’s called Sus Dog

[Jesse Lewis]

Thanks so much, brother!

I LOVE “Calling You!” That’s a really special song for me as well. I actually played it a bunch with Amy Cervini’s group back when we had our residency at the 55 Bar (RIP) What a heavy tune!

I sure could of used all this micing info before I recorded hahahaha, probably should have asked! Well – now I know, which as they say, is half the battle.

Working on an epic tune right now, trying to get it to a place where I can share it, because I’ll need some input from the MP crew!

Love,

JLew

[Jesse Lewis]

Thanks Pete! I appreciate you checking it out! I used pitch envelope automation in Ableton to create some crazy whistle dive bombs in there haha! having fun with it! Thanks again for listening!

Best,

JLew

[Jesse Lewis]

Thanks so much, Paul! Haha – yeah I know what you mean about the pitch! I thought about correcting it and then was just like… screw it! kind of an exercise in just letting myself be a little real and raw. I’ll be back to the river soon haha…

I’m working super hard right now on an electronic track where I’m singing (also a bit out of tune) and I’m trying to get it to a place where I can submit it to get feedback from you all! More soon!

Thanks as always for listening and checking it out.

Best,

JLew

[Jesse Lewis]

Hey Alex! Killer song man! Beautiful. I listened to the first version before I read the “thread” and didn’t see that it had been updated here! I like the current version a lot! Big improvements from the first version.

I love the chorus, especially how the beat drops out for the first part of it and then comes back in. I also love those tom fills going into the choruses.

I also really dig the ending on this version a lot, and I also agree that it could be really cool to incorporate it into the intro somehow so it kinda has those book ends?

Wasn’t sure if around 1:30-2min if it needs a little more de-essing? I would defer to those with better ears than mine, but the sibilance spots were jumping out to my ears a little. Just wanted to mention it in case you were hearing it too.

Again, really great song! Congrats

Best,

Jesse

[Jesse Lewis]

Yo! Thanks so much brother for thoroughly answering all of my questions about this. I feel confident now that I understand this concept!

ps – I got a pair of the audio technica 50x’s and also a pair of the beyerdynamic 880 Pros. I like having both a closed back option for recording and an open back option for extended listening. Very glad I didn’t blow my entire savings on some ultra fancy headphones. Still need more guitars haha

JLew

[Jesse Lewis]

Dana and Paul! Thank you guys for providing all of your insights on this.

Dana – I read you response to Dewey in the Limiter thread and you addressed some of my questions there. It sounds like generally you try to get your mix to communicate everything without inserts on your master bus, and use the limiter to send a loud version to your clients (but take it off before sending to master engineer). It sounds like sometimes (but not always?) you add some subtle EQ, stereo imaging stuff (like bass mono) or saturation if you are hearing it as part of the finished sound of the track and don’t want to leave that up to mastering engineer?

I guess the crux of my original question is kind of more based on curiosity about standard “pro” practice. Because I am just mixing and mastering my own tracks there’s never a consideration of the mastering engineer, in every case I mix my track first and then master it (usually some kind of subtle EQ, a gentle glue compression, possibly some color/saturation, and finally the limiter.

I wasn’t sure if in the “pro” world you would typically leave ALL of the master channel processing to the mastering engineer? Or if you sometimes include your own eq, compression, etc BEFORE the mastering engineer gets it.

I’m guessing it depends?

JLew