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What do you think about the production of this song?

  • Thread starter Thread starter ruship
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ruship

ruship

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Hard to Love - The Folks Around Town

I am happy with the song writing. It was one of those songs where it felt like I was "receiving" the song from the ether as opposed to writing it. The guitar, vocals and lyrics were written in like 15 minutes.

The recording on the other hand feels like its doing the song a disservice. I like the back and forth between the male / female vocals, but the acoustic guitars sound...weak? and while i think strings would add to this song as some "seasoning", i can't help but feel like the strings on this are not interesting enough to be their own highlighted part and not understated enough to be background atmosphere.

Would love some feedback on this! How would you have done it differently?
 
Let me start by saying that I *really* like this song!

It's simple and beautiful and makes you feel good when listening to it. It made me think of the songs in the movie Once (which I also liked very much).

So congratulations on writing it.

I would (humbly) offer two suggestions; one regarding mixing and the other pertaining to the arrangement.

The mixing suggestion is simply to 'brighten' the mix up a bit. You can do this manually with a gentle EQ via your ear, or relative to a professionally mixed / mastered reference track (in the same genre as your song), or via any of the now numerous AI-based mastering plugins.

My other suggestion pertains to the arrangement in general, and to the strings in particular. To me, the acoustic guitar and lovely vocals are so compelling that I would start with *just* them; i.e., with no strings at all (or anything else).

Then around ~0:45 I would introduce the strings either as a section, like you currently have, or maybe via a lone cello.

Also I would not play the strings in such a continuous droning manner but rather occasionally in the form of a counter melody providing 'answers' to the 'questions' posed by the vocal melodies (especially to highlight important lines or emotional moments). And, if you like, you could increase the density of the strings as the song evolves.

I would also suggest adding something *new* around ~2:54. Having the same overall texture for nearly 3 minutes is a lot, especially these days. The human ear is very sensitive to change so the new thing could be something as simple as a shaker or other simple percussion. I hear various things when I play over that part, so you have several choices.

It also might be effective to insert a bar or two of silence once in the song and let the ambience FXs fade before starting back in again.

And lastly, at the end of the song, say around ~3:44, I would drop back to just vox, guitar, and strings. Going from a denser mix to a sparser one will also be engaging because it too will be perceived as a change.

When I create my arrangements I'm always thinking about how the song will engage the listener and, as such, I change the orchestration / instrumentation / tempo / time signature / dynamics / etc. often enough to prevent boredom from setting in.

Cheers...
 
ruship said:
Would love some feedback on this! How would you have done it differently?
Click to expand...
Nice song!

I agree that the strings underserve the song. Especially on the introduction. I'd suggest re-orchestrating them as a quartet or trio, and give the first violin the melody that the guitar is playing. maybe even hold off bringing the guitar until 0:13, which would give the strings a chance to disappear when the vocals begin.

At other points where the there are no vocals, make sure the strings are playing something melodic, even if it's just a riff based off the guitar part. When they play with the vocals and there's a held note in the melody, give them something more active.

Using the strings more sparingly will help, and if they don't have anything interesting to add, leave them out.

Or replace the strings with a solo cello. It's an amazingly flexible instrument that can go quite low or high, and sounds lovely on a counter-line. The song reminds me a bit of Ben Fold's song "Brick", which uses a bowed bass very effectively.

I think the line "Was I always be that hard to love" at 3:20 would work much better if all the instruments stopped at this point, and maybe held for a beat or two until returning.

ABB-SWP has a bunch of good ideas. There's an intentional drone to the line that matches the emotional feel, but you should still work to make sure that each section sounds distinct.
 
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Thank you both for your thoughtful replies! Thats so incredibly helpful. I really love the idea of pulling the the strings in and out and adding counter points. Adding some silence/breathing room in there also sounds like a good call!

David, being mentioned in the same sentence as Ben Folds (outside of "this is shit, ill go listen to ben folds) is huge!
 
Same here. I get an Oops screen. I’m probably just doing something wrong. I don’t know much about this stuff other than the music I create. I would love to hear it. The few that chimed in sound very positive.
 
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