My head is in a cloud

[Martin E]

Hello guys. A new song about inspiration and about the artist at work. Or something along those lines.

Hope you're able to play it. The links on my website seems to prefer quicktime now instead of windows media player. Don't know what happened or what caused the change.

http://www.martin-e-music.nl/mp3/Sign-of-Leo/My-head-is-in-a-cloud.mp3

Martin

[Talvin]

Great song, Martin. )

What I would change is the way the drums sound. The whole song sounds like a seventies song whereas the drums don't fit into this area...don't know...too much reverb and I don't like the way they are processed.
I think I would try a different ending too. It's too abrupt the way it is. Why don't you repeat the chorus with some synths/piano/(guitars) strings without vocals...

Well, just my thoughts.

[folderol]

Hi Martin, seems you haven't been round here for a while.

beacuase it's late I was listening to this on phones, so the first thing I noticed is that the intro has a rather unbalanced stereo image, then when your song proper starts the guitar seems to drift. Is that intentional?

I like the song, it's well up to your usual standard, however I get the feeling you're struggling a bit when you go into falsetto. Did you have much of a warm-up session or go into it 'cold'?

Percussion is not my field at all, so I can't really comment. It's a lot better than I would be able manage!

I also found the end rather abrupt, but not unpleasantly so, and on a second listen (when you're then expecting it) it seems OK.

[Martin E]

Thanks for the comments, guys. I'll try to explain the ideas I had myself.

Yes, I know the ending is abrupt but to me it felt the song didn't need an extended outro and I was more happy with this structure.

The sound of the drums, Talvin, is very intentional so I guess it's a matter of choices and taste. I wanted the snare in the chorus to be drowned in reverb. Which is very eighties, I know and maybe not in line with the rest of the song. Throughout the song I switch between a more dry snare sound and a very reverb-drowned snare.

I don't know, Folderol, what you mean by unbalanced stereo image. In the intro there's only one guitar. When the vocals set in there's two guitars panned left and right. That's all really.
As far as the vocals are concerned I personaly I think this is one of my better vocal performances so I don't really feel I'm struggling at all in this one. But maybe I'm not hearing it the way you do.
I don't really understand what you mean by the guitar starts to drift? There's the upfont rhythm guitars which is accompanied by a delay drowned second guitar in the intro of the second verse and the third verse. But maybe you mean something else.

[folderol]

Just had a chance to listen on speakers, and the effect on that guitar doesn't seem to be there. I wonder if it's a phase issue of some sort, that only shows with the extreme separation you get on phones. It's as if that first rhythm guitar moves from the righthand side towards the middle just as the vocal starts, then sometimes it sounds like one guitar, moving from side to side, sometimes like two. So maybe the two guitar lines are close enough to give a phasing effect. Dunno, just guesswork on my part.

[Martin E]

Thanks for the reply Will.

You're right that the guitars are quite close to each other in the stereo field. Normally I would have panned them more to each side but this time I wanted to leave room for the piano and the synth part on either side of the field. And a third guitar part as well.

[MarioD]

This went straight into my keeper folder.

Super song, vocals and mix.

[Martin E]

Thanks, Mario. Glad you like it.

[MRT]

Got nothing to add, just wanted to say it's a great tune. Love how you've done the vocals, and what ever it is your doing at the bridge and the end is way cool.

[Wyatt]

Man, I love it.  \\ ! //

Your production work is a real mind-blower.

Beautiful song, I got all wrapped up in it.



Wyatt

[Martin E]

Thanks a lot Michael and Wyatt.

Glad you enjoy the song and like the production. I had some ideas in my head about this one and it turned out pretty much the way I wanted it. Which is not always the case

@Michael. The sound in the bridge and at the end is something I stumbled on by accident (which happens more often than not, doesn't it) I was looking for something different and turned to my trusted old Roland JD990 module which is still a hell of a hardware synth module in my opinion despite being 15 years old now. Some even consider it to be one of the best synths Roland ever made. So I was fooling around with one of the sounds and accidently hit the pitch bend wheel and I noticed that the original sound which was fairly innocent really turned into a howling monster. Well, there you go I thought.

[kara]

A song up to your level, which is very high.
I never discuss colours and sounds 

k

[Martin E]

Thanks, Kara.

You really should discuss more