Song Title: Should Have Been Alone
Hello everyone,
Haven’t posted in a while,although I periodically browse this forum and download music. I’m interested in your opinion - the song is called ‘Should Have Been Alone’ - thanks for the time!
Should Have Been Alone
Cheers - Dan
Cool song. Nice to see you back on the scene. It’s a real creative track. Lots of great ideas. The kick drum seems a bit too strong, but everything else sounds great.
Thanks ksdb - guilty as charged - too much kick - I agree!
Sorry - the first link isn’t working - this one does!
http://www.geocities.com/dlachance72/danhome.html
Dan, your songs are unbelievably good. I hope it’s not autobiographical! 
Hope you don’t mind if I post my comments for all the songs together in this thread.
Your voice is really superb; arrangement and mix are brilliant. Also the drums sound very real - or are they? I like the fact that the songs are so different, and that there’s always some surprise coming up (like the techno sounds on DIV, the vocal harmonies on AP etc.).
There’s very little room for improvement IMHO:
– The bass drum, as mentioned.
– AP has a short interruption at 1:22 - is it just the MP3 file?
– Is the piano on AP and DIV quantized? It sounded a bit too perfect to me, maybe a bit more human feel could add the little something. (But that’s me being very picky again.)
Can you enlighten me on how you did the reverb on the vocals, especially on AP? It’s very smooth, adds nicely to the voice without interfering. A VST plugin?
All in all: Wow. If you have any more music, go on and post it. Any CD coming up? Count me as your first customer.
Hi Alessio,
Thank you for responding. No, they’re not autobiographical songs. (Never been to Paris or Vegas - yet!)
Drums:
All drums are real except in some songs the snare is real, others it is electric - whatever sounded good at the moment.
Ok ok, bass drum volume will come down - I’m a bass drum whore, but I can’t let that ruin the mix - thank you for being honest!
After Paris interruption? Must be the MP3 - weird.
The piano got compressed in the mastering, so I agree it sounds too sterile - not sure what to do about it.
As for vocal reverb, the NTrack supplied reverb plug in and echo plug in are what I used.
Thanks again for taking the time - I appreciate your perspective and it will help me in the final mix and mastering!
Dan
The Piano oddness I was referring to was the dead-on timing which made me believe it’s a quantized MIDI piano. I don’t think compression would cause that. Don’t worry, it’s not a problem. Just a feeling I had, and definitely not one that would make it worth redoing the mix.
My goodness - n-Track’s plugins… why am I always searching for the Holy Grail of reverb when the solution is so close? 
wow, mix sounds “big”… i love the vocal effect in the chorus… neat hook. i like the big kick drum… i think you got what you were going for. what i would like to hear is a higher bitrate version… i can’t stand what 128kbps does to cymbals… yeugh…
Hey an,
I really liked this song.
Everything sounds pretty much right to me.
Guitars sound a bit too fuzzy and not enough"chunk" for my tastes but that’s a personal taste.
The vocals sound great. both the production and the actual singing.
Kinda reminds me of Dokken a bit in the chorus.
Excellent stuff.
I’m downloading the other songs now just so I can here them all in a row…
Rich
Thanks for taking the time Rich,
I found that mastering and compressing the final mix makes some guitar tones fuzzy - you’re right about that, I’ll have to experiment. Thanks!
Dan
Yeah I’ve also discovered that a guitar sound that sounds good by itself won’t necessarily sound good in a mix…
Often it sounds good to have the gain way up but when you put that in a mix it just gets lost.
If you wind the gain back a bit you get a bit more definition and it stands out a bit more and has prescence in the mix.
But then I’m never happy with my own guitar tone so who am I to critique someone elses
Rich