Completed my first ever song, any feed back appreciated greatly!

[calumt17]

So I'm a 17 year old producer and have always just made beats for others to rap/sing over - but today I decided to actually try and feature myself on one of my recent beats. Personally I have mixed feelings towards the track but I would love to hear other opinions on it!  

 

Thanks in advance!

- CT

[calumt17]

I have just fully completed my first ever song after making a few changes to the last revision of it! I'm a 17 year old producer who has always just made beats for others to sing over, but I decided to give it a try myself. The song is more of a test, hence the repetitive nature, but I'd appreciate any form of feedback! Btw, the autotune is to add to the feel of the song - it's intentional! 

 

Thank you!

 

- CT

 

 

[brycebad]

I'm shook, this should be on the front page of iTunes R&B haha . I think it sounds very professional and well produced. I'm a young set of ears among older people on here so I think if you're targeting youth, you're doing a good job! Might not be everyone's style but I love it, keep doing what you're doing!

[MonoStone]

I really like the overall feel of this...the idea.... and the instrumental part of the music sounds great. At the moment the vocal isn't really up to the standard of the rest... I think heavy auto tune is fine in this genre but the quality of the auto-tune plugin or the way you're using it doesn't add anything creative. I think artists who use that successfully use it creatively so that it's almost an instrument, and you could really do something more impressive with the melody.... Besides that I think that you need to perform more with the vocal. The auto tune can take care of the pitch but you need to have some emotion and charisma in your vocal to make that work, to me it sounds like you need confidence...sing it like you're a star. I also think the quality of the vocal recording (maybe the mic you used) isn't as good as the quality of the sounds used in the instrumentation, so you get the effect of you singing over a backing track, and you could fix that up a bit with eq, maybe lose some of the low end on the vocal, plus compress and give the upper frequencies some bite so that you can take the level down a bit but still cut.

 

I also feel like the tune could use a change. It's the same all the way through really. If you don't want to change the chords at all (like a more typical verse/chorus structure) then I think the arrangement would need more dynamics to separate the parts and make the 'chorus' come out more.

 

Lots of potential though. I like the idea and the mood of this. With polish I think it could be really cool.

[Richard Tracey]

Hi Calum - you've got a nice little tune going here, very catchy. As Dek mentions the auto tune doesn't really work. Have you tried doing it without so much auto tune on the vocals?

 

You have got some nice sounds going on - what package are you using?

 

About the 2.20 mark, after the drop I would have the volume raise up and the beat increase in dynamics. The vocal could then go up the register when this happens (i know you don't have the vocal there, but I was imagining it continuing). Good start though.

[ImKeN]

What a cool song, CT. It has an electronic/avant-pop/trip-hop kinda feel to it. I like how the hi-hats go back and forth in the panning - the pitch shifter is a cool touch as well. I'm no expert in this style of music but I felt that the arrangement starting at 1:21 could have been twice it's length or it could have been developed into a proper instrumental break? Just a thought.

 

Great song, though. Can't wait to hear your next project. 

 

Ken

 

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please don't delete an active topic and create a new one just to update the recording. Instead, you should 'edit' the original post and add the updated version to it. Thanks!

[neptune]

I love it, really chilled. I could listen to this over and over. I to think that the instrumental break could be developed a little but other than that!!! well done man. May your musical career flourish.

 

[cutaia]

The vocals seem to have that canned kind of sound that can come from less than optimal recording conditions.  There's also some mic crackles that appear from 1:43-1:45, so maybe you didn't do as much production on the eq and editing as you could have.  The auto-tune itself is fairly well realized, though.  However, the vocal may also be a *bit* too up front, which puts the auto-tuning really at the forefront and almost makes it sound like you're doing it to cover up, rather than for specific effect. If the vocal was sitting in with the music a little bit better, it might make that all sound a little smoother, which I think would be a good thing.  Maybe a good reverb on the vocal could set it in the mix a little nicer.

 

The chorus has a really cool flow and is catchy af.

[Richard Tracey]

Just so everyone knows, I have merged the 2 topic posts together and left a link in song critique.

[cutaia]

6 hours ago, Steve Mueske said:

I like this a lot! Very unusual and chilled and cool! There are a few problems, but the main one is that the mic is a very low quality mic and it just jumps out at you. Don't know if you are in the market for a new one or have access to something better, but that is really holding this back. You can disguise it with distortion, bit reduction, effects, auto-tune, etc. Look for a sale, if you can. Also get a decent preamp (or a good AD with built-in preamps). I know money is never easy, but if this is your first piece, I am very impressed. I expect big things from you!

Yeah, this is actually a better point than my post.  Editing and eq are gonna make this particular vocal take better, but really, a better recording *is* gonna be optimal.

[boombastic]

Your presentation is sick, vocals are awesome, and the beat's ill. I'm not sure if you're down for it, but the second half of the song could be you switching to a raw form of rap. Where you just spit, no auto-tunes and speak on something that's real with you. Either that or collaborate with a gritty dude, I think it'd really match your style. Beautiful work and your microphone is fine in my opinion. Keep working and don't be discouraged there's alot of people out there that'd bump this track man. 

[Richard Tracey]

1 hour ago, HoboSage said:

I see this was moved this to rap/hip hop board.  I don't know why since you do "sing."  Did you want it moved?

 

David - it was tagged as rap / hip hop and was posted in both forums - it was meant to be merged into the rap forum, with a link in song critique - the link didn't work properly and John managed to fix it.

[Dallon426]

The music is alright, doesn't stand out that much.  But I like the idea of the song, the lyrics are personal.  I'm not a big fan of overuse of vocoder, but it kind of works here.

[poeticfreefall]

Wow. all I can say is wow! This is severely professional and clean.The way you fade out "myself" is genius.  That could honestly be a sort of signature for you. 

[GuesSs]

The vocal mixing is amazing typically i'm not a fan of autotune, but it worked with this and didn't make it any less enjoyable. The beat is clean and helps set the tone. Nothing bad to say about it I think you did a solid job considering this is your first time doing this

[Powder]

I've seen some comments talking about mic quality and I would like to disagree because I used a yeti pro and my track came out trash 

and that's not be negative or anything but I believe if you get the fundamentals down of song structure, delivery, and emotion you cannot go wrong 

some advice that I think would be helpful to you or any artist would be:  , make meaningful relationships that can transition to collaborations, be master of your craft, and enjoy the process 

Rome wasn't built in a day and I agree with other users that the potential is there keep grinding! 

Last march I had a whole mixtape to record that had 10 songs on it and I gave up rapping and threw it out because of what others thought,  take critique and learn from it and just have a strong attitude and you will flourish

here is track, im not forcing anybody to listen but I would very much appreciate critique wether it is positive/negative-Powder

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