Three-And-A-Half Things That "make Or Break" A Song-Critique To Me

[MikeRobinson]

Disclaimer:  I'm just like you, so I'm nobody that you have to bend the ear to listen to, but as I think seriously of how to improve upon my own songs, I do critique a lot of songs from a lot of sources.  Winners and losers and also-rans who will never make it out of the chorus-line.  There are three-and-a-half things about any song that I hear (or look at, first, in SoundCloud's graphic bar), that consistently predict whether I'll like the song.

 

• The "lift-off":  Literally during the first second, certainly the first three seconds, give me something very distinct to hear.  An unusual rhythm, a clear percussion part, a harmony.  Bring the vocals in within five seconds, or maybe after you've stated the first motif once, and make the first line "hook" me.  "Whooo-o-oosh!  What happunt?  Hey it sounds good, let's hang on!"  (Note:  I am talking about interest, not tempo.)  Then, keep the promise.  Don't let me down.  During the three-and-a-half minutes that is a typical song, go somewhere.  Instruments come in and go out, and maybe some of them don't come back in.  Maybe the song builds and builds in volume ... or, maybe it doesn't.  We all know what "musical pastiche" sounds like – we hear it on the radio every day.  Think different.

 

• Lay-off the "thick synthetic string-pads":  Synthetic string sounds are meant as pads.  They consist mostly of sawtooth and triangular waves, intended to have many harmonics, so that they will "blend-in and sound good" with anything else that's going on, without drawing attention to themselves.  They "sound good with anything," except: more string-pads!  Mix too many string-pads together (with or without "the ghostly high-string part on top"), and you have a sonic porridge – or, a sonic train-wreck – in the middle registers.  Nothing stands out, partly because there's really no space in the audio spectrum for it to "stand out" in.  ("Overtones everywhere.")  A very similar thing happens when your song consists of nothing but "a pad," because this sound that is "designed to harmonize with anything" has been given "nothing-at-all to harmonize with!"  The result is a muddy sound with nowhere in particular to go.

 

• (... and a half) Go easy on the reverb, too.  Way easy ... :   Reverb just makes a string-pad mashup that much worse, muddying up the water still more.  If it's a true reverb, say, then sounds from 1/2-second ago are now being shoved into the sounds that are there now.  A song should sound great "completely dry."  Compression should be used, I think, only as a fairly-final step to cause the song to sit well with, say, MP3 encoding (or SoundCloud's even more lossy version of it), and it should be done in true mastering fashion as a "post-production" step.  If you're compressing parts to keep them from blowing out the top, you can really hear them squashing into the rubber ceiling.  You don't need to put your music into a sepulchural hall to make it sound great.

 

• Variety that can stand a good "scrubbing":  If the song starts to lose my interest, as too-many songs do about the first minute or so, I will "scrub ahead" in time to listen to see what happens next.  Maybe (looking at the waveform) I might scrub to where I think a break is going to be.  What I want to hear is "something different."  What I often hear is "exactly the same thing, but more 'intensely.'"  Same chord progressions, same rhythm, no contrast.  Which results in (for those of you old enough to remember my reference), The Gong Show.  "Go anywhere you please, but go somewhere!"

 

And sure, I am speaking of songs that are intended to be "finals," versus ones that are intended to be "scratch demos." If you tell me from the outset that the song is a scratch, I'll listen only to the song and to how the lyric sits in it, knowing that arrangers and producers and vocalists can all come to work their magic later.

 

JM2CW.  HTH.

Edited January 15, 2014 by MikeRobinson

[justsoulin]

Pretty good common sense for everyone to follow and keep in mind - now I'm off to do a lot of rewriting

 

Thx Mike

[MikeRobinson]

Okay, four-and-a-half things:

• Do familiar things in refreshing ways, throughout the song:  I have found this to be true although I can't quite explain why.  Design your song so that it introduces a few musical ideas and then builds up its structure of those few ideas, including recognizable variations of the same.  These ideas are your fairly-compact "alphabet," peculiar to this song, out of which your song then, so to speak, forms words.  Even though a repetition might be different – even if it seems to be fairly buried – it's still a repetition, more-or-less, therefore familiar to the ear and a reassurance that the song is going somewhere and that it has somewhere to go.  The listener's ear hears these ideas, parks them in short-term memory and becomes accustomed to them, then hears them being presented in refreshing ways throughout the piece.  If you don't do this, you (and they) might feel that the song is "wandering," even though you can't quite put your finger on just "why."  

 

I find that it helps for one particular idea to be used as a sort of "through-line" to which your  song repeatedly refers before it wanders-off again in some new direction.  (To borrow from the earlier analogy, a "word" that is frequently repeated and presented in a predictable pattern, even if you say it in slightly-different ways.)  This provides a sense of continuity that people do listen for, even if they don't know it.

[Just1L]

Good points Mike. The only thing I don't agree with is bringing in the vocals at 5 seconds. That's just ludicrous unless the lyrics are the only thing that is good about the song. I'll admit though, I'm one to like long musical intros that really set the tone of the song. I will also add that the radio that gets played here at work, which I don't control, always plays the same pop music over and over all day long (Damnitall - If I hear Eminem & Rhinana sing The Monster one more time I'm going to break something). And, all of those songs DO have the vocals starting about 5 seconds in... which is even more reason for me NOT to do it. LOL

[MikeRobinson]

I did mean that particular admonition "somewhat loosely."  

 

What I really meant was ... don't do ... "dum-de-dum here's a string pad dum-de-dah here's another dah-dah oh yeah there's supposed to be dum-de-dah something else here but it's a dum-de-diddle minute and a half now and so let's stick another string pad in while I ..." [sTOP]

 

The intro should be long enough to introduce the key musical settings, of course, but the whole arrangement (IMHO ...) still needs to be decisive.  Set the stage properly, then raise the curtain and speak the first line.  "It's showtime!"

 

It's rather informative what a good creative tool an eraser can be . . . 

[starise]

Great points Mike!

 

I think this speaks to the fact that many of us are conditioned to hear something exciting early on in a song and I think maybe this is what I believe is at the core of some of your ideas. It takes a lot of patience to sit through a long intro, especially if it's not a very exciting intro. Adding interest is always at the top of my list. I don't always accomplish it but I try.

 

I think sometimes we can  add interest by doing unconventional things at unexpected times. The tough part seems to be determining what another persons interest is. It might be interesting to me but maybe I lost everyone else a long time ago If I think it sounds interesting I have achieved my artistic goals for myself. If I am trying to make it interesting to everyone else I think that's a tougher thing to do. I usually go with the first one and hope the second falls into place.

 

Reverb seems to fit in some applications better than in others.Usually people tend to add too much reverb though. Another point is  not all reverbs are created equal. I use Valhala Room a lot...a really nice reverb with a lot of adjustments in it and there are others.

 

Part of getting reverb correct is to tweak the reverb. I've already spent a lot of time tweaking  reverbs and still haven't been happy with the results. Almost always the stock reverb setting is useless to me. Sending all tracks to a reverb is usually much better than simply putting a reverb on the master buss...that way you can adjust each track to the amount of reverb you need. You usually don't want reverb on the bass or the bass drum and you might want more reverb on backing vocals and less on the main vocal track....so using a reverb send gives you that flexibility.

 

On synth and string pads one of the very first things I usually do is take any reverb coming from the instrument away totally. For some reason soft synth makers like to ship their products with more than ample reverbs. It makes their creations sound better, however when a producer loads a half dozen of these synths together and all of those reverbs are competing you  have a mess. I find it better to take all of the reverbs in the instruments away...maybe even other effects they have added like choruses etc. ...then when you start to stack synths they are all coming in clean. 

 

Let's just say you have 6 or so synths that you're stacking. Maybe the first two were selected because you really liked the mid sounds on  them. Two were for a few high characteristics you liked and the last two were selected because of the thumping bass. So you would low pass the first four and high pass the last two with EQ. You probably wouldn't mix  reverb in the the bass synths but you might want a touch in the middle two. If done correctly these could all play from the same midi channel and not have a conflict with one another.Or they could play from different midi channels and still maintain space without boominess or a mushy sound.

 

Most synthesizers allow for  adjusting the patch itself .Similar to mixing dense guitars you can change the sound personality to fit in better with the whole mix. The sound by itself might not sound so good. Mixed with the others it can come alive and give the mix more clairity.

 

If the string pads are simply serving to fill some kind of a sonic hole, ask yourself if they are really needed at all.Sometimes less is more.

Edited November 6, 2014 by starise