The Smiley Smile Message Board

Here is the song I referenced in the "making music" thread. It's a song of mine I've recorded a couple of times over the years (actually probably 4-5 over the near-decade), with this attempt just for the purpose of working out that little baby bass. The mix sucks, but such is life. I wanted to hurry up and finish it. http://www.sendspace.com/file/b8v8gg

You're such a gentle, beautiful soul.

Either that was really nice or (as my suspicious instincts tell me) I'm being mocked.

I like this song a lot.  And even though you don't like the mix, I have to say that this recording is really impressive to me.  The piano has a nice sound, what were you using?  I was just thinking earlier today about how I like bass sounds where you can't really hear the "pluck," and when it comes through as a soft buzz it sounds more pleasant.  The bass you used achieves that sort of tone that I like.  The blend of the vocal melody with the riff at the end is cool too.

haha, it just goes to show you: laziness WORKS! On this recording, I didn't want to lug stuff upstairs, so I only used the single mic I had in the living room positioned maybe 6" over the center of my little rapidly-detuning-with-MN-weather spinnet piano. But thanks for the compliments on the song. It has always been a favorite of mine ... and usually my songs that I like best, everyone else likes least. And vice versa.

Nice.  I also use a spinet, a Baldwin Acrosonic from 1952 I think.  I'm not a good piano player but I find that a spinet is great to write songs, I love the feel of it.  But being that I'm no good, it's really hard for me to arrange piano parts when I record songs.  What's your technique?  For example, I usually wind up using one-handed parts because bass tones can be overwhelming if you have other bass parts in the song, if that makes any sense.

I'm not mocking you. You seem like a real gentle guy.

 :lol

The piano always sounds great on your songs Luther, I think just having the tone of the piano on the songs gives it an edge that would be missing with a sampled piano. I'd love to have a piano to tinkle on....

Don't laugh. He such a soft voice, like a flower wilting, and he always has really soft, mainly acoustic arrangements. I just wish women and friends would stop disappointing him.

I don't recommend taking the subject matter too seriously! I figure I milk about 5-10 songs out of each breakup, and quite a few others are entirely fictional. Then stories like Louisiana are just my own assholery (tm). But as many people have said, it's just easier to write sad songs than happy ones. Woe is me, my girl left me, blah blah. Easy to churn out.

I'm not a good piano player, either, so I probably am not one to offer advice. (Actually I'm not an especially good ANYTHING player, the more I think about it. DAMN I suck!) My playing is almost always either Brian Wilson style plunking or, if it is more single note types of lines, just one hand or the other. I am awful with two-hand independence. As for the tones, though, it hasn't been an issue for me. Even though my little spinet has good strong bass for its size, I usually record with two mics and can adjust their respective volumes. (For that reason, I usually record each mic as its own track, not going to a single stereo track, which would limit me in that regard.)

That kind of thing makes me lament my 4-track cassette setup, as I have virtually no options as far as experimenting with mics or doing anything that requires more than one channel.

Back to "Louisiana," I forgot to mention in my original post that I like the lower-register singing on this one.  I don't know if you have a preference between singing higher or lower, but the style on this particular song works really well.

Well thank you. I don't know if I have a strong preference. I guess it's always fun to push my range, so I probably prefer singing high. But it's not a particular focus either way, just whatever the song needs. There's only one of me, so I enlist myself regardless of how well or even whether I can do it.