A Reason To Leave_Patrick Talbot_mix by Tommy Marcinek

[tjmtruth]

This is a great song; a blend between Jazz and Rock. My approach was to try to emphasize each style within the song, but to make each style unique in some way. After all, it's neither tradition Jazz or Rock, but a blend....something in between. :-)

Love the song and I spent considerable time working on this. I took a few creative liberties but hopefully they add to and enhance the tune. I added no new instrumentation (only utilized existing guitars, keys, etc.). However, I did sound replace the kick and snare in order to try to make the most of the varied genres in the song. For instance, in the Jazz sections the kick is more subdued but you can still hear the beater (which I just always love no matter the genre) and used a brush hit sample for the snare. In the Rock sections, I used a different kick and a different snare. I also dirtied up one of the rhythm guitars and used it as a backdrop during the rock portions to give it more of a rock sound and feel. I also dirtied up the ending guitar solo and brought in the background vocals singing "to leave, to leave, to leave, to leave" as the song fades, which seemed to just fit the fade perfectly.....as the song leaves so do the vocals with the song's message. :-) Trying to blend two different styles of music in the same song is madness...LOL! Loved doing this mix. Hope y'all like it.

Tom

[ptalbot]

Alright! I really enjoyed your (re)mix Tom! Really creative and cool.
I like that you made this song yours!
And you didn't waste time on this one for sure!

Now honestly I think some things work really nicely and some others a little bit less...

What I think works great is:
Overall, the enhanced contrast between the sections and the way you've made the transitions (and the little pitch work you did on the first guitar solo at the end and the vocals before each choruses).
The vocal sound. Great ambience/verb on it throughout. It generally cuts nicely, although I think it it a little bit masked by the fuzz guitar during the chorus...
The bgvs during the chorus are nice and wide and work great as well.
I like the snare during the rock part, it's punchy and sounds great there. (I'm fine with the kick in both sections - I know you like the beater and I'm not always fond of it in jazz tunes, but it sounds fine here to me)
The fuzzy guitar during the rock part works well too, I like the grit this adds.
I also like the reprise of the background vocals in the outro, that's a good idea.

What I'm a bit less convinced with is:
The first chord on the Rhodes is a good idea but it's perhaps a bit too loud, I find it a bit jarring.

The bass sound a bit too round IMHO. I don't know how to say that better. I find it lacks a bit of definition (listening on PC speakers and headphones right now - I know them well -, I need to have another listen on my monitors later but it should give you a hint on how this translates).

The brush snare during the jazz part is sounding a bit too static for me, it sounds to me that the velocity levels were not really used orthat the snare is too compressed and lacks nuances... did you use the MIDI provided or did you sample-replace from the audio files? I'm wondering if the velocity levels were not lost in translation somehow...
The sound of it is also quite brittle (too much high frequencies IMO) and too upfront.

I'm also missing the punch (transients) that the guitars were providing during the chorus. I'm wondering if you could not duplicate the guitar that you have used with fuzz and keep the original guitar to retain some of that. The fuzz guitar is providing a fun wall of sound but this results in the Rhodes and bass alone providing the rhythm against the drums. So in the end, I'm really missing the guitar there to provide some punch.

Then end solo sound has a lot of grit as well, and I see where you were heading and its great, but it sounds a little bit too fizzy IMHO. I wonder if a little bit less highs would not help here, a high shelf might be in order, I think. It's not a bad sound as such, and maybe I'm too used to hear it a bit cleaner, but I think it's a tad too fizzy.

Finally I'm missing some of the end guitars that were providing counterpoint to the lead. I like that the bgvs are there to conclude but I think these little added parts were also important. Not sure if they fit with your vision, so it's probably not such a big deal.

Your version is obviously very different and that's a cool vision of the song. Maybe you could try to take on board some of my comments that would fit that vision and see if you can come up with an even better version.
In any case, great job, I really enjoyed that!

[tjmtruth]

Patrick....wow, thanks for the props and your very detailed analysis. The funny thing about song-writing is that the song-writer always has in his/her head what he/she is hearing.....way ahead of the actual recording. What I did was "pretend" I wrote the song and approached it with how I wanted to hear it in "my" head. I know that didn't result in exactly what you wanted to hear though. What I really wanted to do was to get some better sounding and more defined crash symbals in there to create the snap needed for the transitions to the rock elements of the song, but I wanted to keep any sound replacing/adding to an absolute minimum in order to see how I might utilize what was given to the greatest creative extent possible.

You are right about the subtleties of the brush snare (btw there were no midi files provided on this...only wav files, unless Mike added them after I downloaded....I should go check). So, I used Drumagog to sound replace from the wav file. But, your ears are great because I did "even out" the dynamics because I thought the low volume parts were too low. I was picturing being in a small Manhattan Jazz club sitting real close to the musicians, hearing every hit of the drums. :-) I love drums....was in a power trio for many years with a great drummer and drums and percussion have become the love of my life (a bit extreme I know..lol). I love Jazz too, but I'm more into the Fusion Jazz genre. And in THAT genre, the drums are always nice and up-front and in your face. This might also explain why I like hearing the kick beater so much. To me, without hearing it, that kick is non existence....in any song.

Moving on.....I did not pitch shift vocals or the guitars. You are probably hearing the effects I used to enhance the tracks....subtle chorusing, doubling, etc. Oh, but I did use a harmonizer plugin on just the couple of little guitar notes at the very end of the beginning guitar part.....but that's it.

If you could provide the midi files for the bass and drums, that would be cool. I'd love to go even more crazy and try other things that I hear in my head. Love this song by the way! Maybe that's why I like to spend time on your songs. I also did have the other guitar during the chorus there but perhaps it was mixed too low. I didn't want the rock fuzz guitar to overtake things too much though so I tried to mix them in on the low side but did keep the other guitar in there as a compliment to it. At any rate, I would love to take all of your suggestions and mix it again....will be fun. Would love to try a different bass sample to bring it out some more in the mix or use the same wav file of it and eq/process differently, etc.

If you want to email the midi files just click on my website and send me a mail message on the site, etc., unless you can add them to the download here on this site or give me a dropbox link or something like that. I promise I will "try" to make the snare more dynamic and less brittle and the bass more defined. :-) I loved working on this song!! Will definitely do another mix on this one....can't wait.

Tom

[ptalbot]

I checked Mike's download and the midi files for bass, drums and keys are included, so you should be all set

I get what you say about hearing in advance what I want to hear. That's very true.
True also that having done my own mix of this I know what's in there and why, what I've used and how and what can be done with it (or at least I have my idea of what can be done with it )
So part of what I said might well be because of the surprise you managed with your approach, part of it being what I think the vibe of this song should be...
I did enjoy your approach though and think that there are some really cool stuff in there, but I missed a few others, so my suggestions is to help you bring what's missing to get an even better rendering, if that fits your vision, of course.
You take on board or not, that's your mix of course!
Keep having fun and BTW Merry Christmas!

[ptalbot]

Just in case you don't want to re-download the whole zip. Here are the midi files.

[tjmtruth]

Pat, thanks for the midi files and thanks for the Christmas wishes. Same to you and yours. Have a blessed Christmas and a very Happy New Year! Tom