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Hi all,

After the magic you guys collectively worked on a previous track of mine ("Hello, Heartbreaker", on my SoundCloud page) I figured I'd make another attempt to pick your brains if you'd be so kind as to lend me a few minutes of your time!

I've got a track called "Fool's Gold" which I'm having a little trouble with. It's very vocal-heavy, for one, and I'm only just taking tentative little baby steps into singing, so the singing isn't particularly good. Any singing tips or vocal processing tips would be greatly appreciated! I think I've managed to edit out or re-do anything that was utterly offensive to the ear, but what remains sounds a little flat and kind of weak sounding. That's probably just my voice, but if I'm missing a processing trick here, I'd love to know! The other sections just don't seem to gel properly, all the instruments are doing their own things but they just don't quite click and I'm not sure why. The last 30s or so in particular feels like it really needs something to kick it into a higher gear, and the glitchy guitar I've just added after a week of not listening to the song hasn't quite done the trick. I've also just knocked the vocals down a little in the mix but I'm wondering if that was just me being insecure before uploading it, now it sounds like they're getting a little lost in places.

Basically, it sounds like the skeleton of a song that's missing all the little bits and pieces to breathe some life into it, and even after leaving it for a while, I'm still stumped and frustrated on where to go with this one. You can find it here - https://soundcloud.com/steventhomson-1/fools-gold-early-vocal-demo/s-3ZpUo. It's set to 'private' for the moment to stop it leaking out into Facebook, that's the 'secret link' so let me know if there's any trouble accessing it.

I'd love to hear peoples' opinions, comments and criticisms on this one, and I'd really appreciate any time you can spare to take a listen and share your thoughts!

Thanks,
Steven

[Hello, Heartbreaker]

Hey all,

I'm more of a lurker than a poster, but I need some serious help and feedback with a couple of tracks, so I figured I'd come out of hiding and hope your collective expertise can help me out!

Backstory: long story short, I've just been through a horrendous breakup of a 4 1/2 year relationship, the only relationship I've ever been in. I've been lied to, cheated on, begged and pleaded with, lied to and cheated on again and strung along for almost a month while my girl cheerfully kept seeing her other guy on the side without telling me. She then came clean and ditched me for him, which is pretty heartbreaking since I'd hoped for a long time to marry her. Anyway, that's not the point - as 'therapy', for lack of a better word, I've written a bunch of songs about recent events, as musician are wont to do. I'm 22 and a full-time PhD student (theoretical physics!), so I don't have much time for music (everything is currently recorded in my living room during evenings/weekends) but I am flat out determined that everything I do from now on will be twice as good as ever before. My creativity has just exploded over these last few weeks (in physics as well as music!), and while I'm broadly happy with my new songs, to fulfill that determination of mine to be brilliant, I'm going to need a lot of help.

There are two songs that are mostly recorded that I need opinions with. The first is pretty much finished but has met with a mixed reception from friends, and the second is one I'm really struggling with.


i) Hello, Heartbreaker - 'finished' version at https://soundcloud.com/steventhomson-1 and www.steventhomson.co.uk

I was kind of channelling 'Snowman' here, but my extreme inability to sing (coupled with poor recording environment - a living room!) and ownership of NI's 'The Mouth' plugin led to this. The vocal processing is maybe a little extreme for some tastes, but I'd appreciate comments on it. I've been told (correctly, I think) that the song is a little 'samey' all the way through, but my only ideas to add variety also add length. I'd thought about adding another verse with just an acoustic guitar playing the vocal melody but I'm concerned about making the song too long. Also, opinions on the vocoder are a little mixed. I like it, others don't, but I think others are perhaps looking for typical pop ballads which isn't what this was meant to be. That said, while I want to do things my own way, I also don't want to alienate people too much so I'm prepared to compromise a little and bow to the opinions of people wiser than I in the arts of making music - you guys!


ii) Little Miss Liar - instrumental on SoundCloud (https://soundcloud.com/steventhomson-1), really really rough vox version at www.steventhomson.co.uk/music/audio/LML.mp3

This was written a little later than the other, as you can probably tell by the extreme shift in tone. This is much rockier and less sorry for myself! I love the instrumental mix of this, I love the little audio tricks, the hidden messages, the tiny things that are almost inaudible but took a lot of effort, and so on. I like the lyrics, particularly the Battlestar Galactica reference (my ex and I both loved the show, I got her into it) but my main issue is that I CANNOT SING! With that in mind, I've made extensive use of the vocoder, but this adds a tonality that I find really hard to fit into a mix neatly. To keep it interesting, I do a lot of fiddling with the processing through the course of the song, but I feel like I'm overdoing everything and trying too hard and it's all just turning to mush. In addition, NI's 'The Mouth' crashes if I run it in the same session as the instrumental mix, so I have to export the instrumental as a .wav and do the vox separately, which is driving me mad and probably isn't helping the mix balance. I can export the vocoded tracks as .wav files after I'm happy with them and put them back into the full session, but at the moment I just can't stand the vocals and I just don't know where to go with them from here. I need a lot of frank feedback on this one, I'm not too happy with how it sounds for the amount of time I've had to put into it so far. The lyrics are with the instrumental version on the SoundCloud page! The 'current' version with vocals linked to above is one I've been working on tonight and just finally bounced down to mp3 within the last 10 mins out of sheer frustration because I can't get it any better than this. That said, every night I put in a few hours and redo most of the vocals and it's getting steadily better and better every night, but I'm not seeing much of a payoff from the amount of time it's taking me!


If anyone feels like poking around my site or SoundCloud futher, the song '11' (now renamed to '10' on my website in light of further revelations - take my word for it, it's a very clever joke about the cheating, but I can't explain it to you without divulging some rather personal details about what went on) is also about recent events and I'd also love feedback on it. The song 'Fireside' was inspired by the now-vanished 'Heartstrings' that was briefly on the main Frost* website, and I'm particularly pleased with the bridge section with the vocals. The rest of 'Fireside' is perhaps a little chaotic! As for the others, I'd of course value any opinions and feedback you care to give me!

Guys and gals, I'd sincerely love to hear your opinions and feedback on this stuff. I've been through a hell of an ordeal recently, and the only way to repair my self-esteem is for me to damned well excel at everything I do in the near future, and for that I need your help. I want to nail these songs, I want to know that out of this heartbreak I've managed to to create something I can listen back to in the future and be proud of. Please help me make these tracks better!

Thanks,
Steven


PS: Obvious improvements to these songs would be replace the synth bass in LML with a real one (in progress, my bass is at my family home and I can't get it up here for a few weeks) and get a real singer, which I'm working on but I haven't found one yet!

Hi everyone

I've been a longtime lurker, and I've been intending to join for ages, but it's taken the disbandment of Frost* to drag me out of hiding and into the limelight. I have to say, I was a little taken aback by that announcement, but regardless of the future of Frost*, I'm just grateful to have been a Frost* fan over the past few years. I never did get to see them live, but Milliontown remains my favourite song (even if it is long, and widdly in places), and some of the music is quite fantastic.

I've been a Frost* fan since an online friend of mine (who I believe has the username Steve on this forum, which must be why I couldn't register the name...I was almost 'TheOtherSteve' before I decided to just go with my full name) sent me a clip of the vocals from the Lighthouse section of Milliontown and told me I had to listen to this band. Eventually I did, and I wasn't particularly blown away by what I heard. I just liked No Me, No You because it was moderately heavy. But somehow, I kept listening, and I ended up really falling for that album, as did most of you on the forum, I imagine.

So, I followed along in the shadows as best as I could, never really wanting to get involved with the forum, but still watching the YouTube videos and buying the albums. I was quite inspired by Frost* for my own music (which has taken a backseat since my Honours years at university), and without them I'd never have written a 20 minute piece of therapy called 'See You In Another Life' when I was 18. I say 'therapy' because that's really what it was to me; call it escapism, call it a way to draw a line under things and move on, call it whatever, but it served its purpose. I never properly finished it, and never did vocals, but after watching the Frost* reports, I felt inspired enough to give it the best shot that my ill-equipped bedroom 'studio' could do. I spent all of one summer recording a mock 'album', most of which I no longer like, but I learned a lot from it. I still have the hope that one day, I'll have some better equipment, and I'll rent myself a little chalet or something up in the Highlands, and spend a month or so making a semi-proper album, even just for my own amusement, and without the Frost* reports, that probably would never have occurred to me.

I learned a lot from those videos about how to make music, and given that I have no musical education like many Frost* fans seem to have, I learned a lot of things I didn't know already. Although I must say, loading up Ableton Live after watching a Frost* report was always a little depressing, because I was all fired up with enthusiasm, but sadly lacking in commensurate ability.

But, while I'd love to have more Frost*, its probably true what they say that you can have too much of a good thing. I'm just glad we've been given the music that we have. I'll still wear my frosterisk* apparel, because I think it's a pretty cool logo, and I'll still listen to Frost*, but with any luck I'll restrain myself from excessively pining over the past, and if Frost* ever rises again, I'll be just as happy as anyone to see them back. In the meantime, take care of yourself Jem, and thanks for some of the best parts of the soundtrack to the last few years of my life.


See you all around,
Steven