Huh. That is squarely "12/8' in my head. More like "Blueberry Hill" than "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)".That said, it does get murky.

I'm no expert but that sounds pretty fuckin good to me. Love the detuned clang of the guitars, loose as fuck.

n.c. wrote:sloppy, rocking blues band "um, hi. will you mix our song?" ea forum: "GO BACK TO THE GARAGE!"Don't worry it was just me. Nobody else would ever say anything like that, just me (predictably). And I'm not trying to be a dick but I will be honest.You asked if it would sound out-of-place on the radio, and it would, primarily because you don't tend to hear the drummer repeatedly fumbling the beat on any songs played on the radio. They either fix it or do it again.It's not for me to say what your standards should be but the fumbles are by far the most radio-unfriendly thing about your song. I think if you go ahead with your larger project you should take your time with the rhythm tracks and get good takes.Also, every drummer stumbles over compound meter* at first. It takes practice that's all. But they won't put your song on the radio if it sounds like you can't play it, so... work at it, get better and succeed, why not.* whether you choose to call it 6/8 or 12/8 or triplets over 4, they are all dividing the beat by 3 instead of 2, which is what catches drummers out.

hey anthony, likewise, i had coffee stomach when i wrote the go back to the garage thing. i recognize that my first mistake was referring to this as radio friendly. i was trying to be sort of funny and as usual i was sort of not. i was only thinking that since there is nothing like this happening in maine, some college and community radio dj's who do blues shows might get some sort of kick out of it.in addition the singer is a shameless self promoter but up to this point didn't have a single 'professionally' recorded track to play for people. you may argue that i do him a disservice by this being the track he's got. personally i have found that non'musicians don't seem to notice the drum flubs or else just take them as 'color' (so do i).the circumstances were as they were when those basic tracks were recorded. if i waited until everything lined up just right to record anything, i'd never wind up hitting the red button. if working within this series of imperfect circumstances means that a dj at wreu in blue hill hears an amateurish hack job and throws the cdr in the trash, i can live with that. as far as the guitar intro goes, you are wrong. i have been playing guitar for close to thirty years and i don't know if i've ever been so satisfied with something i've played. i'm not good at being proud of myself, but i fucking love the guitar intro. what you hear as shaky and unconfident is -in absolute, non-objective fact- 'feeling' and 'expression'. you don't hear that? when was the last time you cried?thing is: there is not a way that you can describe that recording to make it sound bad that doesn't make me like it more.the reason i started this thread was in hopes of learning something, and i have. i thought it would be more of a lesson in eq than time signatures, but life's funny like that.

This song is awesome. I love the sloppy drums and meandering guitar lines against this earnest singer guy. Seriously!Radio-friendly? Last Stones cover I listened to was by Pussy Galore, so this sounds like Kenny Loggins compared to that. My gut feeling here? This isn't music that you should overthink. Let the band just kinda slop it up, get the vocals to where they're intelligible but not over-the-top, mix it and move on.

If that's the way you feel about it I don't want to critique any harder, but I guess that's the difference between music intended for an audience and music intended for yourself. I can only tell you how it comes across to *me*, but if it's not really for the radio then that doesn't matter. I don't know if it's true that non-musicians don't notice, but the number of clams and fumbled beats in songs played on the radio, even public radio, is typically zero. I don't think there is a radio sound in terms of EQ or whatever. Being in tune, in time and no fuckups *is* the radio sound.If you have a drummer who keeps rock solid time and can hit the drums with precision, you could record them with a microphone up your ass and it would probably still sound professional.

twelvepoint wrote:Anthony Flack wrote:I don't know if it's true that non-musicians don't notice, but the number of clams and fumbled beats in songs played on the radio, even public radio, is typically zero. I don't think there is a radio sound in terms of EQ or whatever. Being in tune, in time and no fuckups *is* the radio sound.You've heard Let it Bleed, right?Flack's right. This is not 1970. Everything current on the radio is polished like a satellite mirror. That's the rule in modern production. Obsess over and remove all errors.

As far as Equipment & Playing: I remember a story about the BBC sending a few engineers to LA in the 60s to figure out how the "west coast sound" of the beach boys et. al. was done and them coming back and saying it was pretty much down to the studio players, the equipment was the same high-end stuff the BBC already had access to. Might have been from the Wrecking Crew docu.

the barrier to entry for mainstream radio comes far before a note has been played, in time or tune or not.for community radio - including major stations like kexp in seattle, it generally comes down to what a single, or a few people think when they hear it.clear channel isn't going to pick up anything thats not on a major label or major affiliated indie/imprint.furthermore, while my hearing is clearly prejudiced toward this thing that i made, i'm not so deluded that i could hear this being played between keb mo and leon bridges. but a show that leans heavily on muddy waters and howling wolf and occasionally plays the mc5 and the white stripes, well, i could see that dj giving this a listen.