Song originally made by tears for fears and Gary Jules did a nice piano cover that was featured in the movie Donnie Darko (must see if you havent) which was released in 2001.
Song was evidently very popular in the UK, not so much here in the states, but has gotten quite popular since Donnie Darko is becoming a very popular rental.
My step daughter said I should play around a bit with the song so I started with a piano VST and figured out which notes go with the song and I spent the past couple of hours playing with the tempo for a fast break and experimenting with time stretching to make Gary’s lyrics faster, while also preserving the pitch.
I have a lot planned for this. I am having a hard time with the vocals. No idea what it will sound like on quality monitors.
They sound a bit wide in the mix when they play and I tried to EQ them, but they seem to compete with some of the other instruments.
I will make this basically an amen jungle mashup when it gets going and hopefully will turn out as good as I think it will.
The second synth coming it is starting to piss me off. I think I have to change it. Not certain though. Sounds like the lead sound from the game Bruce Lee on the commodore 64.
Damn 64. As much as I love it, I seem to always sneak some of it’s 8 bit goodness into songs…
Well it’s an interesting start. Realy not sure about the very 8 bit sounding synth you mention. Also the other synth line seems very thin and could maybe do with being fattened up with some overdrive or something.
I’m only listening on headphones through the shittiest on-board sound you can image from the computer at work, and as it’s a work in progress wouldn’t comment to much on mixing and balancing. Would say I like the very wide sounding vocals, and they are in in the Gary Jules version (that is where you got them from isn’t it) and I think keeping the integrity of the original by keeping them with the wide stereo image would work better than trying to narrow it down or laying them centre on a mono track.
I made the synths a little better and played with the production a little more.
Sounds like an improvement. Also mashed it up a bit more and added some more blocks…
I almost used a piano sample and may have it going in the background, but I don’t want it to sound like I just have the song playing in the background, even though I recreated the parts.
Hmmm…
The vocals are still getting to me.
As beatslaughter has pointed out, I seem to neglect taking advantage of stereo and this is where it’s really making me crazy.
Everything is much more mono in nature and the vocals start and it’s just way to abrupt and not mixed well with everything else.
Can just about pick out the piano in the background towards the end. I was thinking that a more staccato but still quite softly played piano would fit well, complementing the beat. It’s been a long time since I listened to the Gary Jules version, but if my mind serves me right that would be moving towards that again, and you said you wanted to keep at least a certain amount of distance…
I think you are right. I do want to keep it out, but it sounded so good in the original…
I first made piano parts. Now the song has this really strange patten length to get the tempo to match how I wanted things I will have to poke around and figure out the notes again.
I should not have erased the version where I had much of that work done.
