My Space Music

[Jeff]

www.myspace.com/jeffreymcbride

I opened up a music page for myself there. So far my songs aren't showing up, but they said it could take up to 24 hours. Here is what I uploaded:

1. Green (2005)
2. Steady State (2004)
3. Lost (2003)
4. The Sun and You and Me (2006)

They only let you upload 4 at a time. But I selected 20 songs that I have recorded over the last 5 years that were worth hearing at least once. I will change one out each week for the next 16 weeks.

I wish Justin would start uploading some of his music...

Jeff

[Jeff]

For some reason my music still isn't showing up. I'll tell you when it does.

[Jeff]

My music is finally showing up over on the My Space site. As I said, I will leave this set of songs up for a week. After that I will switch out the one that gets the least plays or the most negative feedback.

BTW As you guys now, I almost never finish a song. These are all rough drafts. Steady State is escecially rough, as it is a simple live performance. Lost is closest to being finished.

[jtmx1]

Just a little update: I got some action on my myspace listing. Someone heard it and invited me to perform at a battle of the bands here in McAllen. Now, if only some of you guys lived close by, we could rock out. (Well, not really rock, eh, Justin.) Anyway, it would have at least made for a cool story.

[Jeff]

I put the entire Rearview in the Rain project up at myspace: www.myspace.com/mcbridejeffrey

I think I am finished with it. That is the fastest I've ever written and recorded a cycle of songs. 2 1/2 weeks from nothing to finished. Now, the songs are a little simple in this project, but I still think they hold together as a group.

A few notes: All the songs have been changed for better presentation. Here are the main changes:

1. Somewhere on Mars. I remastered without the heavy compression. I also took out some of the low end, for balance.

2. Decision. I remixed the vocals at the end and remastered the entire song with slighly less compression.

3. Undoomed. I completely rerecorded this song from start to finish. I think it sounds pretty good. Actually, I am proud of it.

4. Sympath. I took out the heavy reverb on the vocal and tried to set it better in the track. I rerecorded parts of the vocal to fix some pitch problems. But there were a number of them so one or two remain.

I think this is a fairly good demo of my stuff. Anyone who hates it, probably wouldn't ever like anything I do.

Jeff

[jtmx1]

Tila Tequila for President: The bikini-clad singer who rules the musical democracy of MySpace.

www.slate.com/id/2139691/

[ryan]

Jeff,

Here are my thoughts on your "Rearview in the Rain" songs. I listened to them in the order they were posted, and wrote each review as I listened to each song.

Somewhere on Mars: Wow, Jeff. I really really dig this song. I like the "mission control" samples you used. I like the structure. I dig the way you sustain some of the piano notes so they bleed over each other in places. I like the scattered-sounding electronic beat. I even like the fact that the piano sounds kind of fake; it works for the song. I like the vocals. And the mix sounded nearly perfect through my AKG K141S headphones, very well-rounded and clear. Nice clarity throughout, actually. Every instrument is very defined and occupies its own distinct space. Of all of your recorded material I've heard (which might preclude a lot of great stuff I haven't heard) this is definitely my favorite.

Decision: I like the opening section. The strings are soft and warm, but there are some background noises that suggest a hidden depth, like something swirling underwater. The effect sounds nocturnal, like something softly buzzing from a radio in the dead of night on a long car-trip. Not sure I like the treatment of the vocals; it may just be a matter of the way they were mixed or EQ'ed, but they sound too wispy to me -- too vague and intangible. I like the way the drums kick-in around the end. The song doesn't seem to draw to a satisfying conclusion -- but maybe that was your intention, to leave the threads hanging. I like this song, but overall it seems to lack the focus you brought to Somewhere on Mars. Again, maybe that was partly by design.

Undoomed: I got chills during the first chorus. I was struck by the lines "Fate often saves an undoomed man whose courage prevails, but she never puts the wind back in his sails," and then I was hit by that comment from the guitar that follows, just a couple of broken flanged notes, which come like a period at the end of the sentence. This is a really strong song, and I think its length is just about right -- it presents itself in two short verses and two short choruses, and doesn't try to pack-in a jillion ideas. It just says what it has to say, then ends. On the other hand, the mix sounded a bit muddy to me, and the fake piano I liked so much in Somewhere on Mars doesn't really work well here; I'd like to hear a real piano on this one. Of course, I say this fully knowing that you're working with as many limitations as I am.

Sympath: What a great noise starts this song! I like the big "whoosh," and the piano chords that start the song, and the harmonized "ohs." I don't care for the drums on this song; the beats sound arbitrary to me, like they don't fulfill any satisfying function. Once the song develops into the chorus, the beats click a little better, although there's too much delay and/or stereo-sweeping overall in this part, so although I can tell there's something compelling going on, it seems lost under layers of confusion. If this were my song, I'd probably cut-back on the effects used on all the parts at the end. Especially on the "emergency-dispatch" sample. That sample needs to come from one specific point in the mix; when it swirls all around, it sounds confusing. Hmm, listening to it again, I'm thinking that perhaps what I find displeasing is just the overuse of stereo effects in-general. Maybe cutting-back on the stereo effects would clean up this mix.

[jtmx1]

Thanks so much for the comments, Ryan. I've done new mixes of all the songs, and cleaned up a lot of the low end in both Decision and Undoomed. Sympath is still a problem. I did slow down the EMS voices panning. But the mix is still muddled in the mids. I think I have to rework the guitar line. It is providing a lot of the atmosphere at the end, so it will take some new plan. I'll get back to you. I am relatively proud of this project. Last year, I tried the same thing: Write and record 4 songs in just a couple of weeks. I think I gave you a copy of that CD the night be met for dinner last summer. This year, the results were a little better.

I am at Don Whetsell's house now, but I've been meaning to put up some Recording Rules I set for myself. There are about 20 of them, and many were derived from listening to your comments about my work and your own. I will post them when I get home on Sunday.

Anyway, thanks again for the comments!

Jeff

[Jeff]

The Rearview in the Rain project has been updated with the final versions of all four songs. I only meant to spend 2 weeks on these for songs, and I've spent 3 weeks and 2 days.

I do appreciate Ryan's comments. When I remixed everything tonight I tried to apply as many of them as possible. What I did not manage to capture will simply have to wait till the next project. I am finished with this one. Time to move on and be creative again.

Here's the link again: www.myspace.com/mcbridejeffrey

[Jeff]

I also updated this page: www.myspace.com/jeffreymcbride

Both Lost and Steady State got only five plays. Since the latter was only a rough draft, I replaced it.

The new song is Radiate, which I completed about 3 years ago. If you haven't heard it, or you never knew what the lyrics were, you know where to find it.

Jeff

[ryan]

I just listened to your newly-posted mixes of the "Rearview in the Rain" project, and I just wanted to drop you a quick note to say that it sounds great! I wish I'd downloaded the previous mixes so I could contrast and compare them, but no biggie. I listened to Undoomed first, and was struck by a greater clarity in the mix, and I think this holds for all the new mixes. I can more distinctly hear what's going on in each layer now, and therefore the effect of the songs is greater.

I think the most dramatic difference was on Sympath. The vocals remain present and clear even once the drums kick in and the song moves into its final busy section. But now it doesn't seem overly-busy like it did before. I don't know if you removed some layers, or if you just scaled-back the effects, or if you just eq'ed and mixed everything better, but damn! It made a ton of difference! I like this song as much as Undoomed and Somewhere On Mars now!

One specific detail I thought I'd mention: Before the new mixes, I wasn't sure what to make of the piano part on Sympath. I understood you were shooting for some kind of dissonant feel, something that slanted against the melody, but I wasn't sure that it worked. I didn't know if it was just the mix, or if it was the part itself. Now I can tell that it works. With all the layers more clearly-defined, I can more easily "feel" where the piano part is coming from, and I dig it. Also, I just noticed how closely the piano part is linked to the drum-track, so that sometimes it bounces-off the drums, and sometimes it hits on the same beat as the drums. I think that's way cool.

[Jeff]

There are still parts where I wish the vocal was stronger, of course--Mostly when I write I imagine writing for a lead singer with vocal characteristics similar to mine, but one that actually sounds good! Also, Sympath is not normalized in quite the same way as the other songs. Since it was much more dynamic, I wanted to preserve a little of that. If you listen to the other songs before Sympath, you might find yourself reaching for the volume knob when you hear its opening piano chords. That might be regarded as a flaw. But it's one I am not going to fix.

About your questions concerning Sympath: when I took the atmosphere effects off the guitar, it opened up an EQ hole in the low mids, about 500-800 kHz. My baroque mentality required me to fill it, so I put two complimentary synth lines in there, one generated in a new plug I got called Cameleon 5000 ( www.camelaudio.com/cameleon5000.php ) and one with an interesting free plug I found called Rotopuker ( www.kvraudio.com/get/415.html ). I put them in the mix for the last 8 bars, but mixed them so low that you should only really hear them on your second or third listening.

Anyway, it was taking out the stereo effects on the guitar--as you suggested--that was the key to getting a better mix. Thanks. There are so many parts that sound cool by themselves but just don't sit well in a complicated mix. And generally, those are the kinds of mixes I tend to create.

Thanks for all your help, Ryan. It was exactly what I was looking for. I still think it would rock so hard for you, Justin, and I--and Dan if he ever came back to the board--to do some songs together. Dan drums and composes, so you and Justin would do guitars and I could do keys. We could exchange mp3s on the internet and wavs via snail mail, or even Emule or Kazaa. Anyway, just a dream...

Jeff

[jtmx1]

Updated Listenables Project: www.myspace.com/jeffreymcbride

I took down Lost and put up See What Happens, a song that Maddie and I did back in 2003. We sang about goofing off...and everyday mysticism.

Jeff

[Jeff]

Updated Listenables Project: www.myspace.com/jeffreymcbride

I took down Green and put up my Watership Down song: A Farther Room. "Bigwig, the peg's out; you're free!"

[chris]

JEFF... "SEE WHAT HAPPENS".... PERFECT FOR SPRING... I can't believe I hadn't heard this before! Awesome!! Tell me about this song!

[jtmx1]

Wow. Glad you like it.

You asked, so here’s the story: Since Maddie was 3 we’ve been playing Zelda for the N64 and more recently for the Game Cube. Maddie’s always loved the music; she still hums it all the time. There is a theme that plays when you create your character, and her anticipation of the game upon hearing it was pretty funny to watch when she was a kid. She’d be jumping off the arm of the couch, singing, spinning, and pretending to be heroic. One day in 1999 I recorded her singing that theme. I wrote the guitar line around it, and then just forgot about it until 2003.

That spring, I played it again for Maddie. (I had gotten an additional idea about how a discordant lead tone might sit on top of the guitar line.) We played with it for an afternoon and had a really great time. We recorded it that evening. Mainly we wanted to convey how it felt just to be together. Maddie couldn’t work the controls on the N64 when she was 3, so she needed me. And I needed her for an excuse to play a video game. (I’ve gotten over that!)

“Let’s see what happens”…that was my usual response when she would ask me what was going to happen next to Link as we played the game. I said it so much it began to strike me in just the kind of affirmative and mystical way that I like. She was really looking, really experiencing in a constant formative way. If we had been on a rocket to outer space we couldn’t have been closer to the bleeding edge of novelty and creation at the heart of the universe. And Maddie’s response was an appetite for more, ever more. Mine was to be a kid again. And this from just taking a real look at what might seem to be boring morning goofing off.

As with anything I ever write from now till I die, use it for whatever you like. I am sure Maddie would feel the same way. And I’ll tell her you dig her song. Maddie and I listened to it again last week; it still makes us laugh.

Jeff