I concur with Tom A. as far as production values. Emily's
voice comes in too "hot" initially, then nicely nestles into
the ambience of the guitar bed. Overall, too much reverb
which makes it hard to understand the good words
being sung. In fact, sometimes the flanking harmony
voices are crisper than the centered lead voice. I suggest
duping the lead vocal and setting one instance to no
reverb and the other instance to 40-50% reverb. Ask Tiler
for his un-reverbed guitar track. You can also do the same
track duping with the guitar track. This method provides
both immediacy and chamber-sized ambience. Your final
unifying step is to bring it all into the same
soundspace by adding some reverb globally on the Master
Track. Try Classical Hall, Warm Classical or Club Master
presets. Do not use any of the Ambient master track
presets. Be careful of too much accumulated compression
(as Atwood pointed out).
The lyrics are wonderful! The smoke and mirrors theme,
for me, harkens back to Plato's "Allegory of the Cave"
where those in bondage see and hear only the shadows
and echoes of real objects which they are constrained
from seeing directly. These prisoners mistake
appearances for reality.
Tiler, your guitar playing is magnificent. You create some
very rich, harmonic and moving passages in this piece. I
love your chord progressions. Emily, you have done a
fantastic job of applying your writing skills and beautiful
voice to Tiler's instrumental composition -- not an easy
task when the musical foundation is already set.
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sounds compressed & tinny, almost like he's in another
room. I heard the original instrumental and it sounded
much richer, more present. Also, your voice is so pure and
clear, I'm not sure if you need quite so much reverb,
although it does add to the dreamy quality of this flowing
piece.
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