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Secrets and Lies - Indie/Post-Rock guitar-based song.
A little heavier than my usual, and very guitar-centric. I used Auria for tracking and final mixing, but sequenced the drums in NS (with the audio loaded in 4Pockets Multitrack).
The guitar tone was straight from my pedalboard into Auria, no amp sims this time. The "amp" is a Strymon Iridium with an EHX Big Muff (Ram's Head) going into it and all plugged into the interface. There's lots of great amp sims on iOS these days, but this setup is still a lot more straightforward, and there's nothing that can really match the grunt of a physical Big Muff, even if Chow BYOD gets reasonably close.
The bass sound was created with the electric guitar going into the EHX POG. Makes a great bass IMO, indistinguishable from the real thing in the mix.
Lyrics are in the first spoiler:
You made me look into the void
Told me I was paranoid
And then you looked me in the eye
And you saw through my alibi
What I think the things I say
Well you found out to your dismay
Things I never told you
After all these years
Thoughts that only I knew
My secrets and my fears
And I don’t know
Why I get so low
I’m paralysed with fear
We make it in the make-believe
We use kind words when we deceive
But build your life on shifting sand
And you will sink right where you stand
What I think the things I say
Well you found out to your dismay
Things I never told you
After all these years
Thoughts that only I knew
My secrets and my fears
And I don’t know
Why I get so low
I’m paralysed with fear
Secrets and lies destroy you
Secrets and lies that throw you
Secrets that you don’t know
So much was left unspoken
So many things seem broken
And so little left to show
Secrets and lies still hidden
Too shy once you’ve been bitten
So much that you don’t know
Gear in the second spoiler:
Thanks for listening!
Comments
Good song @richardyot.
Nice pedalboard! I've been gigging for a few months now without an amp. Just a Joyo American Sound and a Flamma reverb straight into the desk - sounds great. Still, would love to get a Strymon Iridium.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for listening! The JOYO American is a classic, and actually it's almost as good as the Strymon, just a little bit fizzier and brighter. A lot of people find the Strymon too dark (I'm not one of them, I like a slightly darker tone).
You can get very close to the Iridium with the Joyo American and a good IR cab (either in pedal form or on the iPad).
Big Muff aside, nice work, really enjoyed, thanks.
Thanks for listening 🙏
Hi Richard,
Lovely recording, and beautiful song.
I always wanted to get there Strymon Flint.
I am enjoying this composition.
Rene
These are some of your best lyrics. I really love them. There is something that's troubling me with your vocal performance, especially on the verses. You sound like you're extremely tensed compared to your usual creations. maybe it was the intention given the content of the lyrics. But if you want to go this way, the track might benefit from a more detached attitude with a half spoken half sung vocals. I am sure this is something that could work with your voice. In their current form, The verses might be too melodic, maybe by breaking this a bit, you could highlight the lyrics. Just a suggestion, I might be totally wrong.
I love your Robert Smith like guitar tone, you're extremely good at this! It is always a pleasure to hear this kind of texture on your tracks
I wish there was a more blurry and eery effect a la My Bloody Valentine on the chorus, with the vocals a bit less present and wet with reverb and blending in a sonic magma.
These are just comments on the arrangements, certainly not about the songwriting which is excellent, as usual.
Oh, and very nice pedalboard ! Your Les Paul is very beautiful !
I really the the dreamy melancholy vibe of this. Nice work. If I close my eyes I can imagine I'm at a live performance. Although that might be partly coz my laptop speakers are seriously compromised. Is the tambourine played live? and what are those 3 cool looking pedals in the top centre to right?
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback - as it happens the original recorded performance was more sung-spoken, but it didn't seem to work with the more aggressive guitars so I recorded the vocals again and really sung them with my chest voice, and to me it just sounded so much better. But then again it's not my usual style of singing, and maybe it sounds out of place in this genre. I think the only thing I can do is to put the track aside for a few months and then revisit it later with a fresh perspective.
Blurring the vocals in the chorus is a good idea, I could try some delay to make them more dreamy.
Thanks for listening
The tambourine is from Klevgrand's Skaka, and the pedals at the top right are from Walrus Audio, they are the M1 modulation, the D1 delay, and the R1 reverb. They can create some great sounds and textures.
Real professional sound, superb song with great lyrics, and a big no on the vocals (sorry!). JanKun suggest a more talk/sing while I want to hear screaming which would, in my mind, go so much better with the angst of the lyrics.
Haha, just goes to show you can't please everyone
I'm definitely not a screamer/belter type of vocalist, more on the talk/whisper end of the spectrum, but it sounds like I definitely need to revisit the vocals if I decide to keep this song. Thanks for listening and for the feedback
I hope you will keep this track. It is a good song. It only needs some time to mature.
I'm going to try re-recording the verse vocals in a higher register - it seems that if I sing lower people are more likely to say they dislike my voice, I'm probably pushing my range when I sing in that register.
When this kind of thing happens to me, I also try to change the whole tonality of the whole track by a semi ton or even a ton. It works sometimes our voice is more flexible than we think...
Nice, like it.
Do you sing and play at the same time, if you were doing this as a live performance?
It depends on the complexity of the guitar part and how similar the rhythm is between the guitar and the vocal. Most of the time I can sing and play my own songs, but occasionally if the rhythm guitar part is too tricky then no.
(edit) I guess it goes without saying that I obviously record the guitars and vocals separately
@JanKun I've re-recorded the verse vocals singing the melody 5 semitones higher, I think it does sound a lot better, please let me know if you agree
I also added some delay to the chorus vocals to blur them as you suggested.
(And a shout-out to @Pxlhg as well, if you have the time to listen again let me know if you think it's better).
The song reminds of The Cult, a great band I haven't heard for years. Maybe you should ask someone else to do the singing. I can't get a good feel when I hear it. Hope you appreciate honesty as I feel a bit shitty writing it. An instrumental version would go along way too I think, but, we'd miss the good lyrics.
No worries - I appreciate the honesty
The singing’s okay, I walked away into the kitchen and it sounded like a 80s/90s shoegaze band’s track was playing if I didn’t know otherwise.
I don’t regard singing as a competitive sport, like logo design is, where nobody can do it correctly and it takes committees and judging panels to criticise a thing into acceptance. I regard singing as more like water colour painting or photography - a perpetual uphill journey within a personal scale of potential. I think talent shows have done irreparable damage to the public notion of the arts.
Voices can divide opinion, I mean I really hate Robert Plant's voice, and he can sign technically well, but there's just something about his voice that annoys me. I still listen to Led Zeppelin though, but with more focus on the guitar and drums.
Some people hate Neil Young's voice, in fact his bandmates in Buffalo Springfield wouldn't let him near the microphone, but I like his singing. I certainly prefer it to those talent show singers.
Very good! Now we're talking ! This is the Richard Yot I know and love. I believe the verse is now the strongest in the song !
Now, to please other commenter, you should get angry and shout like Robert Plant, cause shouting is so shoegazy. first you need to impersonate him, so get a good wig, very tight pants, and show us your torso 😉
This !
I remember recently some relatives sent me a video of a Young Korean signer, I think it was the voice or something like that. Technically perfect, hitting incredibly high notes like a perfect castra. My relatives told me to thoroughly wait until the end, because that high note was supposed to break my heart and make it melt. When I heard it, I felt absolutely nothing, and rushed to listen to The Velvet Underground, cause that's real signing to me !
Thanks, your input really helped me to improve the track 👍
I listened to so many of your tracks that I think I know your voice a little. I like this new version. Please don't throw this track. It is very good.
What a great set of lyrics and a really catchy song @richardyot . I love that Les Paul’s tone you’ve crafted there. Well constructed song…I just wonder (I’ve only heard two of your songs), do you always drown your voice in echo and reverb? I’m wondering if this would have more impact if your voice was more exposed without all that going on. I ask as someone who used to record my own vocals like this because I was self-conscious about my voice. It took a lot of courage to drop the effects to a more ‘normal’ level but in 9 songs out of 10, I’m glad I did!
Good stuff, loved the song.
Thanks for listening 😃
Yes I do tend to go heavy on the reverb, but I think in this genre (shoegaze) that’s kind of expected, but you’re far from the first person to mention it.
In fact Jankun persuaded me to add some delay on the chorus vocals, to make them dreamier and more blurry.
Really nice. I didn't have a chance to listen to the original mix -- I have no complaints at all about the vocals. It feels like on your last many tracks that you have found your groove and a vocal sound that suits your songs well -- I hope you are feeling good about where that's at.
I hope you won't mind a couple thoughts:
Great job!
Maybe my ears are formatted to your previous releases. You found a sonic identity that suits you very well and serve your lyrics. But it's true that now you gained confidence in your signing, you could sometimes try to wander out of the shoegaze aesthetic to "dryer" lands. Boudleaux And Felice is a good exemple of another direction you could dig, but I am partial since I worked on it... 😉 Anyway, most of the positive feedbacks in this thread shows that you've achieved something great. You should be proud of yourself. You have many fans in here, and I am definitely one of them. Keep the good work!