Current Status: Published to streaming platforms
Post History:
Feedback has been gathered and revisions are being made. I’m using submithub hot or not in ‘real-time’ in a way, which is probably a bad idea. I bought some credits on there and put it in for 50 feedbacks. It’s been overall doing well, however my grades on ‘production quality’ are low, lower than I expected. I thought I would average in the 70’s. I know im not as good is some other projects, but I feel like im upper middle tier in production quality the 70-80 range. (if there were even a tier system).
I made a bunch of adjustments to get the vocals to sit a little better, I widened up the overall sound , just because it seems like its commonly used in other things im listening to on hot or not.
I swapped the file and am now waiting to see if the rate of upvotes to downvotes changes on there.
When thinking about doing a track about algorithms , and discussing it on discord, I brought up how it was a difficult word for a song. I thought about various ways it could be said… I did the best I could with it. I did get a submithub comment on this that made me laugh:
On the track
This week on discord, a discussion about the Reddit algorithm came up. We were sort of talking about how there is no way to change how a subreddit behaves in its rankings.
A few days layer Gerry Wass pings me with a note that it might a cool track concept around the idea of “bow down to the algorithm”. Gerry .and I have some history with ‘challenges’, Wish Upon You, was a track I made in direct response to his suggestion to make a ‘vocal forward’ track. It was the first track where I really tried to use lyrics and singing as the main focus and feature. I very much still like that track and think its got a great vibe and message, and It got me out of my shell a little, so I appreciate it for that also.
I told him I would give it a shot, and I’m glad I did. Last week I was talking about timing posts to get position 1 on the IMF subreddit, where you are put onto subscribers ‘front page’ of Reddit, exposing my post to many more people. Most of my soundcloud plays come from Reddit posts, the better they do , the more people hear me in general.
I used Gerry’s idea to make this a light-hearted, dark comedy of sorts, that speaks to musicians out there trying to get heard, which is kind of a running theme in general with this project.
I did a bunch of new things on this track, and included most of the things I have learned up until this point all at once. Im applying pre-mastering for the first time on this release. Im using Ozone to try to widen out the stereo field.
Im also using trackspacer for the first time, ill write more about it later, but its a mixing tool that offers some pretty fantastic ways to bring out parts of a mix.
Whats new with the mastering?
I tried to make the track wider overall, and much wider in the chorus sections for clear sonic divide between the two sections.
I usually apply 0 mastering at all myself, I just export with master bypassed and put it into landr.
Im using the Izotope tools to widen the whole track as part of the master effects chain. I still dont fully understand this and will be playing with it more.
The Vocals
I put more time into vocal production on this one than i usually do by a good amount. Both in trying to get things to sit in the mix in a way i liked. Its still not great but I think its sounding at least half decent.
I want to record more vocals for the verses, I don’t think ill get an opportunity to do takes like this until the weekend. In the meantime I’m playing with effects, processing, busing the tracks and doing things to that.
I’m starting to think i can maybe get away without new takes by doing a more variety with effects and layers throughout the verses, especially the second one.
The first version did not have the ‘can you get me in the algorithm’ hook lines in the chorus, I added these after I got feedback to try to get a ‘certifiable hook’, I knew what the feedback was saying.
