A new song I recorded today - Adele "Someone like you" - Improvise

Have a great day!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoJiCEKStXQ&feature=youtu.be

Enjoyed that, Matty, nice clean playing. Thanks.

Just a suggestion, but if you bring the drums more to the front of the mix, you'd be doing yourself a big favour. The flams just aren't cutting through enough. It'd give the whole song more dynamic.

Hey 124,

How should I do that? Like increase the volume of the drums part?

Matty, I often find myself repeating this, but most of us tend to mix OUR playing too loud on top of the arranger's outputs. This is a natural tendency, wanting to hear yourself well, to make sure your timing is good, and you can concentrate on YOUR parts, but in a studio, once everything is laid down (with the musician able to hear their performance loud and clear), it is then MIXED so that everything is balanced and nothing dominates too much.

The trouble with an arranger is, there is no way to hear what YOU are playing loud and clear, and still have the main outputs be more balanced. The only way around this is, I'm afraid, getting used to playing and hearing YOURSELF at that lower, 'mixed' volume.

The way to do this is, first of all, listen to records, CD's whatever, in styles similar to what you are shooting for. Then record yourself playing the song, and then compare it to the record. Be brutal! Be critical! Don't worry too much about your playing (plenty of time later for that!), but concentrate mostly on the balances between parts. If you find, after recording, that you have somewhat buried the backing, back down the volume of the keyboard Parts, save the Performance, and re-record. Keep doing this until you think that the balance is back to closer to the record mix.

NOW... you need to get used to this, now lower, balance between you and the backing. It takes a while, but once you do, you will sound very polished and professional. It is quite strange - arranger players are almost the ONLY musicians that have to get used to hearing themselves (their parts rather than the accompaniment) lower than anyone else. The price we pay for playing along with the main mix, rather than having stage monitors to bump up OUR parts.

DIki,

Thanks so much for the advice. I will try that now actually haha Thanks so much.

As Diki says (in far more words than I ever use :)) just listen to recordings of the style of music you're playing and pay close attention to mix levels. Drums are usually well up there, and in dropping them back you lose 'punch'. Stay at it and your ear will become accustomedto it and you'll be ending up with a much better end product.

Actually this particular Adele ballad uses no drums.

Perhaps try a softer piano backing with no percussion and your nice recording may be even better, as with many songs less is better.

BTW...Nice playing Matt

Larry

Yep, but I was referring to Matty's other songs on You Tube. A little more crispness and drier drums I think would help. All this stuff is subjective anyway, so Maybe Matty likes the drums the way he has them set up. It's all good.

Thank you guys, Im open for all the feedback I can get. I'm still not happy with the overall sound...

It sounds so much better in person!