Steely Dan Anyone?

Yea: Stream and listen to music online for free with SoundCloud
Originals mixed with Covers. I’d Like some feedback.

Jack

PS: I to have a License for Covers, but With the abuse I took from a Former Steinberg
employee ( His name is “GUEST” now) a couple of years ago,
over posting a Cover of the Beatles “GETTING BETTER” its not
worth it to me. YouTube does have Standard License’s that
folks can qualify for—Maybe Steinberg should look into
the same, to protect themselves from Hungrey Lawyers.

Very nice version, Phil. Good job on the solos - I like how they had the flavor of the original, but without
copping the riffs entirely.

The backup vocal blend is sweet - but I do think they’re a bit strong in the mix. bring them down a dB or 2 and I think
you’re golden!

I say we do a lounge collab of the song Aja. We’ve got the talent around to pull that off!

Phil: Why don’t you try Recording the “WHOLE” Can’t Buy a Thrill album.
I use to play alot of this album’s songs Live a few years ago with one of my Bands and
IMO you just recorded the hardest song on the Album.

Jack

Hi…had a look at your soundcloud page…some nice stuff on there but it’s a bit difficult to spot which tracks are original, I’m not a fan of covers and am more interested in hearing your original stuff…Kevin

If they are all original…then…well done…Kevin

Cheers guys,

Bunch of replies:

With the abuse I took…

Jack: Yes I know what you mean - Trolls will always try and spoil your mood though eh. It is just jealousy and ignorance and doesn’t phase me in the slightest tbh. Especially when hidden behind a nickname and you know that person would never dare speak to you face to face that way. Ignore and add as “Foe” in the phpBB CP that way you never see their posts ever again.

Originals mixed with Covers. I’d Like some feedback.

Following you on SoundCloud now. Obviously as of just now so have not listened to anything yet.

Very nice version, Phil. Good job on the solos - I like how they had the flavour of the original, but without
copping the riffs entirely.

Thanks Lenny. That Chorus block vocal is tricky. It varies depending on what you listening source is. Usually safer to do these things central in mono, especially as it is actually a lead line although there is no really defined “lead” line but I decided to spread it out a bit. I always end up fixing the mix a few times after doing the first one though - I think this is on Version 3 already lol. But normally if it were a proper project I wouldn’t put it outside the studio until listening on various systems and doing all those fixes.

I have uploaded another version though. This time I feel the HH are too loud. LOL. Hey let’s be honest - When are we ever 100% happy with a mix? Even when I sent off Nasty Girl (Inaya Day) for pressing (it was Top 10 in UK Charts 2005) I was not happy with the final mix. Hehe.

And yes played straight through without referring to the original. the only way really, otherwise to me, it is a copy and not your own version I guess.

I say we do a lounge collab of the song Aja. We’ve got the talent around to pull that off!

That would be awesome. Using VST Connect? Set it up - I’m in. And needless to say Aja is one of my all time favourite bits of Dan. I think my total fave is still Babylon Sisters though.

Hi…had a look at your soundcloud page…some nice stuff on there but it’s a bit difficult to spot which tracks are original, I’m not a fan of covers and am more interested in hearing your original stuff…Kevin

Thanks again Kevin, I wouldn’t call this a “cover” - Its a “tribute”. LOL. And to be honest I have learned a heck of a lot from doing covers. I used to do music for Pioneer Laser Disks (shudder I know) but dissecting some famous pieces of music (full arrangement of Get Me to The Church On Time an entire album of SAW, Marc Bolan, Chaka Khan etc.) and recreating them in detail taught me a heck of a lot about song structure, arrangement and mixing.

If they are all original…then…well done…Kevin

Actually they are. The only "covers " are marked as covers (There are 2 - This one and Riff Raff - ACDC with no vocal). All the “Riffs & Rays” stuff are from my dance remix company. “Digital 96” stuff are also original tracks.

I do have another SoundCloud for my live show which are all (licensed) covers - Gotta pay the bills.

I agree my main SoundCloud is mess though. I need to organise it better. Any suggestions on how you guys have organised your SC would be welcome.

You may be interested to have a look at our little Facebook group: Advanced Cubase Users | Facebook (ignore the “advanced” bit it is just a title). Very good bunch of folks and zero trolls. We also have SC Group: https://soundcloud.com/groups/advanced-cubase-users All original stuff from very varied areas.

Finally thanks again for the positive chat guys - Great stuff.

P

Great playing! thanks for sharing info on Limelight https://www.songclearance.com/, I will recommend them to clients as easy way to do this.

I was afraid you were going to ask me that!

Nice guitar tone Phil! Good pro sound. Sometimes it’s the first take that has the magic. The rest are copies!
I too get real critical of takes and mixes but overthinking can get in the way. Sometimes it’s better to rest it for a couple weeks then come back with a fresh ear.

I had the pleasure of playing a small corporate gig a couple years ago with Jeff “Skunk” Baxter in the audience all night!
I was so disappointed that I didn’t find out till the end of the night after he left! Def would have had him come up and jam!

Wow - The Skunk in your audience… Stunning mate.

nb. I have attached the license to the first post in this thread.

Hi Phil,

I’m a big Steely Dan fan, so I’m usualy very critical when I hear a cover, but this is done very well!
Nice playing and singing.

Cheers,
Wim

BTW: Count me in for the ‘Aja’ cover, I’d love to do the sax parts.

Also a Steely Dan fan, and big thumbs up on your cover. If you did all that from memory, your memory is WAY better than mine.

Thanks guys,

I grew up with this stuff and played along with it and of course played it and sung it in various bands over the distant passed years. I don’t read music so my ear and memory have always been exceptional. So yes all from memory. there would not be much point in doing it otherwise.

But it isn’t hard, it’s a basic rock tune when you boil it down.

Babylon Sisters - Now that is hard. Apparently even Fagen himself couldn’t remember that one when they went out live.

Yeah, we played a few SD tunes back in the day. Most of them aren’t “hard”, it is just hard to sound good doing them. Bohdisatvha, or however you spell it, was another fun one.

Sounds great, Phil!

If I had anything to critique it would be that the drums sound a little sterile and “drum machine-y”.

The guitars sound really natural and clean. How did you record them? I’m going to assume some type of modeling is being used? Almost sounds too refined to be a mic on amp, but I could be wrong … it happens all the time .

I’ve always loved this tune. You’ve done well .

Thats a great job Phil.

i did not realise all the instruments were done in Cubase. Very well done !!

i thought some of the drum-pushes did not sit quite as well as they could, but thats all.

The vocal harmonies on the chrous are truly wonderful !!

Best,

Paul

Cheers guys,

Very kind of you.

This was a real rush job to be honest - Hence the drums being totally rough and indeed the Lead Vox are first take including very bad timing and I think I even sang “Twip” instead of “Trip” in the last verse. If / When I get round to it I will of course tidy them up and make them more realistic as I would normally do. But then again, is there any point, it is done now…

The guitars (I think I mentioned this above) are Variax in Telecaster mode + Guitar Rig 5 using my own patches, A couple of UAD plugins on the git groups. If anyone would like the patches or plugin presets etc. gimme a shout.

The BVs are my forte and I find this very easy.

Just sit and start with the lowest line, do 4 of them.
Then add whatever is next - 4 of them (or more if you like but ion this case it was 4 of each).
etc.
Pan appropriately.
The top harmony is a horrible Monty Python style falsetto but when there are enough of them and it is pulled down in the mix they blend nicely.

As mentioned this was done from memory so I have no idea if the harmonies are accurate to the original. I did remember the extra melody line that is heard as “ye-e-e-ars” on the second half of every chorus which is quite important. And the straight note on all “years” / “tears” that adds to the thickness that is only a tone away from the main “melody”.

So I build up about 24 vocals very quickly -For this kind of thing I like to work very fast (The BVS took about 45 mins to sing).

Assign each group of 4 to a group track - This can then be gated and comped etc.
Then the groups are used to mix the overall balance and assigned to master BV group.
Oh and I also took a bit of time to smooth out all Esses at the end of “Years/Tears” - Again this should have been done when recording but… Yup rushing ahead.

Laziness showed again too - As I had increased the tempo by a couple of BPM leading into each guitar solo - I was not inclined to sing all the choruses separately even though they are at differing tempos - So into musical mode and copy paste - So unfortunately, all choruses are the exact same block. I hate doing that but there you go. I feel especially bad about that on this track because there is no “lead line” as such to cover up the same-ness of the blocks.

Just for added info: Bass is Omnispehere. Drums + Percussion SD2. Pianos - Grand 3 and Lounge Lizard 4.

I really don’t know what made me post this up here as I am not a big fan of covers myself and as you probably know, I do mainly write originals - I think it is just that I loved the song so much and of course it was 100% done in Cubase 7.

And really appreciate the discussion and positive remarks and criticism guys thank you.

I really don’t think it’s necessary to buy the license just to cover posting it here or even SoundCloud. Most bands/artists won’t care or are honoured that people enjoy playing the music they wrote. Of course, it depends how much say the band/artist still has in their music. But you should just write to the band/publisher really, I can’t imagine they’d have a problem. I also find it hard to believe that people with tens of millions of views have payed $50,000+ in licensing fees. The advertisement revenue wouldn’t even be a tenth of that and 100% of that advertising goes to the original publisher anyway by default. So either all these cover artists are rich already or they’ve obtained permission by writing to the band/artist/publisher.

You’re at 137 views on SoundCloud. So the 100 interactive streaming license you paid for is now void and you’ll need to buy another 100 to cover you from 101-200 (or more.) The more views you get over time you’ll be constantly having to pay for more. Expensive hobby if you do it that way :-/

Hi Jonathan, for me, it is not a hobby (although in this case it was indeed just a bit of fun - However I am considering a release along with some originals later in the year) and I take licensing very seriously.

I do get royalties for my own released work and I definitely feel it is important that others do too.

I also feel the same about software - I lose at least 50% of my revenue from MEAP due to piracy (for example) - but anyway that’s a whole other story…

The extension is already applied for btw.

If you look at my SC you will see that some tracks have had almost 5000 plays. They are all licensed either by me or in conjunction with the appropriate record labels.

So - Please can we discuss the music and not licensing here. After all this is the “Made with Cubase” area of the forum - If you would like to discuss the licensing issues maybe start another thread in the Lounge. It may be interesting.

Do you have any links to your own music? - It would be great to hear it.

Thank you.

Oh I wasn’t trying to flame or critize or anything like that, I personally enjoy covers (well, decent ones ) and although as I said somewhere above I’m not familiar with the original I think your cover sounds good quality anyway. It’s a shame I’m not familiar with the original or I’d probably have had a more detailed critique as I usually give

The company EWQL designed their own software/sample player for their sample libraries (which I like but hopefully the 4th version will be on the same bench as Kontakt performance-wise.) They stopped using Kontakt because of how easy it is to pirate Kontakt based libraries and they too lost large % of money like you’ve said. The company 8Dio decided to use Kontakt for their libraries, but develop a watermarking technique, so anyone buying the library and distributing it illegally can very easily do so but will be identified immediately.

Nah, cba to start an entire thread dedicated to the laws of licensing covers lol.

I have a thread titled ‘Ascension’ some way down the page if you’re interested and some fantasy and Disney on some pages probably quite far back now