Hey guys
Been awhile since I’ve been on the forum. I thought I’d share a song I wrote called “Ocean Way”. Its about the slumber we find ourselves in in this zombie, robotic world and the search and longing for freedom thereof.
The track was recorded and mixed with Cubase 7 and the new Steinberg UR22.
Its a dreamy tune, with an interesting ending. Enjoy. 
Cheers, Chris
Dreamy it is definitely! I feel it was just way too long before you bring in some drums at 3:30, I think it would make the song more interesting if you bring it in earlier. And a little thin with only the piano in the first part, if it was my song I would bring in some strings, but each one to its own. I just think if you want to make it more commercial you can build it with more percussion and strings, the tune is beautiful and great vox! Michael
Thanks Michael, ya the aim here was “dreamy”, almost a musical background for a spiritual road trip video 
Ya truth be told I try’d to steer clear of a commercial radio edit here. This tune you might listen to when sitting on the edge of the Grand Canyon puffing on a cigar and pondering lifes great mystery’s
Thanks for the listen man and thoughts, appreciated
Cheers, Chris
just brilliant !!..more like a tone poem than a song if you don’t mind me saying…intro a touch long but you do keep it interesting and I love the unconventional approach…great listen !!!..Kevin
tone poem… will remember that one for next time Thanks Kevin
I too really like this, my kind of stuff. I would just say commercial and radio friendly is greatly overrated
I do understand what was said about drums, I think its not so much waiting so long to bring the groove in but that they are just there all of a sudden to me. Maybe use ride cymbals/hat in the gentle part of tune maybe even an occasional Tom or something. I know that is hard to do with a drum program 
so maybe on another note no drums at all When the body of tune stands on it’s own so well who needs them?.. Just rambling but thought I’d throw those idea out for u to ponder
Kenny
I usually leave comments about drum kits to others.
At the beginning of the piece, those effects are very nice. But from a composers perspective, given how long it takes for the vocals to enter, you should really have at least a fragment (but identifiable as the main melody from the song) at the beginning. It’d sound nice on a string section. The intro is too long for a commercial song (and without any form of melody, fragmented or full it’s also nice, but fails to keep my attention for how long it is.) So as a demo to a record label, I’d really cut it in half and have the opening vocal melody played on strings, in full or just a fragment as I said.
Your voice has a very nice tone and control to it, as I said about one of your past pieces. It’s very pleasant to hear, especially at the higher pitches.
At 3:25 I think you should have a half a bar break (or whatever is a couple seconds of audio) and have a couple of drum hits just before every other instrument enters and I also think that there should be more instruments at this point, a string section, electric guitars sustaining power chords,some subtle synths that you can’t really hear, but add texture and fill in a certain timbre/frequency/space in the mix. I just think it’s such a let down after the previous part of the song. As a listener you really want everything coming in powerful at 3:25 after a couple of seconds of no audio (although some reverb tails, or some effect) with full dynamics to really send chills down your spine and then bring it down again for the end. I think if you did get signed to a record label, they would also want you to do this and I think doing that would just be better for the song in any listening/audience situation. It’s really lacking a string section for 3:25 onwards. For the type of piece it is, I know that it’d sound a million times better with properly scored strings, not just any random orchestration. I could score it no problem and I’d be happy to if you’d want that but I’m not sure how it’d work to actually get the two together in the mix.
But speaking of the drums, the drums really should be playing fully at 3:25 in conjunction with the above suggestions.
Other than that, really great stuff, good sense of melody and performance.
Hi Chris, you really have a good voice !! I listened again, and I get the spiritual road trip thing, it all makes sense now. Will be excellent for use in a video/movie. I fully agree with Jonathan about the 3:25 break, I paused and imagine some big drum fills before restarting again, I think it will have great potential, and as he said, at that point fill it more with supporting strings or instruments. Really good to listen to this. Michael
Other than that, really great stuff, good sense of melody and performance.
Hey Jonathan5456, man you’ve given me a lot to think about and I really appreciate your in depth review of Ocean Way.
I will ponder over your suggestions and try them out. In terms of the string section composition I would be interested to see what you can come up with. In a sense a do agree with a fuller sound after 3:25. Coming from playing in bands etc, when I write music I always tend to picture how it would be played in real life, I have a tendancy to not over do things to a point where a possible live performance would be over shadowed by an over the top production. Which you see in many bands these days, there live shows are just nothing like the record
Anyway if you keen to give a string composition a bash then we can chat further
thanks again 
Cheers, Chris
Hey Michael, thanks! Yeah that was the idea behind this song. Some of my mates ride Harley’s and Triumphs, those old school bikes, so we gonna put together a sort of adventure video. Thinking of having this song as one of the backing tracks to the beautiful scenery
Cheers, Chris
Just PM me if you wish to talk further or send a link to a wav or mp3 so that I can import it and have a play around with some string parts.
Wonderful piece 
Personally, I don’t have any issue with songs that take some time to develop, as long as they maintain my interest. This did that. When the first chorused vocal came in I couldn’t understand it. BTW, I love your voice, and the treatment of it is perfect. For me, the song moved along at a nice pace, I wasn’t wanting drums, etc at any given point as some have suggested. I’m not saying those comments are illegitimate, but sometimes I think we can take these “commercial” expectations too far. BTW – what IS the fluttery sound? It adds NOTHING to the song, and is very distracting