Need some advice...

[crs117]

i used to be a regular here on the duc but i have been out of recording mostly for the last several years. anyway...in the past year everything in my life basically has fallen apart...including my health as of december. so i started writing (i used to be a christian artist) real stuff from my pain and i did 4 mini recording sessions to capture my songs. i now have a compilation of 11 good completed songs (out of all the other stuff) and i dont know where to go.

i got soooo tired of doing all the real production stuff because to be honest a pristine sounding over produced cd is really easy for folks to make any more with even the cheapest of equipment with enough time that the novelty has pretty much worn off. besides by the time i get done finishing a fully produced cd i hate the music sooooo much i cant listen to it anymore....or even care if its perfect because i am ready to move on. so for these recordings i simply set up a single rode ntk tube mic->ran it into my 002 and recorded each song straight through...mess ups and all. to be honest i actually recorded each song pretty much within a couple of days of finishing writing them so i am not even good as singing them yet...but its honest.

long story short...i am almost out of money and i am trying my hardest to find a way to see if my music is good enough to make it. i am having a heck of a time to get the ears i want to hear to listen, but every normal person that i have given a cd to pretty much tells me that it has stayed in their cd player for over a week and they know the words to my songs better than me. i know a lot of folks on here and have dealt personally with many but i need some honest ears and some advice on how to get from point a to point b in the secular music world.

not safe for work cause of some lyrical content.

my music can be found....

www.christiansummermusic.com
www.myspace.com/christiansummermusic

if you want to contact me...

[email protected]

thanks for listening...and any advice.

-c

[Ben Jenssen]

Nice recording and wonderful performance, Christian.
I cant help you with advice or anything, just wanted to say you really have something.
Dont give up.

Give it a listen, folks!

[superpenguin79]

Christian: I can't say I've listened to the music to critique the arrangements, production, playing..etc.. caus I don't have a good set of speakers in front of me at the moment honestly.

I can however completely agree with you that I'm sick of all the pristine production crap out there and that there is nothing better than just laying out a raw performance and letting it shape its own. I've sorta been contemplating a new record in just that direction myself lately and did an acoustic one with no overdubs of instrumental stuff last year and released it... sure I didn't have major label backing or the $$ to launch it properly, but its the feeling of just laying it out like you hear it in your head that counts.

I will give your tunes a listen later when I'm on a system with speakers and post back though man. peace

[superpenguin79]

Christian: as promised here's my 2 cents on the 5 songs from your site that you can download. I'm not much for those high fangled flash players and myspace accounts honestly..

anyways, please take my critique with a grain of salt caus I am on my first cup o' coffee for the morning... hehe

Your strong suite in the 5 I listened to are "Living now" and "Upside Down". imho, these are the 2 that are ready for production at this point if I were an A&R guy again ready to make a record... haven't done that for a long time though.. On "Upside Down", I might suggest as far as the arrangement, the riff is refreshing and the chorus has a great pick up to it to get the toes tapping. I would however suggest working a 3rd verse into it somehow as that last chorus just doesn't fit right without something before it..

Over all, the playing on all the tracks has a bluesy/pop vibe which is cool. If you were able to take any of the tracks into production sometime in the future with a full group, I can already hear piano, drums, guitars, bass, and vox sorta along the lines of a Gavin Degraw type project.. The demo's are cool though caus its like you're playing a live gig and even though you cut them raw, they have a polished sound already caus of PT.

imho though man, stick with it caus anything in life as songwriters is worth it. You win some and you lose some, but in the end its all about sticking with it and doing what you love to do more than anything else man. I could definately see a record out of these tunes though with a full band arrangement. Goodluck with the tunes man. peace

[crs117]

all...

thanks for listening for those that have. sorry i am late in responding cause i had to go out of town. my little sister got hit by a truck on thursday night and so i went to be with her. she is out of icu now and is going to be okay...but she is pretty damn lucky.

ben...

thanks for the compliments. it means a lot coming from a fellow pt user.

superp...

thanks for listening. i am sorry that my site is all weird and stuff...i just try to make it where if somebody looks me up...they dont have to jump through hurdles to hear my music...thus the flash players (which i cant imagine not working on most any machine anymore).

its funny you pick out upside down as a strong song. i think it is my weakest of the bunch as far as actual lyrical content and vocal performance. most folks like it though cause of the guitar alone. still a good song...but not one of my favorites. i will tell you what i will post direct links to a couple of mp3's of my songs here (i didnt want to do it at first because of content) just so that i feel as though those looking to hear some of my stronger songs dont have to go far.

i am not sure if you heard beautiful but it was the last song recorded...and perhaps the one that people love the most.

beautiful

by myself

take me home (the very first song of this recording)

take me home


sick for you


living now

now i know that the concept for albums as being complete works of art instead of just a compilation of collected songs is sort of outdated. i will say that this music is much more enjoyable in the context of the whole album. not only do you hear the evolution of my voice from january when i started to now but you also get to see the range of emotions i have been through and it ends on quite a positive note. i also left a couple of tracks of me talking about the songs on the cd.

all i know is that i have an ipod with nearly 25 gigs of really good music i have collected over the years and the only thing i listened to while driving nearly 20 hours (over 1,500 miles) was my cd and i listened through jeff buckly's grace album perhaps 4 times (only 40 minutes i think). i have never been really moved by my own original stuff which is why i think that it is not bad.

anyway thanks for listening.

-c

[dave2005]

Sorry to hear about things falling apart! hey, things will get better! Also, regarding pitching music, I'm in L.A. and its rough everywhere! Go to music seminars and network with panelists, etc. Drop off CD's to people - that's about all you can do.