mon fromage ....

[nozzles]

A little request for some music therapy. You write a song. It's a nice song. Then you begin to record and within about 10 session hours it turns to cheese - David Fosteresque fromage. You add a pad, maybe light piano, several guitars, horns background oohs and aahs, a synthetic bass and random stuff from the Xpand2 presets and VOILA! Fromage. How do you keep your stuff from getting cheesy?!!?!? I haven't even slathered the snare drum in reverb ... yet!
Thanks in advance

[necjamc]

Add dirt. And use more room like reverbs. Not cathedral but stairways and wood rooms. Like you hear in a great log cabin. I. Find reverbs and clarity sometimes makes the most cheesiest songs. Using a lofi dirty guitar dry as dirt can make a difference as well. My thoughts of course but cheese comes in many varieties and every one has their own taste :)

[Craig F]

as I was told once by Bill Kennedy "Mute is a very powerful tool"

[Dism]

The tendency to overproduce is rampant these days. It's hard not to, with all the tools we have available to us... it really comes down to the decision to NOT put things in.

Leave it out, keep it simple.

Remember the elements that made the song good in the first place; you aren't trying to drown them out... you are trying to compliment them.

[nozzles]

Exactly. Same rules apply to songs: space. Less is more. But that's the trick, with all the tools available .... it's like grocery shopping when you're hungry! Sometimes when you have a song organized and scratch tracks down, the focus leaves you and you can travel off in different directions ....

Thanks guys!

[YYR123]

your style your taste your liking


most people emulate the things and the sounds they like.

if your really into skynrd then you will gravitate toward that sound…..but that is from a writer/artist/engineering point of view….

a producer (whom we assume can conjure up a swath of styles and likings) brings out what the artist is showing him and refines it and pushes it forward

If you mean by cheesy by way of let's just say barry manilow (although i don't listen to barry and couldn't recall two tracks he sung) we must admit that there was a niche for him……..

import your favorite style track - in the genre of your song and use it as a guide for sound - sculpting……..

my $ 0.02