Rexy Posted February 6, 2021 Share Posted February 6, 2021 (edited) Not mentioned in the email, but this track features Tiggs on vocals. -Rexy RebeccaETripp Rebecca Tripp http://www.crystalechosound.com/ ID: 48262 Game(s): FF7 Song Title: Tifa’s Love Songs Remixed: Tifa’s Theme Edited November 29, 2021 by MindWanderer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted April 9, 2021 Share Posted April 9, 2021 the original is one of my favorites from an album of favorites. the opening strings are surprisingly unrealistic. the attacks sound super off and the gap between notes reminds me of one of those synthy pads. really stuck out to me for some reason. tiggs has a great voice. i can't understand half of these vocals, though - there's very little enunciation and she scoops a ton (a stylistic choice, but it buries her consonants). she demonstrates the ability to control her vibrato as well (for example, 0:57 is beautiful) but then weaponizes it in other spots (1:13). i think at least part of that is on the odd way that some of the lyrics sit. for example, "can you remember, the things you taught me" has -ber and me being the high notes in the phrase - which totally throws off the line's phrasing. the background for this entire first section is pretty simple, but it's pretty. the strings in the background feel pretty slow as well - i like the idea of the vins supporting the singer in unison, but they're a bit behind and aren't rhythmically as close as i'd expect. at 1:55 we get a more fleshed-out backing part that still feels a little slow moving between notes. the vibes at 2:17 were really nice. the non-transition at 2:30 was so sudden however though that i thought my audio was messed up - it's dramatic, it's not supported by the backing parts, and the part is obviously a separate take that was not dovetailed in cleanly. plus, from a technical standpoint, it sounds like she's trying to use her breath to control some of the attacks, which is a big no-no and reinforces what sounds like a significant lack of air support. i think a big part of this is that it's super high, probably at the top of tiggs' performance range or just above, and there's at least a little trepidation that i can hear. tiggs, if you're gonna sing something super high, go for it! get a good room, turn down the mic gain, and go after it. it sounds like you're trying to fit your voice into the backing track rather than rebecca fitting the backing track around your voice. prepare your body to sing high, get a good breath, and focus on letting those higher notes soar out of you instead of worrying about intonation and perfectly setting each pitch on the shelf. you can fix the intonation in post, you can't fix a weak- or nervous-sounding timbre. this whole thing is also undermined by a total lack of support in the ensemble at this part. this should be the high-point of the track compositionally in terms of breadth of backing, and it's just the piano, strings, and some mallets. if your singer's going to jump an octave and be singing some big airy passage on top, she is going to need support. this needs significantly more going on behind it to fill up the space left by tiggs leaving that frequency range, or else it's going to sound unbalanced and unprepared. that's a lot of words about like fifteen seconds, but it's the most important fifteen seconds of the track, and it's indicative of a bigger issue, which is that rebecca hangs tiggs out to dry for like half the track. several times i can hear where the background part is mirroring tiggs' voice but it's not in time, or where she's being asked to sing long sustained notes with super minimal background behind her. these are minor by themselves but add up too quickly. as if on cue, rebecca really starts to fill out the backing part after 2:47, with lots of moving backgrounds and a focus on tiggs' beautiful mid-range tone. there's a nice outro that features flute and harp, and it ends after that with a little prelude callout. i wrote a lot of stuff and it probably sounds like i hate this track. i don't! i think there's some beautiful parts in here, and as a vehicle to show off tiggs' voice this is effective and pretty. i think that tiggs needs to use some more consonants throughout, and i think that there's some lyric jank that makes it hard to follow and understand the words. for her part, i think that rebecca needs to take another look at the leadup to 2:30 through about 2:50 and figure out what she wants to do there - either beef up the part writing significantly (which probably will allow a re-record by tiggs to let her take another shot at that higher material with more support), or keep tiggs down an octave and generate interest through more exploratory melodic writing instead. the middle section is difficult to hear. i found the lyrics overall hard to understand. the writing for the first half is effective but pretty simple, and it's only really in the second half we get a significant amount of composition happening. for this to get a YES vote from me, 2:30 needs to get ironed out, the slow vins need to be un-slowed (probably by some level of early triggers) and mapped more convincingly to the singer's voice, and not required but highly encouraged would be another take by tiggs with a heavier focus on consonants and clarity of words. this is a great concept but it's being held back right now. 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DragonAvenger Posted October 18, 2021 Share Posted October 18, 2021 Dang, Tiggs has got an impressive range. You go girl! That being said, I feel like the vocals are hitting some very light clipping almost throughout the track. There sounds like there is a light crackle throughout, which is distracting. Not sure how fixable it is, if it's a production thing or if it's from the recording itself. Hopefully something easier to fix than a re-record. Brad wrote a lot. And he's got a lot of good advice. My main crits on the arrangement are that there are some parts that definitely are feeling a little stiff overall, and that the backing doesn't always line up with the vocals. I think the issues aren't a super deal on their own, but with the vocals sounding crackly it just adds up. I think this needs another pass to get those fixed up. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted November 29, 2021 Share Posted November 29, 2021 I waffled on this one for a while. Tiggs clearly has an amazing voice, but it's true that it's just not being used to its full potential. While her range is indeed impressive, it's not as impressive as this track demands. It swings from contralto to soprano and even then forces her to jump octaves to fit everything in. 2:35 is just egregious. If she can't stay in the same register throughout this section--small wonder, and no fault of hers--the part should be pitched down a couple of notes. Find her high note and write around it. Otherwise, yeah, read everything proph wrote and take it to heart. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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