EPTI'm currently the music director of an all-male collegiate a cappella group at UCLA. We're currently in the process of recording an album. For those of you who don't know, the majority of collegiate a cappella nowadays is recorded in home studios, one voice at a time.
After the tracks are recorded, you can send them out to an editing engineer who will clean and tune your tracks and then a mixing engineer who will mix the tracks. We're fortunate enough to be working with some of the best in the business, and we recently got our first mix back from our mixing engineer.
Anyway, the song we got back is a cover (almost all a cappella is covers) of OneRepublic's song "Say (All I Need)". I think it turned out well. After we got the first mix back, I sent our mixing engineer some comments and he sent back a second draft. My predicament now is trying to choose which draft I like better. My mixing engineer said I should get some opinions of people I trust, and so I'm coming here to ask people here at TL.net.
I've uploaded both drafts here:
http://soundcloud.com/bruinharmony
There are quite a few differences between the drafts. I can end up choosing which one of those differences I like on the final draft, so I thought I'd see what you guys think about the differences. What do you like about the draft(s)? What do you dislike? Which one do you like better? It should be noted that the second draft (Say-draft2b) is more finely tuned in the solo, and the final draft will have the lead vocal tuned, so you can disregard that if you were going to comment on that. I have my own thoughts on certain differences, but I don't want you guys to focus on the details that I point out. I'd rather let you guys hear them on your own.
Anyway, I welcome any input you guys have, regardless of how much you know about music. After all, when we release, it'll be all sort of people who listen to the album. It should be noted that all sounds on this track were created by us. There are no instruments, though there is a quite a bit of studio magic going on. If you're interested in hearing more collegiate a cappella, I can definitely help turn you to some of the better groups out there. I really want to get a broad spectrum of opinions, and I think TL.net, being one of the communities I'm most involved in, would be a great place to get input.
If you guys like the music or are willing to offer more comments on more songs, I'd be glad to post future mixes up here as well for input. By the way, since the album is not yet released, I'd appreciate you guys not spread this link around too much (not that you would want to). It's technically a copyright violation because we don't have the license to release the song yet. Please don't screw me over.
Thanks! I appreciate any help you guys can give me.
