Conor Furlong - Two Free Songs

conor.furlong

Hi Everyone,

You can now download two songs for free from my website:

www.conorfurlong.com

The songs are:

"Are You Gonna Sleep Tonight?"
"Godless"

I hope you like them. If you do, please spread the word.

Thank you!

Conor.

Miguel_Sanchez

Moved to Pimp Your Band

500x

Hi Conor,

I took a listen to your two free tracks. Typical of me… Can’t resist free stuff!

About Me:

I’m an average musician in every way, but I do think I can appreciate things I hear. A basic education in this area has stood to me somewhat, and has hopefully given me a slight grounding when it comes to forming constructive opinions.

In saying that, as with most people… I like what I like, and when I hear music that sounds bad to me… I switch off sharpish!

General Observations:

1)

I listened on headphones. The production is mixed very well to my phone clad ears. I’d like to hear it on my home sound system; I just might burn them if you don’t mind.

2)

Both tracks sound very interesting, in that they held my attention from start to end. I would like to hear them recorded with an exciting drummer though; I think the percussion was the only thing that let them down slightly.

3)

The mixing, and the instrument separation sounds great (I love wide stereo mixes, always have done).

4)

You’ve a very interesting lead electric guitar tone. It shouldn’t work on those songs, but somehow it does. It doesn’t only work, it sounds great. What are you using? Your lead parts are not rich in dynamics, they are not flashy; generally I wouldn't consider them good or awesome examples of guitaring… but, somehow they are. I love them! Wish I could play with such a minimalistic and high-impact style.

5)

Are you trying to grab a particular artist’s style by adding so much reverb to your vocal tracks? The effect is capturing, and I do think it adds a little bit of ‘something’ to the songs… However, I can’t help but think that you really don’t need anything added to your vocal tracks at all. You’ve a great voice; the ‘verb is kind of distracting to me, and in my humble opinion it takes away from the superb vocal performance.

6)

It sounds to me like each song is sonically layered. There is the basic acoustic guitar tracks, giving everything a pretty Earthy foundation (ha ha). On top of this bass there seems to be layers of instruments, sounds and in some cases harmonies. This is probably a very basic and normal way of writing songs (I wouldn’t know), but it is quite apparent and gives your songs super dynamics.

7)

A pet dislike of mine is ‘pick noise’ when listening to acoustic guitars being strummed. This is a very personal thing, and well hey, Bob Dylan obviously likes the sound of his pick on strings and who am I to argue… but this is my review! I would prefer your acoustic tracks to have less pick noise. Choice of pick, microphone placement and probably lots more can minimise it (if you want to… you probably don’t), but there it is.

Godless:

1)

I really like the minimalistic introduction, and when I got to the end and heard it was the closing part of the song… Well, what can I say? Inspired, excellent! I’ve always been a fan of the Ternary Form.

2)

As I said in the ‘General Observations’ section, I love a wide stereo mix. I like it even more when there are different things going on in each field. That little two-part harmony thing you have in the refrain of the song is simple, but so damn captivating.

3)

There’s a great demonstration of your vocal abilities in this song. Although the whole male falsetto thing doesn’t appeal to me (it’s just a personal dislike on my part), I do think you do it quite well. Very controlled and precise.

4)

The guitar solo in this song grabbed me! Love it, well done.

5)

This song in particular would really benefit from an interesting and technical drummer’s input. I think because everything else in the song is so dramatic and harmonious, the lack of inspiring drumming is kind of sticking out.

Are You Gonna Sleep Tonight:

1)

Of the two songs, this was my favourite. Dramatic is the word that comes to mind!

2)

I absolutely love the ethereal sounding track that is there from the start and which re-appears through out the ‘verse’ sections of the song. It’s those descending arpeggiated chord repetition parts, they’re just great.

3)

When the ‘chorus’ parts kick in, it’s like a dynamic rush. It’s all very nice, which is also enhanced by your nice big wide stereo mix.

4)

I’m not exactly sure what instruments I’m hearing (or what I’m supposed to be hearing) in this song, particularly in the ‘chorus’ sections.

5)

I really like the ‘aaaah’s (this is going back to the layering idea) in the ‘chorus’ section of the song, but I think they could come up a little bit in the mix.

6)

You finished off the song just beautifully. I’ve heard Roger Waters using that ‘total breakdown’ technique on the later Floyd stuff and his solo albums, and it is just so effective.

Conclusion:

Both songs are great. I found it hard to find negatives to be honest, but I tried to make the review somewhat balanced. Very well done, and I am envious of your abilities as a musician and song writer.

Tony Murray

conor.furlong

Wow, thank you very much, Tony!

It's responses like yours that make giving away music for free worthwhile!

Thank you so much for taking the time and effort to tell me your thoughts on the songs and give them such a thorough review. I really appreciate it. I am actually quite taken aback by your generous words.

I'm obviously thrilled that you like my songs. Hopefully you might come to one of my gigs and I can meet you and thank you in person.

Conor.

pinksoir

Really like both of those songs. I have to say though that the mixing is quite poor in places. The vocal just sounds too separate from the rest. I'd agree with Tony's sentiments about the drumming too. Was it self recorded?

But songwriting-wise, ideas-wise and production wise they're both right up my street.

conor.furlong

pinksoir wrote: »

Really like both of those songs. I have to say though that the mixing is quite poor in places. The vocal just sounds too separate from the rest. I'd agree with Tony's sentiments about the drumming too. Was it self recorded?

But songwriting-wise, ideas-wise and production wise they're both right up my street.

Thanks, pinksoir! Delighted you like the songs.

I wrote, arranged, performed & produced them myself in my home studio. They're just demos. I'd obviously like to record them in a proper studio with a world class producer & engineer. Having said this, I am immensely proud of the recordings.

pinksoir

Thought so. I did the same with the demos for my album. It's definitely great from the point of view of getting ideas down for arrangements and productiony stuff. It really is worth paying for a good studio/engineer though, so don't scrimp on that. You have good songs, with good arrangements. I wouldn't really be concerned with getting a 'world class producer'. It seems that you have your own ideas for the production, if you know what you want do it yourself. The more people involved, the more your own ideas get watered down.

Judging from those two songs alone I can tell that you probably have ideas of how each song on the album should sound. If you demo all your songs, so as you can work out arrangements you like for each of them, the you can find a good studio with a good engineer and record them properly. The job of the engineer, aside from mixing etc, is to find a way to translate what you want, production wise, into a reality. The job of the producer is greatly over-exaggerated in most people's minds. If you have a clear idea of what you want, self produce.

EDIT: You should be proud of those recordings, they sound good for home studio jobs. But I certainly wouldn't consider releasing them in that form if I were you. It instantly affects other's perception of your music. Your album is your calling card.

conor.furlong

pinksoir wrote: »

Thought so. I did the same with the demos for my album. It's definitely great from the point of view of getting ideas down for arrangements and productiony stuff. It really is worth paying for a good studio/engineer though, so don't scrimp on that. You have good songs, with good arrangements. I wouldn't really be concerned with getting a 'world class producer'. It seems that you have your own ideas for the production, if you know what you want do it yourself. The more people involved, the more your own ideas get watered down.

Judging from those two songs alone I can tell that you probably have ideas of how each song on the album should sound. If you demo all your songs, so as you can work out arrangements you like for each of them, the you can find a good studio with a good engineer and record them properly. The job of the engineer, aside from mixing etc, is to find a way to translate what you want, production wise, into a reality. The job of the producer is greatly over-exaggerated in most people's minds. If you have a clear idea of what you want, self produce.

EDIT: You should be proud of those recordings, they sound good for home studio jobs. But I certainly wouldn't consider releasing them in that form if I were you. It instantly affects other's perception of your music. Your album is your calling card.

Thanks for taking the time to post, I appreciate it.

I must say I disagree with you re a producer. A great producer gets the best out of a song. A great producer has ideas the artist would never have thought of, ideas that can take an already good song to a whole other place. Only a bad producer waters things down and ends up making a song worse.

The idea of releasing tracks for free is to get music out to as wide an audience as possible. These days who's gonna buy music from someone they've never heard of anyway? And the simple truth is very few people buy albums anymore. People pick and choose individual tracks to download off iTunes, etc. (I obviously still believe in the album as an art form though.)

Anyway, these two songs are to give people a good idea of the kind of music I make. If people like these songs perhaps they might come to a gig or investigate my other songs on myspace etc. y'know?

conor.furlong

Hi Guys,

Just thought you might like to know that I'm playing my first headline gig with my new band in Whelan's on Tuesday 29 June.

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/event.php?eid=130529026974247&ref=mf

I hope you can come!

Conor.