Continuing with my remixing + mastering activities, I decided to finally tackle Crickhollow Stomp. It wasn’t until I starting remixing that I recalled I recorded the vocal track incorrectly (meaning that the tube pre / compressor settings were crap). And, why not?, the bass track had some clacking on it from me overplaying the strings with my finger plectrum work.
So I re-recorded the vocals with the proper settings and re-tracked the bass completely. The mixing went relatively smoothly and the mastering did its job too. The result is linked below.
For those who are listening to this for the first time, this is an old school dance tune. I used to say it was Soul or Blues, but now when I listen to it for some reason I’m reminded of Brian Setzer in terms of the attitude the song conveys. (I’m nowhere near him in terms of production value or technical proficiency as a guitarist though!)
Gear
Vocals: Neumann TLM103 > Mindprint EnVoice MKII
Guitars: '79 Strat > Mindprint EnVoice MKII
Bass: Fender Jazz > Mindprint EnVoice MKII
Organ: played live > Vintage Organs (NI)
Horns: hand arranged > Kontakt 5 stock instruments
Drums: hand arranged > Battery 4 (Tight Kit)
Other than stock plugins - I consider Magneto to be stock - I used Guitar Rig Pro 5 for the guitars; Supercharger GT on the bass track (for coloration in addition to the compression); Melodyne on the vocals (pitch and timing) and bass track (timing only); and FabFilter Pro-C and Pro-Q here and there.
The mastering process used Pro-C, Pro-Q, VoS’s SlickHDR and FerricTDS, and Pro-L, in that order.
nicely produced track, sounded good very loud in my studio…would’ve liked the guitar solo to be a bit longer because it sounded excellent and I reckon the Vox is mixed a bit loud…but great work
Nice work! Refreshing chord choices in the arrangement! You obviously have recording/mixing skills because everything is balanced (I listened with earbuds).
I agreed with the points shadowfax and curteye already covered and really it’s a matter of taste at this point as to what you may or may not want to do. It’s solid. You should be proud.
Only other thing I thought was imo this feels more like rock than rockabily (ala Setzer as you mentioned) so what if you replaced some of the horn lines with harmonized guitar lines? Kind of like Brian May layered guitar lines if that makes sense.
On second listen it has kind of a Steely Dan “Reelin In The Years” feel so definitely channel a blend of Jeff “Skunk” Baxter and Brian May and let 'er rip!
Baxter? May? Let’s not get carried away folks. I’m definitely flattered but sheesh no, no, no.
I like the harmonized guitar line idea. I do need to do that more often - I normally avoid it because I take the approach of writing / arranging songs that it should be easily duplicated live. But yes it does sound cool when done properly. (My first memory from the Cubase forum is Kim’s solo on Lost.)
For what it’s worth, I’m proudest of the bass tone I achieved. That was played live DI through a $600 piece of outboard gear. The rest is software plug-ins. I now prefer Pro-C as my compressor insert, but I was achieving similar results using the stock compression plug-ins that came with Cubase.
Kevin: did you mean all of the vocals or just the lead vox was mixed a tad loud?
Nicely done as always Larry. I do agree that your vocals were a tad high in the mix, but the refrain vocals were spot on… excellent juxtaposition with the mains in tonality. Groovy chords too. Made me smile. Thanks for that.
Yeah, this song makes me want to do the West Coast Swing. I can’t dance though.
I’m definitely flattered but sheesh no, no, no.