The initial inspiration came from Schwa’s synth Olga, a few memories and some fiction. The track is not meant to be a ‘regular pop song’, but a more laid back type song that I know will not appeal to every one. I have to thank Ian for his input on the structure, even though he has very different ideas on presenting the song and we don’t agree on everything, I have implemented one or two suggestions in some kind of way. Thanks mate.
I’ve had one or two issues along the way already. One has been with the bass which shows up my poor technique and lack of practise. The other main issue has been placing the cymbals level wise. I have discovered that I don’t hear them very well in one ear so have had to resort to flipping left and right back and forth in order to get an idea on level. The hihat is deliberately a bit on the loud side than I would normally have it. I have also tried one or two other little things in the mix which I’ve not done before.
I would be grateful for any comments.
Cheers
Dave
Edit.
I should also add that this has been a vocal experiment too. I have deliberately not tried to ne a singer on this track, nor have I tried to ‘tune’ it all nicely rather than try to be a proper singer, which I am not.
I like it. I get what you’re doing with the singing, it makes perfect sense to me. I like what you did with the guitars throughout. There is white noise in the left channel especially noticeable in the beginning, maybe on purpose? The end gets cut off, again on purpose? One of those songs where I listen to the words. Well constructed too, in my view.
Really great tune and concept, well done…The break near end might need cleaning, perhaps a closed hat or choked cymbal (not the open that is there)…the kick needs to be tighten its a bit hard to distinguish and seems to get lost completely in ?chorus?, but very very cool recording and tune. I listened more than once
I’ll have to check but I think the noise is coming from a delay/mod/chorus effect. I hear it when the project is playing but I didn’t think it was noticeable but as I mentioned earlier, my left ear is not great. I will pop a gate on it or mute it with automation.
The open hat at the break? I debated and tried of few things and went with filling the space and did initially play an a closed hat which did work. I’ll give that some more thought.
I did at one point have a more pointy kick sound in the early stages of mixing but wasn’t so keen on it. It is a fault of mine that I always like mellow sounds and often go for sounds that are too round or muddy. I will re visit that.
The open hat at the break? I debated and tried of few things and went with filling the space and did initially play an a closed hat which did work. I’ll give that some more thought.
I did at one point have a more pointy kick sound in the early stages of mixing but wasn’t so keen on it. It is a fault of mine that I always like mellow sounds and often go for sounds that are too round or muddy. I will re visit that.
Cheers
Dave[/quote]
Tried to write back yesterday but site was slow. Just wanted to suggest maybe to filter kick (pull out a little from 30hz down) and start at 260hz and move down to find that frequency that makes kick come out…just sounds like there is a few things fighting for those freq. Maybe even a multiband M/S to tighten that area of mix (?)
The Hi hat is just my opinion, I wore a great drummer out the other day at session because he kept playing open or half open at the breaks on a session…Oh well it might just be me lol.
Take all this with a grain of salt If you don’t change anything its still great!!!
Sounds good, nice atmosphere.
The way you sing/talk fits the song perfectly.
I like how it opens up at the chorus (1:29) with the ride and guitar arpeggios.
i myself do not profess to be a lead vocalist (i am about same level as yourself). i recently purchased a HELICON VOICE DOUBLER which is really very good at thickening up the voice, and you can buy them fairly cheap (used) on ebay.
Well, you already have plenty of feedback from me of course! All-in-all thoughI do like it.
Oh, and yeah, the hiss in the left is very noticeable in my headphones.
I have deliberately not tried to be a singer on this track
Yeah, I think an important thing for anyone doing the whole singing thing is to get to know their voice, and be realistic about what it can and can’t do etc. And while anyone one will likely improve with practice it doesn’t mean they’ll eventually become a Pavarotti! This kind of delivery and style works for your voice and there’s certainly plenty of well known artists, who while they weren’t technically great singers they still made a name for themselves regardless. This vocal style has its own appeal and that’s one of the great things about pop/rock I reckon.
I ended up leaving the open hat in the break but have tweaked the ‘openess’ very slightly.
A couple of notes on the mix.
There is no reverb at all used on the mix. The ambience on the drums is from the ‘room’ mics in Addictive drums. There is a delay on the vocal and a delay set up as a send for the guitars, ep and synths. There is in fact very little processing, mostly high and low pass filters for eq. The only compression used is a touch on the master buss, also a little high boost, quite a bit of compression on the drums and some on the bass. The bass was taking too much space so that has had a lot of lows/low mids carved away. The vocals have no compression or eq at all. To methe vocal sounded better using automation rather than compression to control the levels. I use some automation on quite a lot of the parts.
I’m diggin’ this. Kind of reminds me of Lou Reed in some strange way. Maybe because I’ve been on a Velvet Underground kick lately. I listened to it the other day on my crappy stereo at work and thought there might have been some funky things going on with the mix, but it seems you have it sorted now. Catchy tune!
The other main issue has been placing the cymbals level wise. I have discovered that I don’t hear them very well in one ear so have had to resort to flipping left and right back and forth in order to get an idea on level. The hihat is deliberately a bit on the loud side than I would normally have it. I have also tried one or two other little things in the mix which I’ve not done before.
