Boston Beckoning

mjbphotos

mjbphotos

Moderator
Boston Beckoning - revised 4-3-15

Edited to add: a little more tweaking 4-3. New mix is in post #38
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I wrote this song soon after the marathon bombing in 2013, but I based it on uncompleted song I started in the 80s. I've been playing it solo-acoustic for some time, and get a good reaction from it, but I've been struggling with this full production version. I had been searching for a sax player to retrack the tag line part, but they all want money (or suck) so I ened up leaving the keyboard-sax as is and adding a guitar track doing the same part.
Today I retracked the lead vocal (again) and some of the BU vocals.
Bongoboy (John) did the drums based on the early version.

My ears are shot - tinnitus bad for the last week due to a cold, and then I went to see a fairly loud band last night in a small bar. :rolleyes:
Some good ears on this would be appreciated.

 
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Sorry man. Not ignoring, just haven't had a chance to listen. I actually said to myself that if this keeps going with no response, I'll bump it up later today. I don't have access to the speakers right now. Later for sure.
 
Hey mjb,

I usually don't miss any of the regular's tunes. I make a point to go out of my way to listen to the people who keep on coming back. Didn't catch this one though.

I think that the mix has something going on around the low mids. Probably the bass guitar. I feel like if I just put an EQ on the master bus and pulled out a few db of 300, the mix would be clearer.

The drums sounds like their in a different space than the vocals. More distant.



I like your voice on this again.
 
It's a solid performance and sounds good, but it does sound a bit lacking of life. I guess it sounds boxy or something. I'm not sure what the word is. Could use some tweaking for sure.
 
All of the performances sound good, but the recording sound kind of lifeless. Take this with some skepticism as seems I had the same complaint on another song, but is didn't seem to have any body.

Not sure if I helped or ...?
 
DM60 said:
All of the performances sound good, but the recording sound kind of lifeless. Take this with some skepticism as seems I had the same complaint on another song, but is didn't seem to have any body.

Not sure if I helped or ...?
Click to expand...

If you could tell me how to fix it ... :( I had the same comment (elsewhere) that it lacked something.

I haven't scooped low-mid from the electric guitars at all, so that plus the bass could be adding to the dullness. First thing I'm going to try on remixing is to pull one guitar out during the verses, just add it back in for the choruses

Schwarz - yeah, the drums WERE recorded in a different space! Don't know how I can pull them together with the mix as the drums have quite a bit of ambient room sound on them already, so I barely added any of the reverb used on everything else.
Any suggestions on how to do that? Will side chain compression do anything? Basically all I did was pan and set volumes for Bongoboy's tracks, don't think he had done any processing on them.
For a change I didn't find I needed to EQ the vocals at all, but I did add the BootEQ preamp driven way up to the red on the lead vocal. Maybe I need to add some air to the vocal? Considering I tracked it 5 days into a head cold, I thought it was less nasally than some of my regular vocals! Another suggestion I got was to cut all/some of the harmonies - or at least to lower their volume - in the choruses (not the 'oohs' leading into them, though).
 
Yeah, I think I'm hearing it more or less the way the others are. Everyone's being a little vague because I don't think it's clear exactly what might be wrong with this mix, but I think it isn't all glued together as it should be, and I think there's something going on in the low mids as well...muddy, boxy? Not sure. It's not like really bad or anything, it just sounds like the individual tracks have the potential to be more than this.
 
The 1st vocals syllables are buried or too weak to cut through.
Maybe hard pan the electric guitars.
If it is successful as an acoustic why didn't you use some of that?
The lead tag seems a tiny bit out but my ears are junk so I'm probably wrong.
 
heatmiser said:
It's not like really bad or anything, it just sounds like the individual tracks have the potential to be more than this.
Click to expand...

There is the problem, it isn't bad but seems like it could be much more. Just thinking out loud, go back and listen to the pans, reduce some compression. I would think some cut down in the 250-400 range and maybe add (if needed) in the 8-16K range.

All just speculation.
 
DM60 said:
There is the problem, it isn't bad but seems like it could be much more. Just thinking out loud, go back and listen to the pans, reduce some compression. I would think some cut down in the 250-400 range and maybe add (if needed) in the 8-16K range.

All just speculation.
Click to expand...

Thanks, possibly its the Density compressor on the master stereo track f*ing things up again. I'll play with it and repost.

rayc said:
If it is successful as an acoustic why didn't you use some of that?
The lead tag seems a tiny bit out but my ears are junk so I'm probably wrong.
Click to expand...

I may need to go back and throw an acoustic track into it. I had done the scratch track as plugged-in acoustic, and that was not acceptable to use in the mix. If the lead tag line is out, then all of them are, all recorded in one take (and its possible, the strings on my Tele are old).
 
mjbphotos said:
Thanks, possibly its the Density compressor on the master stereo track f*ing things up again. I'll play with it and repost.
Click to expand...

I don't have enough experience to say for sure, but I think you are right and it is the compression that is killing the sound.
 
Not to repeat what everyone else said, but I agree. For what it's worth, I used to use DensityII, not on my master but on my drum buss, and I stopped using it. I'm sure the problem was user lack of comprehension and not Density's fault, but I just couldn't get it to do anything good for me. So, you might want to to try another compressor, you never know. Personally, I don't put a compressor on my master, just a limiter.

As far as the drums, I find in all your songs, you seem to treat drums as an after thought, like they're not that important and just "thrown in there". I realize the type of music you play isn't about BIG drums, but in any style of music, drums matter...a lot. Even if you go back to the 70's and listen to some singer/songwriter stuff, the drums don't dominate, but they're there, and they're present and audible. Off the top of my head, anything from Jim Croce to America singing "Sister Golden Hair", the drums are still very much "there". I'm not comparing your music to that stuff, my point is that, EVEN in that stuff, the drums are very well recorded and present.
I hear your stuff more along the lines of a Springsteen, and Springsteen's drums were really big, reverby and loud. Again, not saying you have to sound like him, it was the 80's after all, but the point is that drums are always important. You can't treat them as an after thought just because your music is more guitar/vocal based.

Just my 2 cents. I hope it helps.
 
It's like the pictures of Elvis where you see him upside down and everything looks kind of okay, but when you flip the picture over you see that the eyes and mouth are upside down. Something just didn't gel. It sounds good, but somethings upside down....sorry, Mike, all I got.
 
mjbphotos said:
If you could tell me how to fix it ... :( I had the same comment (elsewhere) that it lacked something.

I haven't scooped low-mid from the electric guitars at all, so that plus the bass could be adding to the dullness. First thing I'm going to try on remixing is to pull one guitar out during the verses, just add it back in for the choruses

Schwarz - yeah, the drums WERE recorded in a different space! Don't know how I can pull them together with the mix as the drums have quite a bit of ambient room sound on them already, so I barely added any of the reverb used on everything else.
Any suggestions on how to do that? Will side chain compression do anything? Basically all I did was pan and set volumes for Bongoboy's tracks, don't think he had done any processing on them.
For a change I didn't find I needed to EQ the vocals at all, but I did add the BootEQ preamp driven way up to the red on the lead vocal. Maybe I need to add some air to the vocal? Considering I tracked it 5 days into a head cold, I thought it was less nasally than some of my regular vocals! Another suggestion I got was to cut all/some of the harmonies - or at least to lower their volume - in the choruses (not the 'oohs' leading into them, though).
Click to expand...

I think you should put a EQ "high pass" filter (edited*) on each track. Listen to each individual track and only cut the bass you can't hear or in other words set the high pass filter to where you can't tell if it's on. That will add some clarity. Next put a gentle compressor on the drums to get a boost and some extra attack. You could just send the drums to a bus track and adjust the volume of the send accordingly. You might need to put a gate on the kick, snare, toms etc to cut some of the room. I hear A LOT of room and it can be good sometimes, but I think for this it's making it sound less tight. You might have to do some thing similar with with guitars and vocals as well, although no gate on the other stuff lol. A tiny boost or cut of certain frequencies here and there could dramatically change the over all sound as well. It's really hard to pinpoint the exact problem or solution as heatmiser said, but part of the fun is experimenting. The things I mentioned above are what I do to all my tracks. Keep in mind my knowledge is limited. I basically work more with my ears and my emotions than I do with a technical perspective. :thumbs up:
 
FoulPhil said:
I think you should put a EQ low pass filter on each track. Listen to each individual track and only cut the bass you can't hear or in other words set the low pass filter to where you can't tell if it's on.
Click to expand...

You do mean "high pass", right?
 
RAMI said:
A low pass filter cuts the highs, not the lows.
Click to expand...

I probably do have the terminology wrong. Like I said I'm not big on the technical side lol. Something similar to the pic below.

guitar-hpf.png
 
Yup. That's a high pass. It's allowing the HIGHS to PASS, and it's cutting the lows.
 
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