Crop Circles with Nick and Dave

R

Robus

Well-known member
New song. Easlern on lead vocal, ibleedburgundy on drums. Good job guys.

I'm working first on the vocals. Are the lead and harmony vox at the right level, blended?

All comments welcome!

Latest Mix:
Crop Circles_Ray Taylor_Mix 7.mp3 - Google Drive

Crop Circles
Words and music by Ray Taylor, 2016

Into the heart of stone
There’s a stone left to turn
There are no laws tonight but the law of life
Passion sparks and burns
In all very simple things

These fields are dark and wide
Draw us to the other side
Then we touch and fall entwined
We are young
We are young
And we touch and fall entwined

Across the sky
Speed of light
A spark lights up the land
And falls upon the planet face
And everywhere a trace
In every field
On every face
A design
And the seed you carry now
Yours and mine
And the seed you carry now

And the skill of my hands
The work of my mind
The skipping heart, the smile
These things belong to you
While I am
And maybe we are
And maybe we shall be

Into these fields
Trampled down by frost
We watch the sky with every lover’s eye
This child we made
A thought engraved
Into the great design
And for all the world a sign
We were here
We were here
We were here
And for all the world a sign
 
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I thought the riff played on the acoustic during the second verse was out of key with the rest of the music. I'd take a closer look at that, it seems it's playing in a slightly different scale than the tune is. "on every face a design"...then the riff. Somewhere around the bend on that riff, it goes astray from the key.

"And the skill of..." that part has the vocals drowned out as the other guitars build in. They are really struggling to be heard. The guitars all sound good and everything fills out nicely, just the vocal is buried. Really liking the bass tones you're using lately. More bottom end than I remember.

Oh, you play that same riff on the electric later on, the one that sounds out of key to me. hmm...I suppose it could work, it's just a little questionable at first.

I really like the "we were young" "we were here" segments. Those are really good, melody wise. Another abrupt ending, I thought. Wish you'd fade those out longer.

Really good mix man. Nice and full, everything builds nicely and it's rounded out really well. Nice job everyone.
 
Thanks man. I agree about the vocal struggling to be heard there. It's still early days on the vocal processing. I'll need to compress more, just easing into it. The guitar on the left there might be loud.

Thanks on the bass. That's a blend favoring the bridge pickup on the Jazz, fingerstyle of course. It's not the tone I use most often on that bass, but this is a busy line that needed something muscular and that really cuts through.

All the guitars were recorded two or three years ago, so I have forgotten exactly what was what. But there is a lot of Les Paul through the H&K Tubemeister 18. I was experimenting with some strange FX routings, like sending part of the signal from the amp's FX loop into a digital delay then straight to a track rather than back into the amp. Blended with the miked sound of the amp and panned apart, it produced some interesting ambient sounds.

The main solo is a Strat on the left and I have forgotten what else on the right, probably the LP. Composition wise the solo is unusual for me but I like it.
 
I a/b'd this with a mix we had from almost a year ago. The guitars seemed better balanced back then. Drums sound better this time though. Snare might be a tad too loud in this latest mix. There was a lot of hat and cymbal wash on the old one. Much better on the new one. I think I had a phase problem when tracking. I think you have the OHs down on this one. Probably a good move.

The bass note at 1:28 sounds off.

Backup vocals and lead vocals could use some balancing. At :22 I think there is an odd blend there. Maybe back of the backups I dunno. The sequence that starts at :45 is quite nice. Also like the 'we are young' balance. 1:28-1:47 is good. I feel like 1:48-1:59 doesn't need it. Not sure about 2:00-2:10. Don't need it at 2:37 IMO. The rest is pretty good.

Generally I think it just needs mixing refinement. Make it sound natural. I am thinking you could carve out some EQ space for the vocals as well but I think you'll just need to sit and listen and adjust and I can't give you particular feedback in that regard without hearing it myself.
 
Thanks Dave. I've been editing guitars and vocals all afternoon. Should be a lot smoother in the next mix. OH are definitely down. I'm going to see if I can get them back up a little. There was a bit of phase cancellation between the two overhead mics. I reversed phase on one of them. There might also be some interaction interaction between the overheads and the cymbal bleed in the top snare mic. I'll have a closer look.
 
I hear what andrush is saying about the acoustic - it sort of jars a bit at the time - although I can hear echoes in the bass and other guitars later on, by which time I'm "used" to it.

I think the vocal levels are about right, but I'll make my usual comment that I think there are a few too many BVs - just here and there I'd remove them, but by and large pretty nice.

Timing on guitars seems a bit awry at 3.07-3.11. I like the ending - unusual - but I'd maybe just tidy up the trailing guitars a bit.

Good work.
 
Yeah. Some of those vocals are pretty buried. They're a little dark too.

I don't know if the quiet vocals would be better addressed by bumping them up or by bumping some of the guitars down. I'm leaning to the latter tho.
 
New mix in the OP. Super comments above--thanks! I went through your suggestions in detail and realized you all were right in just about every case. I did a lot of editing and mixing. This latest mix feels more solid. Harmony vocals are fewer, smoother, and lower in the mix. The guitar mix should be smoother. Where the guitars were intruding on the lead vocal space, I lowered them and/or thinned them out. There are lots of guitar tracks--about 20 in all, although at most four or five are playing at any one time. I found that by lowering or muting one or two and re-blending, I could keep the layered effect I wanted while leaving more sonic space for Nick.

The vocals are about 90% where I want them. The lead vocal might still be a little dark. Maybe a slight boost at a couple of frequencies will still be needed. After de-essing the daylights out of the last song and then having to walk that back, I'm going through a change of heart on the whole sibilance thing. This track is fairly lightly de-essed and it isn't bothering me. Wonder if people worried about it so much before we had the ability to micro-edit every syllable? Anyway, thoughts on that?

There are some fairly significant changes in the drums. I addressed a phase issue in the overheads that Dave noted, simply by reversing phase on one of the tracks. I also did some detail editing on the snare tracks to eliminate cymbal bleed audible in the spaces between the snare hits--essentially, gating, but I did it manually. It should be totally inaudible. I think the overall effect is to make the overheads sound cleaner and clearer. I bumped the overhead level back up slightly. I did some EQ and re-blending between the top and bottom snare mics. Kick is up slightly. I added more ambiance to the drum bus and gave the snare a little extra. Reworked compression on the drum bus.

Other changes: Fixed the timing errors on guitar that Armistice noted, lowered quite a bit the offending acoustic guitar riff, and retracked the bass part under the main guitar solo. It wasn't quite grooving for me.

Thanks! I'll probably do one more mix and then set this aside for a few weeks.
 
I listened to the latest mix.
Outstanding In my opinion!
Very good drum performance. The drums sound great too. The guitars sound very good as well. I think you've done a fantastic job with the mix as to reverb and ambiance. The space every track is in is perfect to my ears.
Great work!
 
Excellent. I could buy a CD full of this stuff. Vocal was buried just a little but I like it that way, it fits the feel of the song.

The snare is out of place. It just doesn't blend with the rest of the tracks. I'm no expert, but I'm thinking it's the wrong snare for the job. I'm not a drummer and I don't know what to recommend, and I don't want to insult David's excellent contribution, but I think the snare needs work. Can you EQ it to get more body? Maybe add some depth with reverb? Balance it out with the rest of the kit? IDK...

Other than that, it's all good to me. Oh, I like how you didn't use the title in the lyrics. Always a nice touch.
 
Thanks Chili. We are hoping to finish the album this summer. The snare might just need to come down slightly.
 
Drums sound really good on the remix. Better blend of guitars too. That riff I was talking about, the one that modifies the key and root chord, it sounds way better the second time, probably because all the instruments are adapting to it...the bass and other guitars are also playing along with that key modification. The first time, it's just the acoustic without the background instruments benefiting that decision in any way...so it comes off as a little jarring. I think what you're doing is making that root chord a major instead of minor, or something similar.

Anyways, this is all really, really good. Nice work Ray.
 
Thanks, yeah that's what's happening. The riff suggests a D major chord, whereas the key would suggest D minor there. There are a few substitutions of that sort in the song. I don't know enough theory to say why it works, but it sounded interesting to me.
 
Chili said:
Excellent. I could buy a CD full of this stuff. Vocal was buried just a little but I like it that way, it fits the feel of the song.

The snare is out of place. It just doesn't blend with the rest of the tracks. I'm no expert, but I'm thinking it's the wrong snare for the job. I'm not a drummer and I don't know what to recommend, and I don't want to insult David's excellent contribution, but I think the snare needs work. Can you EQ it to get more body? Maybe add some depth with reverb? Balance it out with the rest of the kit? IDK...

Other than that, it's all good to me. Oh, I like how you didn't use the title in the lyrics. Always a nice touch.
Click to expand...

You need not pull any punches with me! And I agree, this is not the best snare drum sound. This is something I've struggled with. Snares are my bane. And I've got 4 to choose from so there's no excuse lol. Just when I get the snare sound I like, it turns out one of the toms will set it off rattling in a bad way.

Thanks for your comments!
 
Real good mix. Vocal and drums out front - that is a good sound on this mix. OK guitars are a bit stronger in the chorus. Good as well.

That real dry snare sound is quite cool.

Bass *may* be a bit strong? Minor nit - if a nit at all.

Love the clean guitars - cool parts too.

Not a thing to really complain about. Nice.
 
Thanks man. I agree about the snare. I like it. It's got a nice crisp snap to it. Not sure about the level yet, but the tone is fine by me.
 
Sounds great-love the laid back groove and lush sounds mixed with things that are right up close (drums). I like the verb or delay on the vocals, performance is solid. All instruments sound clear and good tones. Sounds like more woooooom on the bass on this track, no problem picking up the bass on this mix. Real cool song, makes me want a mixed drink for some reason. Ending is kind of weird, you could probably delay that hanging guitar, or do something creative to make the song end more smoothly, that's the only nit i have, great job collaborators!
 
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