Delilah with Nick and Dave

R

Robus

Well-known member
I posted a demo of this song with my vocals in 2015. Here it is with easlern on lead vocal and ibleedburgundy on drums. Great work guys!

This is a starting mix. I'm working on the lead vocal and the harmony blend. There's some editing to do on the harmonies, getting them tighter.

There is a double -21db under the lead vocal. Let me know if you hear any interaction between the lead and double. The double should be inaudible. Haven't done any de-essing or leveling of the lead vocal yet. Need to work more on vocal EQ, compression, and ambiance.

All comments welcome.

Latest mix:
Delilah_Ray Taylor_Mix 20.mp3 - Google Drive

Delilah
Words and Music by Ray Taylor, 2015

Delilah dear, you been close to me
Like a ringing in my ear
And it hurts to see you go
We had quite the deal, you know Delilah
But we step on out across the floor
Trip the beat one more time, just one more time
All our promises they bleed across the floor
As you walk on through that door
Delilah

Down in the holler where you come from
Luck don’t bloom in the morning sun
And nothing laughs or cries
Past the broken windows and bitter ends
You’re a runaway train on a wicked wind
Heading for the bend

Delilah
You gazed upon this wicked world
And smiled your crooked smile of love
While all your boys in tattered jeans
Lay their shattered dreams outside your door
Delilah please don’t believe in them no more

When I first set my sights on you
In your red hair, lace, and your eyes of blue
And the coal dust belching from your ears
As you walked me down your trail of tears
All my cares went away, it seemed
All the tell-me-whys and the what-it-means
Just vanished in the creases of your jeans
Delilah

And now you’re step on off that ledge to fly
You might reach the sky
Make a last banzai
Well you cut my hair, you stole my car
Delilah please don’t stray too far
You always was part of me
I’m standing like an amputee

Delilah
You gazed upon this wicked world and smiled
Your crooked smile of love

Now my heart’s as dry as the Aral Sea
And my love’s gone home to Tennessee
Delilah, won’t you think of me
In the broken springs of time?

Delilah
You gazed upon this wicked world and smiled
Your crooked smile of love
While all your boys in tattered jeans
Lay their shattered dreams outside your door
Delilah, please
 
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Hey Robus, tones all sound pretty good, but it has that "different room" feel. I think because the drums (specifically the snare) sounds small. They could use body and a little reverb. Vocal can come down a hair (or maybe more accurately it just needs automation on the louder words during the verses. Sounds right during the chorus/energetic parts). Is that distortion on the bass? Whatever is giving the bite at the 1:15 mark sounds good. Personally I'd give the snare a little body boost and try to glue all the instruments into the same space using a bit via reverbs/delays. The drums can use some life overall. Maybe try judicious parallel compression on them. Sorry, IBB, not trying to pick on the drums. I'm sure they're recorded well and it has something to do with you guys all living far apart. See if others are hearing what I am, too. I could be wrong.

Good lyrics, Robus.
 
Thanks Nola. That part you mention is a Tele through the Velocette. The guitar solo is the same IIRC.
 
I think you've put this one up too early - I'm hearing lots of clicks and pops and incidental noises that I'm sure you'll track down - probably just normal stuff in the lead vocal track - but they're a bit of a distraction. I'd solo that track and get automating. The mix itself sounds OK - I've heard better sounding guitars in your other tracks though - can't put my finger on exactly what - perhaps the sound, to tape, is a little compressed in the lead guitar bits. Just a taste/opinion thing, if you're happy with them, fair enough.

Cruel to be kind time - you've done the right thing in getting easlern to sing your stuff as he's got a good expressive voice which is sympathetic to your style - now deal with the backing vocals similarly - there are too many, they're too vague and when they do pop their head out, such as at 3.13 & 3.56 in particular it's like "WHAT WAS THAT?" - you won't fix those two spots with automation or Melodyne because the warble/tremble is just too plain. If you want to produce the best possible recordings of your songs, then you should do something about the backing vocals. If you don't, that's fine, just tell me and I'll not mention it again. If it was me, I'd give a mix back to easlern, with a loud lead vox, sans all backing vox and say "knock yourself out, dude..." It WILL turn out a better tune.

Also, you need to pay/beg him to retrack the very last word, or alternatively you've chopped the end of it off. "Delilah plea" is what I'm hearing. What happened to "please" as per the harmonies? Easlern - that last word - pleeeeeeeeeeeease - I'd extend it more so that the last voice we're hearing is not the harmonies.

Also, also robus - you have sharp endings and beginnings on instrumental tracks in places, particularly at the beginning and end - they need smoothing out.

Lots of tidying up to do - surprised you put it up as is to be honest. I get the excitement of "new song day" but a bit more work on the fine detail is required IMHO before initial posting. YMMV, as always. :thumbs up:

If you think I'm being overly harsh or am incorrect anywhere here, do let me know.;)
 
Interesting comments so far. I don't think Arm was being harsh, but I'll let Ray decide that for himself. Seemed an in-depth analysis, to me. I agree with him on the backing vocals, for sure. Tidy those up and have a clear intention with each of them. They do seem sputtered around in random places. And yeah, that last word needs retracking. Just production things, you know. It can be difficult coming up with that crap for your own music. All of us, really.

For a second, when the vocals initially came in, I did get that "other room" sense. But it faded as I grew used to the song and vocal. I also agree the quieter sections could bring the vocals down a little. They are almost always squeezing out of the speaker at you, which I don't think is necessary with such a wordy tune.

The section with "all the tell me why's" has a great bassline underneath that feels should be driving the tune along, but the beat seems a little choppy rather than groovy. I don't think it's a tracking thing, maybe just a drum/bass compression thing. What are the release times on the drums/bass compressor? It sounds like everything has a very fast release. Like Arm said, there are a lot of transients poking through everywhere and the beat isn't as smooth/rounded as it could be. Unless I misread his comment.

Like you said in the OP... it's a starting mix. Good foundations and raw tracks. Just a few mixing decisions here and there left. Great work guys. Another great vocal.
 
I've only heard this on the cans so far. Will give a more detailed listen tonight.

Something is going on with this mix. The guitars and drums sound thinner than on the others. In particular the snare sounds thin. The whole mix lacks fullness, bass, lower mids.

Nick sounds great. Agree with Armistice about the backup vocals. They are actually nicely done unto themselves IMO, but in this particular case I found myself listening to them instead of the lead (even though they are properly placed in the mix IMO), and then when they cut out the ear goes back to the lead. It was actually kind of disorienting. I think it's an arrangement thing - just the leads would be smoother. Addition by subtraction.

Some of the guitar leads are thin and scratchy. You are a tone scientist so the bar is high. I get that you were going for kinda rockabilly but I wonder if a 'lap steel' flavor would have fit better.

I know we went back and forth on the hats as quarters or eighths, I am wondering if eighths was the way to go. Flow is a little weird at times with all of us hitting quarters - rhythm guitars, bass, and drums.

I wouldn't be opposed to a re-track of these drums. Unless you totally screwed the mix to hell and can fix it by undoing something, maybe I can just give you some better tones to work with.
 
delilah
interesting tune,
reminds me just a bit of soul asylum...

the snare sounds quite a bit thin and 'snare-y', could use some bottom on it.. it's quite upfront in the mix,
so if it's going to be that loud, it ought to have a more 'authoritative' tone to it.
maybe the bass needs to come up to match it in the mix.

vox seem too upfront at this point.
nice guitar solo
 
Let me know if you're missing the last syllable Ray, I double-checked the zip and it should be there on all the takes.

In our earlier tracks I was able to do lead, backgrounds, comping, etc. But lately my work-life balance has got out of whack so Ray's taken on a lot of that work. He always does a great job with vocals imho, I think the songs feel a little stronger with a mix of voices (especially with one being the songwriter).
 
Thanks guys. Sorry about that final "pleeeeeze." That was some sloppy editing on my part. I'll get that fixed on the first remix. I've got some time tomorrow evening, so hopefully in the next couple of days.

Listening again this afternoon, I can see that I have the lead vocal too loud in the quieter parts of the song. That seems to be characteristic of my first mixes--start with vocals up until I realize they are too loud, then adjust down from there. First order of business will be to get the lead vocal sitting properly in the mix. I don't actually do much automation, but I will split the vocal for different sections of the song off to their own tracks so I can set the levels independently. The EQ, compression, and reverb choices are first impressions and will need a rework as part of the effort to get the vocal sitting. I've also got some cleaning up to do on the lead vocal track--de-essing, cutting random noise, reigning in the hard P's, K's, T's, etc., getting the breaths between the notes at the right level.

Second on the agenda is dealing with the harmonies. I think it will help a lot just to go through them and pare down, get rid of unnecessary parts, edit them so they are starting and ending together and at the right time. Let's see how that sounds before any more tracking.

I'm hoping that getting the vocals sitting at the right level will address some of the other issues people are noticing--for example the lack of low mids. When vocals come down, the effect is as if everything else came up.

I'll give the drums and bass a careful look. I'm not hearing groove problems particularly. I think most or all of the drum issues mentioned so far are mix issues, not performance or tracking ones. So let me see what I can do there first. At the end of the day, Dave and Nick need to be happy with what they are hearing, but let's keep the nuclear option of re-tracking drums in reserve for now.

Finally, guitars. That scratchy, thin sound you mentioned on the solos. Was that the opening solo, the main solo later in the song, or both? Listening now, I do think the opening solo could have less drive on it. I had originally intended to retrack that solo, but I guess got used to it. On the original demo from 2015, the opening solo was on acoustic guitar. However I didn't fancy doing those bends on the second and third frets of a steel stringed acoustic, so I went with a Tele instead. Now that you mention it IBB, I do have a lap steel around here somewhere...

Okay, lots of work to do.
 
Love the sound of the guitars. Bass sounds terrific.

Love the snare - great power and snap. Kick is getting covered in spots by the bass a little bit. OH's/cymbals sound great.

Singing is great. There is a very hyped high end. Siblalent and hissy.

Levels on everything is great. Nice balance.

Reverb is perfect to me.

The only thing I'd seriously address is the lead vocal. It's a good take - just get rid of the hyped high end.
 
New mix in the OP. This should be more refined. Lots of work on the lead and harmony vocals. I did a lot of de-essing and tried to address the EQ issues 3M raised in his post above. I bumped up the kick drum and gave the snare drum more bottom mic. Also a bit more reverb on the drum bus.

The harmony vox should be tighter and more coherent now. I split the lead vocal off to separate tracks for each section of the and worked on getting the level right in each section. Might need further adjustment.

Got a little more level on the mix overall. Haven't done anything with the guitars yet.

Let me know your thoughts. Thanks!
 
Much better with the drums/vocals. I don't know exactly what you did with the harmonies, but I find them less distracting and more focused here. Now, they compliment in better spots. Sounding really good overall Ray.

One thing that I noticed, but it's probably too late to do anything about it, was that when the loud section comes in near the end, Nick starts the phrase with the vocal power he'd do the earlier, quieter sections with. Then, he has to quickly adjust his vocal to bring it up to speed with the intensity of that section. So, "now my heart" starts off in his usual, more intimate tone, then he quickly brings it up in intensity. Kind of sounds like he wasn't prepared for that section to be louder and he adjusted on the fly.

I know that's nitpicking and possibly irrelevant to you. Just thought it's a cool section and it would have been nice to hear him go all out ffrom the first word.

Like I said though, sounding great man. It's coming together well.
 
Sounds very nice to me-Everything clear and distinct. Nice vocal sound and performance. Drums sound very good-i like the snare sound. Guitars sound good-not stepping on the vocals and good tones. I like the song-on the 3rd listen i only hear one thing that would tip me off this was home recorded, at 3:23 right before the guitar solo there's a stray guitar string noise which could probably be edited out, i only noticed because i'm in hyper listen mode. Other than that-very good mix! good job guys.
 
Thanks, I'll check that out. There are a few little clicks and pops here and there, some down to the fact that I forget to enable auto-crossfade while I was doing some editing on the lead vocal track--doooh! Tracking those down and fixing them will be an hour or two of work.

I'm really not hearing significant problems with the drums. Kick is a little up on this mix, but it's not screaming "too loud!" for me. I'll see what IBB says when he has time to chime in.

The bass is definitely up in this mixture. I'm hearing a slight congestion in the low mids that is affecting the intelligibility of some of the words on the lead vocal. I can address that problem on the bass end, the vocal end, or both. I think I will go through the lead vocal once more and see if some of those words need a level bump.

There will be a new mix up in a few days.
 
A little late to this one, been pretty busy lately. Didn't hear the first mix, but this mix sounds great to me. Love that tele tone, you always get nice clean tones, Robus. Rhythm guitars sound great too.

The solo part at 3:20, the right rhythm guitar seems a little loud, but it doesn't really clash with the lead, so I guess it's ok. Cool how that same lead tone seems to shift more to the left once the vocal comes back.

Didn't really notice a congestion problem with the vocals, and the bass sounded nice to me. I thought the kick was good too, didn't seem too loud. The snare sounds good, maybe just a tad thin and could use a slight dip somewhere in the 3-6k range, but it does fit the song.

Nice tune, I look forward to the next re-mix :thumbs up:
 
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I have only heard the latest version to this point. I think its a real clear crisp mix. A lot of space between instruments. Very good job so far! If it were my mix I would change the tone of the snare a bit, just a little raspy for me and put a little more life into the bass in the mix....but its not so just an opinion! Great job as always though! And having Easlern sing was a great move!
 
cool little song. Listening now on ATH-M50s.

I like this. I do feel like some of these instruments or parts feel a little detached. I'm not sure if it's the lack of reverb. drums sounds really dry. I'm getting the feeling this song is missing low mids...Did you roll off a lot of low end on instruments?

sweet little tune. reminds me of older Old 97s.
 
Great song, good lyrics, and catchy melody . Really good performances all the way around. The only nit I have is the kick drum hit's a little hard during the soft passages, to my ears, but sounds good on the denser parts of the song .
Very nice!
 
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