Folk tune; Sweet Lovely Friend

WarmJetGuitar

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Sweet Lovely Friend by Lasse Krog | Free Listening on SoundCloud

I did owe my mate a favour and besides I have wanted to record more quiet music for a while now and recording a talented friend was a good way to practice this without too much pressure.

The tune is kind of Cohen or Van Zandt-ish. Right my alley and a kind of music I rarely get a chance to record normally. I happen to love the slightly overproduced late 60's/early 70's "folk music that had the pop treatment" style of production on guys like Hoyt Axton and Sixto Rodriguez, so here was my chance to experiment with that style. Although next time I'd like to get more overboard.

As far as recording is concerned lead vocal and classical guitar is recorded live with no click. Neumann KMS105 on the voice, signal split into a uncompressed track and a compressed one. For guitar it was Sennheiser MKH-406 and a Beyer M201 taped together. This mic combination kept the bleed low while still getting the details fairly well. M201 is low in the mix and hard panned, just to give some sense of "3D". Oktava MK-319 used as room mic but really low in the mix.
The choir vocals is my mate singing with himself, four times on the left hand side and four times on the right. The only bounced tracks.
Can't remember what we used for the piano but it certainly involved the Sennheiser MKH-406 again. Love that mic.

For vocals my mate wanted a sound as close to early Leonard Cohen as we could get. There's two spring reverbs, some echo chamber-like reverb made from reamping the voice to a concrete corridor and a microscopic bit of tape echo.

For the first time ever I used compression on the master bus as the dynamics was simply insane and there was no budget for a pro mastering job. I did a bit of mastering in the digital domain. Does it rumble too much in the low mids? I sure don't claim to be a mastering engineer.
Some feedback would be nice as it's my first try recording this kind of music. Grew up listening to it though.
 
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I wasn't a fan of the reverb, it came across as "tinny" to me, particularly on the vocals. The ambience on the instruments that come in around 0:30, if I remember correctly, were a better, more natural ambience, but they conflicted with the vocal/guitar one. Everything is blended pretty well, mixed appropriately. I'd just spend more time on the verb application, across the board. Just my opinion.
 
Hey man,

Great guitar playing. I think the reverb could use a predelay (it bounces back with the dry vocal very quickly). It also sounds way more prominent in the vocal than the rest of the mix, so maybe send less of the vox to the verb.

I also think you could make room in the low mids by making the rhythm guitar more of a highs instrument. That's a taste thing tho so try it & see what you think.
 
First off, good playing. I am not listening through monitors or my studio cans, but I am hearing a lot of low end rumble. The main guitar sounds muffled like it has too much mid-lows. If you roll some of it off, the highs should sparkle a little better. I did hear some "P" popping on the vocals in parts. I think everything sounds good and well played other than those things. Great job.
 
Thanks for the feedback, definitely some usefull stuff there.

I wasn't a fan of the reverb, it came across as "tinny" to me, particularly on the vocals. The ambience on the instruments that come in around 0:30, if I remember correctly, were a better, more natural ambience, but they conflicted with the vocal/guitar one. Everything is blended pretty well, mixed appropriately. I'd just spend more time on the verb application, across the board. Just my opinion.

I kindda like the thin reverb but get your point though. I stayed clear of using digital reverb so was using two springs and reampet the voice to a concrete corridor. Perhaps the key is to redo the "acoustic" reverb more carefully or at least EQ differently, gonna try that if I remix it.

Hey man,

Great guitar playing. I think the reverb could use a predelay (it bounces back with the dry vocal very quickly). It also sounds way more prominent in the vocal than the rest of the mix, so maybe send less of the vox to the verb.

I also think you could make room in the low mids by making the rhythm guitar more of a highs instrument. That's a taste thing tho so try it & see what you think.

Thanks :-) Well, he's a talented dude so that always makes life easier.

I think I actually used predelay but perhaps not enough, I'll keep it in mind.
The low mid is not obvious on the systems I tried it on (Technics amp + B&O S35 speakers, Sansui amp + B&O S30 speakers, Denon amp with mediocre small JVC speakers). I'm curious to know what system you used? I'm very interested in making my mixes translate as well as possible.
Was carefull not to kill the "body" of the guitar as there is no actual bass or kick to compete with. Possibly too carefull.

The "P's" we noticed but found them to be an acceptable compromise when the alternative was either too much guitar bleed or too much low roll off on the guitar. Might consider a bit more distance next time or possibly a pop filter on the mic. In the situation I senses it would make it awkward for him while playing his guitar at the same time.

First off, good playing. I am not listening through monitors or my studio cans, but I am hearing a lot of low end rumble. The main guitar sounds muffled like it has too much mid-lows. If you roll some of it off, the highs should sparkle a little better. I did hear some "P" popping on the vocals in parts. I think everything sounds good and well played other than those things. Great job.

If I remix I'll definitely fine tune the low-mind carefully :-)
 
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