The Jongleurs - Just Say The Word

Tadpui said:
Really an excellent song. The drums sound totally authentic, are they real? (or are they Memorex :D) I really like the acoustic tone and the playing as well. Great vocals too.

My only suggestions would be from personal taste. I wouldn't mind hearing just a tiny bit more of the drums, especially the kick. This one doesn't really call for a thundering kick, but I wouldn't mind hearing it thump a little underneath everything else. I couldn't make out the bass guitar very much either. But my space is untreated so bass frequencies get weird in my room. Maybe they sound fine to everybody else. The electric jumps out every once in a while during the first verse, just on a couple of chords.

Great job though, I really like this one a lot. Sounds really professional to me. Those acoustic guitars sound terrific, I'd be proud to have that tone come from my own setup (unlikely).
Click to expand...

Thanks for listening and the comments Tadpui!

The drums are totally MIDI/Addictive Drums though, not real.:)

The bass is perhaps recorded with a duller sound than I'd like and there's not much more I can do to brighten it... it's fairly clear on my monitors and home stereo but I'm going to change the strings on the beast and use a more lively tone in future, I think. I'm still tinkering with the mix so I'll check the kick level and the electric guitar in the first verse.

Funny thing about the acoustics - seeing Jimmy69 made a comment about them I thought I'd check the EQ, as I normally do certain things to acoustic tracks, and indeed mentioned what I'd done in an earlier post... or what I thought I'd done anyway - turns out I had no EQ applied at all, so just got the mics in exactly the right spot. Not sure how I didn't go and HPF them, which I normally do. :eek::laughings:

Cheers
 
Dang, it almost hurts to hear that those drums are MIDI. I haven't come to a point where I can make mine sound at all convincing. Great job!
 
Tadpui said:
Dang, it almost hurts to hear that those drums are MIDI. I haven't come to a point where I can make mine sound at all convincing. Great job!
Click to expand...

Thanks... it's taken me a while - snare sounds are the worst thing to deal with and I've spent hours tweaking them and still ended up with hollow lifeless sounding crap sometimes, but starting to work it out now... plus there's also the element of programming. I spend a fair amount of time nipping and tucking here and there - snare grace notes and ride and hihat tonal variations in particular..

I also almost never "humanise" them.. makes it sound too random for me. I'll pull fills off the beat but that's about it.

Give me a yell if you think I can help or if you want to look at MIDI files.. happy to help.
 
First rough mix: The opening acoustic guitar pretty much gets swallowed by the sheer size of the sound that envelops it at 0.15. I'd be experimenting with putting more space on the electric guitars to push them back, cut the high end on the verb, that kind of thing. Even turn them down a dB.

The backing guitar part (the descending figure) from about 0.56 to about 1.16 - I'd be putting some sort of voodoo pop effect on that to see what it sounded like when it had egregiously sparkly presence. (That guitar part comes in a minute later too).

Backing vocals? Stop obsessing. They sound really good.

Gee, I like this one. Well done, jongleur.
 
dobro said:
First rough mix: The opening acoustic guitar pretty much gets swallowed by the sheer size of the sound that envelops it at 0.15. I'd be experimenting with putting more space on the electric guitars to push them back, cut the high end on the verb, that kind of thing. Even turn them down a dB.

The backing guitar part (the descending figure) from about 0.56 to about 1.16 - I'd be putting some sort of voodoo pop effect on that to see what it sounded like when it had egregiously sparkly presence. (That guitar part comes in a minute later too).

Backing vocals? Stop obsessing. They sound really good.

Gee, I like this one. Well done, jongleur.
Click to expand...

Thanks for listening dobro...I'm still tinkering away.... a virtual knob twist here and there.. I'll take your comments all under advisement - I actually put something on that guitar figure but I don't think I've updated the version, or if I have perhaps I should tweak it a bit more... :) Think it was some weird phaser VST I found somewhere...

Cheers
 
New mix is up if anyone wanted to check back... :D

Otherwise I'll watch this thread gracefully slide to the bottom of the forum, and exit.

New track already well underway... The Jongleurs do folk... :laughings:
 
Hmmm, I guess all those other cheque's got lost in the mail. Royal Mail, always stealing my hard earned dosh.

Do you say you CAN save me or you CAN'T? That 'T' is kind of a deal breaker. :D Sounds sweet. I'm going to try that note thing you talked about, it's really my favourite bit and makes the tune for me. And also the advice you gave me about open strumming a while back. I'll try that too, I'm doing a tune in open D at the mo. Cheers for both tips/instructions.

Lovely tune, I've saved it now. It's my favourite of yours.
 
fritsthegirl said:
Hmmm, I guess all those other cheque's got lost in the mail. Royal Mail, always stealing my hard earned dosh.

Do you say you CAN save me or you CAN'T? That 'T' is kind of a deal breaker. :D Sounds sweet. I'm going to try that note thing you talked about, it's really my favourite bit and makes the tune for me. And also the advice you gave me about open strumming a while back. I'll try that too, I'm doing a tune in open D at the mo. Cheers for both tips/instructions.

Lovely tune, I've saved it now. It's my favourite of yours.
Click to expand...

Thanks frits... Royal Mail are busy with Christmas stuff, I expect it'll turn up... :D

And they're all CANs but the last one which is a CAN'T - I'd been singing the last one as "CAN" but the intention when I wrote the song was "CAN'T" - so sort of, "I can do all these things for you, but I can't love you" vibe... CAN made no sense at the end, it wasn't meant to be a soppy lurve tune... just can't do them. Anyway, I had to teach myself to sing it as CAN'T... and Rich, the other guy, as well... took a while after all this time.

Of course, being Australian, can = can and can't = carnt in terms of pronounciation - but it sounded weird the first time I did it...:laughings:
 
Maybe just lower level of backing vocals?

I think this sounds great! Really pro sounding. Your vocals remind me of Elliot Smith, in a good way. I here what others are talking about as the backing vocal sounding like a different source from the lead, but I also think that the backing vox could come down just a hair. As it stands, the backing vocal draws attention away from the lead vox, which I imagine you don't want. Also, are you panning the backing vocal? Personally, if you are, I don't see the need for that. I usually try to mix in a way in which I imagine where every person is sitting or standing, as if they are in a live performance. i am no where near as good as you at mixing, though, so...
 
I have not read any previous posts....
Nice mix on the headphones. The acoustics are clear and not boomy. Their panning gives it nice effect. Bass sits good as do drums.
Vocals sound great - what kind of microphone(s) are you recording with?
 
foxje79 said:
I think this sounds great! Really pro sounding. Your vocals remind me of Elliot Smith, in a good way. I here what others are talking about as the backing vocal sounding like a different source from the lead, but I also think that the backing vox could come down just a hair. As it stands, the backing vocal draws attention away from the lead vox, which I imagine you don't want. Also, are you panning the backing vocal? Personally, if you are, I don't see the need for that. I usually try to mix in a way in which I imagine where every person is sitting or standing, as if they are in a live performance. i am no where near as good as you at mixing, though, so...
Click to expand...

Thanks dude... anything that draws attention away from my shaky lead vocals is a good thing I reckon... :D
 
ido1957 said:
I have not read any previous posts....
Nice mix on the headphones. The acoustics are clear and not boomy. Their panning gives it nice effect. Bass sits good as do drums.
Vocals sound great - what kind of microphone(s) are you recording with?
Click to expand...

Thanks ido.... I use an NT2 (old one) on all the vocals... and for the acoustics I use an AKG451B (angled at 12th fret - 9 - 12 inches away) and an Neumann KMS 105 (actually my stage vocal mic, but seems to work, up around the 7th fret, more or less parallel to the fretboard) and play everything twice, blend to taste. Electrics were my Levinson Blade R1 "strat" through a Laney 30 watt tuber, with an SM57 pointed somewhere in the vicinity... thanks for listening..:thumbs up:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top