Lift with a different mix

Toki!!

I LIKE the remix, but I liked the first mix.
I know I'm not really being helpful here, but I'm more of a fan and just want to respond, you know?
This song has a KILLER groove my man.
Thats what we ALL need to be striving for, no matter the style!
I love it man.
The bass line is especially fun!
You are special in my book friend!!!!

Dan:D
 
Toki,
The mix sounds really good.......listening to it on speakers, and I've got no big complaints at all........the backing vocals work well........the vocal sound great on the high notes, it gets a little thick sounding on the lower notes, but I don't know how to describe it other than that.......not as clear sounding.......

sounds good man
 
Toki,

This mix sounds much better from what I remember of the last one.

Everything sounds nice and clear and well balanced. The stereo field seems to have opened up as well now too! It definitely has a bigger sound now.

The issues with the background singing clouding up the sound is there to a small degree. I think you either have to add even more voices in there to make it sound like a real choir or, back them off slightly so they don't step on the lead vocalist.

The long musical outro could probably use some fills by the choir too to spice up the last minute of the track. Just my opinion.:D

Nice work!

Cheers! :)
 
Horns in the beginning generally have more life, fuller, I guess louder :D . And I like it.

The singer is sitting better 'in the mix'. I hear more 'smoke' on her voice, and that's good, makes it more bluesy ... I have A/B listening here first mix/present mix, and yes, it sounds like the lead vocal is certainly sitting better in the mix, more 'in the same room' type feel.

I can hear the backup there a bit better approaching, 00:48 now.

oh yeah at 00:58 ... excellent backups much better, much more 'living' ...

At 1:12 I would really bring the horns out here bigtime, and maybe even add a bit more horn here ...

At 1:44, I would take another look at the backup vocals and choose one to be the 'clear leader' of 'all' the backups at that moment if you have any seperate tracks of their voices ... it's really more like a duet between the lead singer and the group of backup singers and I like that a lot.

As we are very familiar with this lyric by now, the primary hook, at 2:56, I would almost put her backups on equal footing with her lead, and again at 3:01 . and again at 03:13, equal footing.

I want to hear more of a 'choir with soloist' rather than 'lead singer with backups' ... IMHO. And I think the whole mix is headed in the right direction.

At 03:44 we need a musical element to take a dominant postition, as you are about to introduce a new section, a bit of a new feel ... fool the listener, at 03:44, bring the horns way, way up, as if they are fixing to jam ... and solo ... and then bring them out quick as the new section starts ? IMHO

And now at 03:55 we have a new focus, the organ, things are good, the listener is given a moment to re-adjust ...

Now I would bring the horns up here about 5db, but do that in increments all the way through to 04:55 ... really loud, and then bring them down for the organ to shine a bit, you have a lot of flexibility here to do a lot dynamically.

On the issue of the kick, I think now that it is way down, you have some room to work it with an envelope and raise it at some key points to create some dynamics.

Cool tune, that's a lot to work with and their is a lot going on in this tune, it's a good workout and a great piece for us all to learn stuff with.

Thanks for ya'll hard work on this one. I look forward to the final mix.
 
I appreciate the ears guys. Ghost', powderfinger, HeavyD, and Studioviols. I'll spend some time on the vocals and see if I can clean the backgrounds up some more. I think I got them too thick and muddy trying for the choir thing, it`s just two voices. The key is a little low for the main vocalist so the lower octave is not as pushy as when she V`s and II`s, I'll fiddle with it and see I can fix some it in level and eq. I'm not going to tie up a lot of time with this since it was just done, and done hurriedly to meet the challenge, but I would like to get it smoothed out nicely for before I put it to bed. I like your reflections Studioviols. I, agree and share some similar thoughts. I`ll have them in hardcopy when I do the tuneup on this.
Thank you guys! :)

A big help in the future will be the new soundcard that is presently on the way. I was convinced with this piece that there is not much more if any I can get out of the soundblaster as far as audio sampling definition and playback, it does a great job with mid though and was a great entry level card to learn with.
 
Nice

Good mix. There is a something that just isn't quite there in the vocals. While she has a great smoky voice it lacks some "shimmer' as a lack of a better word. It could be it just isn't present in her voice, microphone, eq. It is still very nice, I would just like the lead voice to stand out a bit more at times--not just louder its a sound quality thing.

I do think you have a great piece here. Very clean, good sound. Very solid work!
 
Thaks for continuing to work on this, Ken.

Here's what I noticed:

Though I like the sound better with the piano and organ raised, the piano DOES detract from the forward motion - maybe timing issues, maybe just a little bottom heavy on piano. Dunno how to balance the strong drive your excellent bass and drum tracks put down - mebbe compress/squash the piano and roll off some lows?

I emailed you about the vocs. For the rest of our readers, there's a "lift" on the downbeat in the backing tracks that's pretty low - when I put these parts together, it was designed to be at the same level as the lead - it really functions AS the lead for the chorus - so when the lead singer comes in with her late-hit syncopated "lift", it's supposed to serve as a background voice, or a second lead.

The problem with fixing this comes down to (a) my vocs not being up to par with hers, and (b) a recording glitch where horns wound up on all the individual tracks I sent Kenny, essentially making them unusable. So poor Toki's stuck with the "composer" (sorta) saying "I must have full vocals on the downbeat!" and his own ear, hearing the crappy vocals the "composer" laid down...

If you don't mind, Kenny, try it with the new tracks I linked - if they still don't work for you, don't sweat it. The vocs don't HAVE to be on the downbeat if they're gonna drag the song down...

Daf
 
sounds much better to me.. those backing vocals sound nice and big and the keys sound better.. the drum roll leading into the outro still sounds like there's no velocity.. the outro solo is good, but the organ patch doesn't cut through enough.. maybe a more distorted organ sound would have been cool... either way nice job guys!
 
<singing>
When toki gets the card ...
the beautiful brand new card ....
hi, ho, home record when toki gets the card ....


when toki gets the card ...
he'll be an awesome bard ....
hi, ho, it's off to no-where radio he'll go ...

<come on now, clap ya han ... >

when toki gets the card ...
he'll make a great big fog ...
high, ho, collaborating 'sup dat's da werd !

<ohhhh yeahhhhhhhh>

Hey Toki, now you can scrounge up an old box and make that your playback machine with the soundblaster for 'reference'.

This is what I do as about 60% of all PC's have the soundblaster chip in them.

kewl mon, can't wait to see what happens with the new card ...
 
Hey Toki & Daf. Very nice song here. I really am digging this groove. I don't have anything constructive to add. Just that I like this a lot. That bass line is killer. Really drills right into my brain. The vocals are excellent. This whole thing really has a booty shakin feel to it :D. Keeper for me for sure.

Nice work guys!!1

Hey Ken - what soundcard ya getting?
 
Hey, from what I remember this does sound better. A little bigger, wider, more separation.

Nice work. I enjoy the song. I like how you created a jam/live club type feel with a studio sound..........except fix that drum roll into the outro. It's like you are grooving along, then it screams drum machine! :)

Nice job guys!
 
Here she comes again!

This is a good cut... balances seem nice. The mix is more "live" than what I'm used to hearing in the genre... which is totally fine. If you're going for that slick gospel groove mix, you could always compress the daylights out of the vocals, horns and other leads and slide a big deep room into the mix but this up-front treatment works just fine.

Good stuff all around


C
 
Wow,

What a great array of instruments, you've got it all.

Recording sounds very nice, very nice solid low end going there.

The lead vocal sounds to a small degree like it was recorded in a different space. But man what a voice!! Is that you Toki?

I agree with the drum machine comment, subdue any naked rolls, and it works fine.

Great work!!

GT
 
I didnt hear the first mix but this is very good. Cant find much to nit pick about. OK, going into the change was a tad sloppy and you could add a bit of chorus to the lead vocals. Nice orchestration going on. Im sure the Lord thinks its great though.
Sounds like you put a lot of work into this. Very good job.
Myx
 
If it were me I'd suck some mids out of those backups, maybe boost the highs a bit, and throw a subtle stereo chorus on 'em to make 'em more "angelic". That would keep 'em out of the way of the lead yet still sound full.

Organ on the outro still needs to come up a bit. I wanna hear that screamin' B3!:D
 
The other fellas have covered it man...

more organ...
less V on the harmony Vox....or spread em out a bit...
horns seem just a bit too tame now though....


Great tune you guys. :D
Joe
 
Hey Toki,
Sweet tune man!

Nice harmonies,lead sounds really good too.

Killer bass sound.
Good mixing on the horns.

You have that wonderful organ sound at the end,if you would have used it instead of the piano,I think it would have put this tune right over the top.
JMHOP:)

Some fine music,
Pete
 
On behalf of dafduc also, I really thank you folks. He sure had a great idea for that old rythym track I had. We had a lot of fun and learned a lot from this, especially myself.
Sloop: I used an old SM87 condenser into a soundblaster for the vocals, This was my first shot at vocals and I didnt use the proper eq to track it. I might be able to bring some more life into the vocal with some tweaking.
daf': I`ll post a new mix in few days. I`m gonna soften the pianos up some and set them back in the groove some more. The L/R backgrounds are gonna be the deal, the center one wont work.
Sam: I`m gonna jack the presence just a bit on it and automate some variation on the snare.
Jagular: Glad you liked it man. It was fun. I went budget conscious with the 24/96 for now. Rhonda ( wifey accountant) said if it gets more serious we`ll discuss the 1010.
Studioviols: hehehe. I've had a love/hate relationship with this old card, but it`s been a good buddy. i`ll use it for playback and playing Rouge Spear.
Chad: I lef the room off cause I was afraid of losing any mroe definition in the mix. I`d like to hear a touch of it myself.
GT: naw that ain`t me.. :) i gimped the eq when i recorded her in a hurry. I hope I can bring some more out and smooth it some. thanks..
Myx62: Thanks, Im going to tweak a few things. maybe I can sqeeze a bit more out of this. Its been a good work piece.
Alan: I think I`ll split the girls and spread them a bit from center and change the eq and levels on them a bit. Some chorus may put a nice envelope in. Yep more organ..
Joro: exactly. Puttin it down for a few days and then listening again I hear these things. Thanks Joe
Pete: Thank you... I think I'm goin to be able to bring the organ back more. I`ve learned a lot from you folks over this yr.

I'll post a remix sometime before long..
Thank you folks! :)

I been really busy lately but I`ll post a remix soon. I still got a few projects ongoing and need to get busier on them too. This can slide on to the back pages and give everyone some more room.
 
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