Never Bored

Tadpui

Tadpui

Well-known member
This is one that I blurted out in an evening as a demo several months ago. I was going for a '60s vibe on this one, and hearing RAMI's '60s tune prompted me to dust this one off and retrack it. It gave me a chance to use one of my new SD2 vintage kits (Supraphonic snare on a Gretsch Round Badge kit). I wanted to keep it simple, but with the slow tempo it crept to over 4:30 in length. Let me know if it actually keeps your interest for that long...this felt like more of a 2:30 song when I wrote it.

This features my less than stellar keyboard skills (thank goodness for piano roll), on the Sampletank 3 Free organ. I wanted kind of a Doors vibe from the organ, only dirtier. And this is my first clinic posting with my MIM P-bass. I like it a lot, here I'm palm muting it in an attempt to get that short sustain that I associate with some of those '60s bass sounds. Not sure that I achieved it.

Funny how the moment I get the courage to post something here, I immediately start to hear its shortcomings. Do ya think there's too much drums? How about the bass? I'm having second thoughts on my mixing decisions all of a sudden...



And the lyrics:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/ql80ghwgvs3ubb6/Lyrics.txt
 
The guitar gets a little "repetitive"? but it does drive the song along. When you changed it up in the chorus I was thinking that would be good a little sooner (for variety). I posted a song that did the same thing and I'm still mulling over rearranging it.
Mix wise, it's pretty good. Minor Suggestions - I'd like to hear what it would be like with a wee bit less guitar volume and same up on vocals. The organ cuts through nicely on the higher notes but not so much on the first part of lower notes.
All the tones are really nice and the use of two simultaneous vocals works really well. Drums and bass are good for me. I was "never bored" while listening. I think the dropbox is a good idea for resolution - I'm getting so discouraged with mp3's lately.
 
Thanks ido! I agree about the guitar part, I'm trying to think of what I can do with it to jazz it up a bit, but not spoil the mood. Agreed that it can come down a bit, and I think the same about the vocals coming up.

Right before I posted this, I spend at least an hour fiddling with automation on the organ. I think there is still some work to be done on it, like you say it gets buried unless it's playing in the upper registers.

Oh and the mp3 that I mixed down to is 44.1KHz, variable bit rate with a target quality of 100%, using the LAME encoder via Reaper. My mixes usually end up around 220 kbps when I do this. I've been really happy with the compression quality, I don't hear any of that high-frequency weirdness that mp3s sometimes have.

Thanks for the suggestions!
 
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I really like it but I'm not really getting the 60's vibe from it. Sounds to me more like a chilled out 90's Brit Pop kind of thing. Not a bad thing though, IMO. Anyway.....

Mix-wise it sounds pretty good to me here. I definitely wasn't bored while listening. (I'm on my 3rd run through) Everything is nicely balanced in general. The guitar could come down a touch but it's not a deal breaker. It does get a little monotonous but as ido said, it drives the song along nicely.

Drums, bass, organ and vocals all sound great to me. Really nice harmonies. Love the reverb on the harmony. That really works for me.

RE: the bass, if you want that 60's/muted kind of sound. Try putting a bit of sponge under the strings. Works better than palm muting. You can get a Hofner kind of sound out of a P bass that way. I've had some success with this in the past. You can vary the thickness of the sponge by folding it, etc.

Good stuff though mate. I really enjoyed that track. Another one for my HR folder. :thumbs up:
 
Thanks, Monsieur Clean. I'll totally admit that I didn't hit the mark on the '60s vibe. It was an inspiration at least :)

Thanks for the suggestion on the sponge, I'll give that a try. That's the kind of sound I was shooting for. Do you just wedge the sponge under the strings right at the bridge?
 
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Tadpui said:
Thanks for the suggestion on the sponge, I'll give that a try. That's the kind of sound I was shooting for. Do you just wedge the sponge under the strings right at the bridge?
Click to expand...

Yeah. Closer to the bridge will give you a dampened but still with sustain sound. Closer to the neck will give you a deader, more staccato sound. Experiment with placement and see what sound you like and works for the sound you want. It's a good little trick.

I used it a lot before I bought my Hofner but still do use the sponge trick from time to time. A good set of Tapewound strings can help to get "that" sound too.

:thumbs up:
 
Tight low end. I really liked the impact and punch of the bass and kick.

Guitars might benefit from a bit more brightness by maybe a dB around 4k. Perhaps not just specifically the guitars. Perhaps the whole mix would benefit from a high shelf lift to give it some more air. The mix is a touch dark right now, which, when I think about it, really works for the piece, but still, a bit of a lift in the upper end would bring out those nice guitars and cymbals a little bit.

I like the organ coming out of the choruses. Whatever modulation effect it features is playing games with my ears and head a little bit.

Great choices with all the levels, and great choices made with the ambiance, IMO. I like your reverb. What is it?

Everything sounds really good. Great sounding drums. Are these part of an expansion pack?
 
Thanks kindafishy! I've been using Variety Of Sound's Baxter EQ for shelving for a while now, and I've gotten in the bad habit of always using the same settings. I usually give mixes +3 dB with the shelf set at 7.1 kHz. I'll play around with it, lower the shelf a notch or two, and see if that adds any zing into those upper mids. Failing that, I'm thinking that even just having more highs in the drum overheads might fill that space out a bit more.

The reverb is Lexicon MPX Native VST. I nabbed it at half price last Black Friday, and it's become my go-to reverb for everything. I think this preset is their medium lively chamber, amd I have just about everything but the bass routed through it to one degree or another.

Oh and the drums are one of the sets from Superior Drummer's expansion pack called Custom & Vintage. SDX packs are on sale for 50% off right now, so I grabbed this one last weekend and I'm really enjoying it. On this track, the kick and snare close mics both have Kjaerhaus's Classic Master Limiter mixed in at about 40% wet.

Thanks so much for the kind words, and the suggestions. I'll be spending some time with this tonight and I'll have a remix up soon!
 
Great song. I agree about lowering the guitar just a tiny bit, raising the vocals volume (the 2nd part is really buried), and the organ lead up a tiny bit. One thing others haven't really mentioned is the cymbals - I think they need to be brought up in volume.
 
Mike, thanks man I appreciate the listen and suggestions. I'll fiddle with the overhead volume, and I'll most likely have to turn down the snare bleed or else it really starts to overpower everything else when the overheads come up.

I played with the mix levels last night and I quickly got bogged down. Less guitar made the organ sound too loud. Bumping the EQ on the master bus at 4kHz made the vocals sound too loud. So I'm going to have to play with this over the course of a few more sessions to decide what sounds best to me, then I'll post the results here and see if it sounds good to you all.

I shall return! Thanks for the comments everybody.
 
I really like the song. It has a great groove to it. You have a lot of good mixing suggestions already so, I don't have anything else to add.
As far as a 60's vibe, the bass drum is too deep and the level is too high. In the 60's engineers weren't that far along with close mixing of bass drums. I wouldn't degradate the bass drum just for the sake of getting more of a 60's vibe though.
great recording Tadpui!
 
My two cents. I think if the guitar had some sort of effect and a bit more high end, lower in volume, I think it would give you what you are looking for. On the guitar, I would some put sort of stutter effect and some delay to give strange echo, tail end (trailing, very subtle going out to the edges of the pan field).

Bass could use more character since it is so dominate.

I like everything you have going on here, some tweaking for some sub sounds would take this where I think you want it to go. I would keep what you have and figure out how to get some textures to keep the ears/mind working.

Just throwing ideas out there.
 
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