Toto: Cover of Georgy Porgy

[jonathantan77]

Hi folks,

Been lurking on this forum for a while now. Up to now I've only participated by reading other people's posts and I've learnt a lot. I recently had the chance to do some recording, so I thought I'd post it here.

The song is Georgy Porgy, orignally performed by Toto. I don't have fancy equipment or anything, but my band like to record as practice for live gigs. This song was recorded on a Fostex MR-8. The music was recorded first, then the vocals and lead guitar. The ending solo is impro'd. No techniques such as autotune or comping were used though since I don't have access to that (yet

I hope you enjoy it. Any feedback is appreciated. The file is found here:

http://www.geocities.com/jonathantan88/georgy.mp3

Jonathan

[dachay2tnr]

Apparently your web site has a download limit on it. It won't give me any access. I'll try again later.

[jonathantan77]

Thanks for your patience dachay2tnr. I'm sorry, but geocities never seems all that reliable.

btw, I heard your cover of Chicago's 'Does anybody know what time it is'. I loved it. I'm sure it helps that I love the band too Keep up the great work.

Jon

[79_Les_Paul]

Certainly sounds you guys have all the ingredients.......bet your pretty good live.

As far as the recording goes....if you could get the ambience on everything that you have on the guitar solos I think you'd be there...the first lead is great but it doesn't mix with the other instruments.

Sounds like you guys have your act together though. Your limitations come with mixing and your available devices.

Love the eighties...

[Blue Bear Sound]

Kind of a rough-sounding mix and the performance is quite a bit loose in some spots, but a decent job overall!

BTW that lead guitar tone could use some tweaking......!

[jonathantan77]

Thanks for listening. I'm not sure what to do about the overdrive guitar tone. It sounds good out of the amp. It sounded good when mixing with headphones, but after converting the file to wav and downloading it to computer, I also noticed it that it sounds thin. One problem was that the guitar I have (strat) is not suited to the highest notes, as I had to bend the last fret to reach some of the notes, hence making that shrill sound. I saw Toto perform this song live and Steve Lukather had a 22 or 24 fret Ibanez. Anyway, thanks again for listening.

Jon

[dachay2tnr]

Finally got around to this again, and was able to download this time.

Everything is nice and tasty. I thought the vocals needed some compression as there seem to be volume jumps in some spots. They need some smoothing out. Guitar solo's were good, but don't seem to sit in the mix very well (second one sits a little better than the first).

Generally a good effort, but your mixing chops need a bit more experience. Panning, compression, eq, could have all helped on this mix. Keep at it.

Mike

[jonathantan77]

Originally Posted by dachay2tnr

Generally a good effort, but your mixing chops need a bit more experience. Panning, compression, eq, could have all helped on this mix. Keep at it.

Mike

More experience? Well, I think my mixing needs experience, period. I don't think I even know what vocal compression is, but I'll look into it. I know my little MR-8 has panning facilities, so I'll experiment on that too. Thanks for the tips.

Jon

[dachay2tnr]

Originally Posted by jonathantan77

I don't think I even know what vocal compression is,

It's sorta like a little helper riding a fader for you. If the vocalist gets a little bit too loud, the helper lowers the volume. Vocalist gets louder, helper lowers the volume a little more. Helps to make for a "smoother" track.

By using the control parameters available on a compressor (threshold, ratio, attack, release) you can set when, where, how much, how quickly the volume level is affected.

Great tool for an uneven vocal performance (i.e., large swings in volume levels).