a work in progress...need advice

[travelin travis]

vocal sounds bassy? flat? not sure. I'm doing the vocals and guitars through an MXL990, audiobuddy, onboard sound. Is my mic placement bad, need to eq something? I'm about 8 inches from the mic, peaking around -4db. The vocal is just a quick take to get some advice. I'd like to finish this tonight so if anyone can give me some advice, I would really appreciate it. thanks. its "Back Then":

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/1/tr...mpsonmusic.htm

[livilaNic]

Damn I would love to say it sucks and needs alot of work. But I'm off to bed hope someone helps ya out. I'll listen tomarrow for shits and giggles.



L8er,
livilaNic


That was sarcasim by the way.

[travelin travis]

big help you are fucker, lol. yea, I know it sucks but what can us retards do.

[chrisharris]

you pull this off very well...I love what you're playing over on the left. Ride's pretty loud...might work with a ton going on, but with the sparseness of this (part of?) the song, it's a bit hot.

Vocals sound good to me man.

[chrisharris]

actually, on monitors now...might wanna' give a very slight boost in the midrange to the vocal...that mic seems "dark" with a hyped top end...but it's close; if you don't wanna' EQ it, just up it a notch maybe.

[travelin travis]

man, I'm embarrassed that you even looked at this thread after hearing your stuff........... I'ts probably my voice but every time I try to record a vocal (only tried my own), it comes out sounding muffled/bassy. I'm not sure by what you mean this mic sounds dark...I don't know the lingo......what's a brighter sounding mic? I know you're probably using a very expensive mic on vocals but what are you using?

[chrisharris]

lmao...dude, you're nice to say that, but like most of us, I'm a home hacker with shitty gear. The vox on the one you listened to were tracked with a piece of shit AKGC3000 (I hear it's good on drum toms, but it sucks on vocals). You can hear the problem mostly on consonants...my "s's" peel your eyebrows off, lol.

What I mean by "dark" is that muffled sound you're hearing...I didn't hear it on headphones, but I did on monitors. It's your mic. I can say that because I have one of those 990's. I probably got mine when you did...when they were practically giving them away from musicians' friend around christmas, lol. It sounds to me like it's a "scooped" mic, meaning that the stuff between 1K and 3K is kinda' missing, and the stuff over 5K is hyped. I haven't looked at any graphs or anything, but that's what my ears tell me. I've only used it on one tune, and it just sounds "darker/duller" than other stuff.

Nothing for you to be embarrassed about in this tune at all...it's in the working stages, but I've played it several times...which is several more times than most tunes I pick up on the net. Please finish it, because there's something about it that makes you wanna' listen. When you're done tracking the vocal, maybe boost it a touch centered at 2K about .5Q wide ... up maybe 2 or 3 db right there and see if it gets a bit clearer...watch that the top end doesn't get TOO bright when you do it tho.

[chrisharris]

Oh, and I don't usually hang out in the mic forum because it's like a freaking warzone, so I'm not up on what everybody's saying about the latest chinese mic, but I looked up the graph (frequency response curve) for that mxl 990, and it looks flatter in the mids than I thought...there does seem to be a weird bump around 300 Hz though...(the "warmth," I guess). You might try EQ'ing that out of your vocal track.

[travelin travis]

hey chris thanks for the kind words, very encouraging. I will follow your advice on eq and........I can't believe your not using some really expensive mic. Man that stuff sounds really good and so damn clear. I'm not a fan of country, well radio played country tunes anyway, but your stuff has something different about it that I really like. thanks for the advice.

[travelin travis]

I was actually just removing at 250 hz, I guess while you were posting, so that makes sense. thanks again.

[a27thletter]

i just listened to the song about 5 times in a row,. man i really like it, it sounds nice, very tranquil and mellow, .. you know , your voice reminds me a lot of ben kweller, not a bad thing at all. sorry i'm not really qualified to comment on the technical side of the recording, but just wanted to tell you that i think its a great song and great music.

[travelin travis]

a27th letter, thank you very much, I'm having some problems getting the vocals to sound right and it stopped me dead in my tracks. before coming in here for some advice, I almost scrapped it (I was getting those negative head creeps). hearing your and chris's comments really helps alot. thank you.

[livilaNic]

OMG. I posted but I wasn't signed in grrr. I'll sum it up. Good guitar. Voice has a cool happy,sad, raw, feeling. Damn I gtg. Good job trav.


Once again no help at all,
livilaNic

[David Artis]

Cannot get the download or play function to work.

[travelin travis]

sorry, I pulled the tune off soundclick. I will repost when it is done. I only put it up to get some micing advice and I think I found out what I need to know.