As always, I seek your input!!

[bigmahon]

Hey gang, was hoping to get some feedback from you all on my latest track. I've gone all acoustic again (well, nearly all acoustic ), so hopefully I'm not too far out of my comfort zone.

Let me know what you think!

When The Rain Comes Down

Cheers,

Chris

[DavidK]

Hmmmm, thats a weird sound on the lead vox. Sounds like its in a metal tube. The whole recording does actually, is that the intent?

The song is good, I like it. The lead vox however is distracting and taking away from the tune.

[Freudian Slip]

Very interesting sound.

Not sure your intent on the voc's (backups mainly). I'd rather hear the backups panned out instead of mainly to the right, that's if you have the tracks to do it. If not I would try panning the lead vocals a little left and bring the backups back tward the middle some just for those sections. You could have them talk back and forth a little then.

I like the song. It's a pretty song and I would have mixed it pretty my self, but to each his own. I would like to know what you are using on the backups and the lead also in places? I noticed you used it on what seems like the whole mix at the begining and end.


Cool song

F.S.

[bigmahon]

DavidK, thanks for listening and providing feedback. When you say the lead vox take away from the tune, do you mean the actual singing or the recorded sound?

Freudian Slip, thanks to you also! You made some very interesting suggestions, some of which I hope to get clarified. What do you mean by recording "pretty"? I would like to learn how to do that! As for what I used, I assume you mean effects-wise? Honestly, I tried to keep this mix as dry as possible! Only a little bit of reverb and a touch of delay on the lead vox. No compression even. There is some chorus on the intro and outro guitars, and also a fair amount of processing on the lead break. Nothing really on the primary acoustic tracks except for some reverb and eq. I am playing a nylon string guitar, which may account for some of the strangeness in the sound. Perhaps people expect to hear a steel string.

Cheers,

Chris

[Freudian Slip]

Originally Posted by bigmahon

DavidK, thanks for listening and providing feedback. When you say the lead vox take away from the tune, do you mean the actual singing or the recorded sound?

Freudian Slip, thanks to you also! You made some very interesting suggestions, some of which I hope to get clarified. What do you mean by recording "pretty"? I would like to learn how to do that! As for what I used, I assume you mean effects-wise? Honestly, I tried to keep this mix as dry as possible! Only a little bit of reverb and a touch of delay on the lead vox. No compression even. There is some chorus on the intro and outro guitars, and also a fair amount of processing on the lead break. Nothing really on the primary acoustic tracks except for some reverb and eq. I am playing a nylon string guitar, which may account for some of the strangeness in the sound. Perhaps people expect to hear a steel string.

Cheers,

Chris

Well I don't have long right now but let's tackle the sound that DavidK and I hare hearing. It sounds like you used an am radio effect on the vocals. Back up vocals for sure. (I am remembering from last night) That's what I mean by not pretty also. It sounds like an effect you would use in a alt song or something.

If you are not using an effect then something is going on with the eq. It's like you have a big eq spike around 1k or something. I honestly thought it was intentional. That's why I said I would have mixed it pretty (traditional) instead of something you would hear in an alternative song.

The sound I am hearing could be achived with a chorus set with a very high depth setting and a very low speed/sweep setting and mixed very wet.

I am not sure what you have going on? Have you taken this mix on to different stereos to listen to?

I'll check back later.

F.S.

[DavidK]

Originally Posted by bigmahon

DavidK, thanks for listening and providing feedback. When you say the lead vox take away from the tune, do you mean the actual singing or the recorded sound?

The performance is just fine. See Freudians comments.

[bigmahon]

Hey FS and DK, thanks for checking back.

I think it's safe to say that all of the sounds you hear (except maybe the pops and crackles ) are intentional. When I'm recording I have a real clear vision of what I want. Whether it works is another question.

Anyway, I'm fairly happy with the vocal sound, to be honest. I think my natural tendency is to "disguise" my voice with effects, because I'm insecure about it. I tried real hard NOT to do that this time.

For me, it's the acoustic guitar sound that I can't seem to be happy with.

Maybe it's time to buy a Martin.

Cheers,

Chris

[Freudian Slip]

Originally Posted by bigmahon

Hey FS and DK, thanks for checking back.

I think it's safe to say that all of the sounds you hear (except maybe the pops and crackles ) are intentional. When I'm recording I have a real clear vision of what I want. Whether it works is another question.

Anyway, I'm fairly happy with the vocal sound, to be honest. I think my natural tendency is to "disguise" my voice with effects, because I'm insecure about it. I tried real hard NOT to do that this time.

For me, it's the acoustic guitar sound that I can't seem to be happy with.

Maybe it's time to buy a Martin.

Cheers,

Chris

Well your voice sounded good to me.

If you get that Martin make sure to lend it to me for a month or so

F.S.

[Erockrazor]

I liked the song overall. Your voice sounds really nice to me , very smooth and good pitch (two things i lack very much ) The only gripe that I had was that I felt as if there was a higher noise level on the vocal track than the acoustic track. I felt like I hear the where your clip of singing would start and end. I can hear your cuts on the vocals (i think). Im not sure if I stated that as clearly as possible.

To be completely honest , I'm jealous of the sound youre getting

[bigmahon]

Originally Posted by Erockrazor

I liked the song overall. Your voice sounds really nice to me , very smooth and good pitch (two things i lack very much ) The only gripe that I had was that I felt as if there was a higher noise level on the vocal track than the acoustic track. I felt like I hear the where your clip of singing would start and end. I can hear your cuts on the vocals (i think). Im not sure if I stated that as clearly as possible.

To be completely honest , I'm jealous of the sound youre getting

Erockrazor, thanks for listening, and thanks for your comments. I think the issue you observed is EQ related. I haven't learned how to use EQ properly yet. Or maybe I haven't learned how to record properly yet, and I try to use EQ to compensate for that.

Cheers mate,

Chris

[bigmahon]

OK, here is a new version of the song, which I sent out for mastering.

Does it sound any better??

Thanks in advance,

Chris

When The Rain Comes Down (demo master)