Ecc. project Chapter 5

[Mark VH]

It's been a while, but maybe one or two of you recall the Ecclesiastes project I was working on. Chapter 5 is up. For those who don't recall, it's 12 songs which will represent the 12 chapters of that book. It's a concept thing.

Same setup as the others. 500mhz, 256 meg ram, win98, SBlive, Fruityloops, n-track, free plugs, sm58, etc.

http://users2.ev1.net/~thevanhoevens/music/

[B.SABBATH]

I have followed this from the start, and 'Two' (Chapter 4) is still my favorite..

this is good too though.. I have no suggestions at all for this, other than to say I pretty much like everything about it, and I'll be looking forward to hearing Chapter 6..


maybe if you check out a few other peoples tunes, more people might hear it besides 2 or 3..

[Phyl]

Is it me or are the main and background vovals obscured just a little?

The vocal quality is awesome, I just wish I could hear them a little better. It gets better about 3/4 of the way through (the "So many words..." refrain).

Love the wall of guitars!

[Track Rat]

Damn, this is good. Seems lately amost everything I've heard here is good. This almost has a Kansas sound to it. Far from a Kansas wanna be, it's very original sound. The backing vox are killer. No mix comments from me. I dig it.

[B.SABBATH]

hey Track, I'm glad you picked this one up.. Check out Chapter 4 'Two'

[Track Rat]

How the hell did I miss this. Wow! I'm very impressed.

[Mark VH]

Thanks guys, you are very kind. When I visited this morning I was surprised to see that this thread wasn't pushed to the second page yet.

[groucho]

Wow, great sound! Really has a great 70s rock production vibe to it. My only complaint would be that the lead vocals could use a bit more eq "bite" to bring them out of the mix a little more. Otherwise, this is rock solid. Terrific job.

Chris

[theron]

when I click "MP3", I can't get the side page to load. "this page unavailible..."

I'll try later as I would like to hear what all the compliments are about!

Theron.

[Fed]

Finaly new chapter... it's been a while... any updates in the equipment department ... as I remeber you had realy basic recording setup...

the vocals are a little low for me but this is great overall ... production quality... do you have other chapters written or you write as you go?

[theron]

WTF am I doing wrong?!!? I want to listen, but the site wont let me.

Any help?

[Track Rat]

Not sure what could be wrong. I just went in and was able to listen with no problems.

[chrisharris]

ECCLESIASTES - What a cool idea. Definitely fertile ground. Kinda' like Proverbs... the ancient equivalent of "DEEP THOUGHTS, by Jack Handy." I mean no disrespect, but I'm sure it's hard to tell.

CH 5 is great. You've got a super clean voice, but I have to admit, I liked it better near the end when you got a little edge on it. Like 3:23 and 3:36 "GOD," that gave me chills. MAN, I LOVE EAGLE-esque FALSETTO BACKUP VOCALS!!! Just very well done. If I owned a hat, I'd be tipping it to you.

I listened to CH 4 (which is called "Two," an obvious attempt to confuse me) based on B.SABBATH's recommendation. Guitars sound great, your voice sounds great. I don't like it as much as CH 5, but I have nothing to base that on. I'd like a little more low end, but I'm losing all confidence in that recommendation lately.

Then I went back to Ch 3 because, you know...this BBS is CRAWLING these days; when you find talent, you just gotta' stick with it, eh?? This tune is just jammed with cool ideas. The change ups...YEEEESSSSSS...A LEAD!!!!!!! I bet you caught grief for that tone, but I love it. I'm just a sucker for a fuzztone.

Okay, I'll listen to the others later, b/c I'm positive they're great. It's even more amazing looking at the "gear" you're using. I mean, switch out "n-track" with "CoolEdit," and we're using the same stuff basically. Your computer's a little faster, but man...that doesn't explain the differences in what I do and what you do. I see a lot of people use "Fruity Loops." Is it a midi based thing, or can a moron like me use it?

WOW- I typed a LOT. This was very very very good.

Buh-Bye

[Mark VH]

I'm really grateful for the comments, guys.

The vox on 5 are lower down in my register, so I had to sing it a little different than the others. The production of the lead vocals has been the main area that I haven't hit my stride in. I'm usually comfortable in the way I perform them, but I'm never really satisfied in how to process and eq them. The volume of the lead vocal in the mix is a fairly common comment. It just happens that I sound too loud to myself, and maybe it's this way with other guys who record their own voices.

The gear is stated above and has not changed throughout the chapters. Average computer, less than 100 dollars worth of shareware and freeware.

As for Fruityloops, I use it as a virtual drum machine, like I would an old Alesis. I just sequence some drum samples that I pull off the net. Then I mix it out to a wav file to import into n-track as the first track in my project.

Guitar is direct out of a 10 year old PT5 floor multiFX unit that happens to have the analog tubescreamer circuit. Recorded twice and panned. No further processing. Bass is thru same unit, but I happened to use an amp sim plugin for some speaker cab modeling on chapter 5. Each harmony line in the guitar "choir" stuff is also doubled and panned, as are backing vocals.

I mix it down and take the resulting file and master it with the slightest gloss of reverb and the free Endorphine dual-band compressor.

Probably the highest-quality piece of gear is my monitors. Dana Audio, which go for $200 new. They are actually home stereo speakers which I got free from my brother, but they happen to be pretty detailed, even when pushed by a cheap Radio Shack amp and eq. I adjust the eq by listening to some familiar CD's. So perhaps that explains how everything comes out ok, because as far as the canned drums and direct guitar are concerned, what you hear as you record is what you are getting.

[Mark VH]

Oh, I forgot. Fed, I write them as I go. So I have no idea what 6 will be like, or when it will be done. This last one took a long time, because I just kind of dried up for a while. Then boom, out it came.

[theron]

Still zero's for me. Must be an internal thang.......

Oh Well, I tried





Hope all goes well,
Inspiration is just that