Me, Myself and Irene

[dachay2tnr]

Well, actually it's Lt. Bob, ChuckU, me, and a few other guys.

Let me begin by expressing my continued amazement at this site. I asked Chuck and Steve (Lt Bob) to help me out with this song. Now mind you, I have never met either of them (although I did colloborate with Chuck before). Without hesitation, and without remuniration, both said "let's have at it." In fact, both had to reach into their own pockets to send me a CD with their tracks. I am in awe. The spirit of the '60's lives on at homerec.com. You guys are the best. Muchas gracias. FYI, that's Steve on the saxes and Chuck on trumpets.


Now, as for the song. This one has been like delivering a baby. I have been working on it for several months, and it needed a lot of help just to get this far. I've been hesitant to post this, because I was afraid you guys might think my baby is ugly. It obviously still needs some work, however, it finally dawned on me that you guys might be able to help me make it more beautiful. Help me figure out where the ugliness lives, so I can fix it and make it better.

How Bout Us
http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/...d=1084&alid=-1

[James Argo]

Hang on... I'm downloading it... Anything from you is worth to listen, Almighty dachay2tnr.

...and I promise, I won't talk to myself in this thread

[Emeric]

Great vocals. You remind me a bit of the singer from Chicago and the singer from the doobies. The way it starts reminds me of a Pink Floyd song! So ya thought ya... heh.

Like the backups, very motown'ish.

The drum sound. The kick is ok, but the snare is way to sharp sounding. Sounds super compressed, not enough life to it, especially in a song that could really jive with a nice open snare.

Kick and bass lose sync noticably in parts, the concept is there. Just a bit artificial sounding. Motown drums meet the 80's.

Sax add's a lot, nice playing. Not overplayed, just enough.

Mix sounds good enough to me. The drum instrumentation and sound is dragging the tune down.

Other than that, enjoyed it!

[James Argo]

Gotta agree with Emeric...
Everything seems on their place, but the drums (specially snare & toms) a little bit over compressed. Hihat sounds somehow "too machine". As for the vocals, sounds like the lead & the backing stand in different room. Add a little reverb mixed on the backing vox to pull 'em bit back will do perfect. What a great Piano sound you get there. And the Sax !!!! Lt. Bob is the man !!!!!! And the trumpet... Smooth like baby's skin, great job, ChuckU. Overall, It's a very great tune to listen... Gotta keep this one.


Jaymz

[Kramer]

Sweet vocals as always from you guys.I've always liked this song too,it's a classic.Lt. Bob and Chuck U did a great job on the horns.What type of reverb did you use on the horns?

Good job!

[groucho]

Love those background vox!

Really, the only thing I'd change here is the too "slappy" snare (as mentioned already), and maybe add a little more variety to the bass part. It gets just a tad monotonous. A little more motion and rhythmic variation would inject some life in there.

Nice job!

Chris

[Jagular]

This sounds pretty sweet to me guys!!! Love the song. Horns are excellent!!! They add a lot to the song. Vocals are great. I think I would consider blending the BG vocals a tad with some verb (I think someone mentioned that already). Boy it's really hard to find anything wrong with this.

That is one sexy sounding sax sound Lt. Bob.

Drum fill at about 2:33 doesn't sound quite right. The snare throughout the song is really far back. All of the sudden it's in my face and hard left in the fill. Not sure I like it being hard left either.

That's about all I can find on this one. Very nice guys!!! Great collab.

[boydrj]

Another great collaboration! Very sweet sounding! I love the vocals and bg vocals. The sax and horns work well.

I wouldv'e loved to hear some real drums on this one. That wouldv'e made this one perfect -- imho --

Otherwise, this is great! I like this version better than the commercial version, btw ...

[dachay2tnr]

Thanks for listening everyone, and for all the feedback. In general the comments make me feel like maybe I'm closer with this song than I thought I was (and that's a very good thing, cause I'm getting sick of listening to it ).

Emeric - the drums in this song have been an issue for me. Without getting into a whole lot of boring details, some of my "creative workarounds" to fix tracking problems may actually be causing more trouble than fixing. I can, however, lessen the compression on the snare.

And I agree with you 100%, Steve's sax part was exactly right for the song. Oh, and for the record, that isn't me singing lead. I (wisely) stick to just singing BGV.

James - thanks for listening. As you suggest, I'll probably add some additional verb to the BGV's. I have been fighting myself with the reverb on this song - as I think there is too much. But I found it interesting that no one commented on that (and you and Jagular actually want more ). Chuck and Steve's horns really help set this apart IMHO. It's funny, but in my entire life I never actually jammed with any horn players. Now, at this age I'm playing with guys from Boston and N'Orleans that I never even met. The internet is an amazing place.

Kramer - good to hear from you again. (How're those Falcons shaping up for this year?) Thanks for the kind words. To answer your question, I used a plate type reverb on the entire mix - both vocals and instruments - but to different degrees (little less on the vox, little more on the instruments). Steve might have also had some verb already on the sax parts he sent me. He'll have to fill you in on that. Chuck's trumpets though were dry when I got them (at least, I'm pretty sure they were).

Chris - I know what you mean about the bass. It does open up a bit after the song modulates. I thought the straight bass part in the early part of the song helped to set up a contrast to what happens to the song after the modulation - but maybe it's a little too straight. Let me give that one some more thought.

And I'll work on the drums. That seems to be the biggest issue for everyone so far. Thanks for the listen.

John - wassup? As I mentioned to James, I'll look into adding more reverb to the BGV's. The drum issue you noticed is because the (single hit) snare drum is on a different track than the high hat and the fills. Long story as to why, but you're right, when the fills come in, the snare is in a slightly different place in the mix than it is with the single snare hits. It's not "hard left," but it's not center either. Thanks for the feedback. It'll help with the final mix.

boddrj - thanks for stopping by. That's pretty high praise that you like this better than the commercial version. The original was quite good IMHO. I know what you mean about real drums, but for recording purposes V-Drums are just so damn convenient. Of course, the trade-off is they just don't sound as good.

[Pedullist]

Hey, it's an adopted baby! I thought we couldn't post covers?

You've got a lovely voice, dachay2tnr! Great playing, good mix. Not sure about the drums, sound as well as the part itself (bit too simple). Every drumfill definitely needs more dynamics. Just alter some of the velocities and Bob is your uncle.

O, I can't believe the way you sing 'some PEEEEEEEEople' at 3:02. Christ on a bike, you got some courage....

[GT]

Man,

That's really sweet!!

Just lose the snare sound, and this thing is near perfect!!

Man the singing on this is stellar!!

Lt. Bob, how many times I gotta tell ya, NO SAX, BEFORE A FIGHT!!

That sax is better than sex.

Great work!!

GT

[ChuckU]

Originally posted by Pedullist
O, I can't believe the way you sing 'some PEEEEEEEEople' at 3:02. Christ on a bike, you got some courage....

Pedullist, that was the condition under which I agreed to collaborate. Even if I had to sing it (and NOBODY wants that).
Let's not tell Waldo that's a cover, thank you.

Lt. Bob, I salute you. What great tone, man.

Emeric, Chicago song coming with instruments by my boys and me (including live drums), vox by the Award-Winning Dachays!

Mike, I'm pretty much caught up with you via email, but again, nice job.

[Pedullist]

Originally posted by ChuckU
Pedullist, that was the condition under which I agreed to collaborate. Even if I had to sing it (and NOBODY wants that).
Let's not tell Waldo that's a cover, thank you.

You mean, that note is present in the original version as well?

OK, I shall not mention anymore it's a cov....oops...sorry

[Lt. Bob]

Another fun time for me!
I just love doing these collabs.....(to everyone I owe tracks to....they're coming )
I thought this one was particularly interesting because the vocals are so busy so for the short leads you have to be real selective about what you play so it'll complement the vox and not compete with it. This was fun.

Mike.....is this a band you're in or just a bunch of friends having fun?
Everyone sounds pretty good and CHUCK.....nice trumpet man.
I don't have any serious quibbles with the mix and I pretty much let others get into the minutae of mixing details,
so thanks for the kind words about the sax and thanks to Mike for letting me play on this tune.

[TheRealWaldo]

Don't think I'm not watching, nor that I'm impressed...

W.

[dachay2tnr]

Sorry Waldo, I pulled it down.

For those late arrivers who missed it, I'll make some of the changes that have been suggested above and find another place to post it. Then I'll start a new thread.

Pedulist - again, it's not me doing the lead singing. I do BGV's and occasionally pretend to play guitar. Also, the drums are V-Drums which we recorded as audio, so there ain't no velocity settings to play with. That's been one of the reasons I had so much problem with the drums in this song. Everything was on a single stereo track, which didn't allow for much in the way of editing. We later added another track with just the single snare hits. We may have to retrack these entirely, which is always a bummer.

GT - Thanks for the nice words. Seems like we've got a consensus building about the snare drum. And Steve's sax is better than sex!

Chuck - thanks again for pitching in. You da man. It's come a long way since those original tracks I sent you, huh?

Steve - you also da man! Thanks for coming through for us. BTW, you worked around the vocals perfectly.

This isn't a band. It's just some friends that I record with on a fairly regular basis. Because there are just four of us (and only two that play instruments) there's a lot of vocal overdubbing and midi involved. As such we could never do much of this live. Besides, we'd have to fly you up from N.O., and get Chuck down from Boston.

[Toki987]

outstanding rendition. fab tracking, collab', and mixing. That tune was great then, and lives on. The vocals are tight and clean. I enjoyed the listen on this one a lot. The only thing that really stood out to me was the bass tone, kinda more 90`s sounding. I was waitin to hear it a little fatter on the low mids with not quite as much top end. Motown.. The tone works fine though. The horns were very smooth and finesse, covered like gravy on potatoes. Y'all did a really impressive rendition.

[crawdad]

Excuse me for my complete and utter ignorance, but how do I get to the song from your link? I tried for about five minutes and resigned myself to complete stupidity. I need a link to the page the song is ON, if you can, bro. Sorry for my net shortcomings.

[Lt. Bob]

He had to take it down 'cause pedullist kept pointing out it was a cover and so Waldo had to speak up.

[Pedullist]

That's right, blame the silly dutch boy...

Sorry guys