HR member cover: Emeric's Holiday (for real this time)

[pglewis]

I meant to post this back in April but net-access went bye-bye for a while. It's close to done, just putting together a final to-do list for polishing it up. First thing I've posted with vocs, so there's a lot of 'em to compensate. Lemme know what I gotta fix.

Original:
http://www.emeric.ca/holidayoriginal.mp3

Cover:
http://www.emeric.ca/HolidayPG.mp3

[Kramer]

Good Lord man.The vocals on this are EXCELLENT.There might be a few volume issues with the vocals(at 1:40 when the distorted guitars kick in) not being loud enough at certain passages but man,I am blown away by the vocal work you did.You did a superb job of getting all those vocal tracks mixed just right without losing them in a blur.

This whole mix sounds good to me.Im sure there will be some nitpickers but this sounds as good or better than a lot of platinum selling albums.I've been listening to a LOT of older albums lately and the mixes would get criticized left and right in the clinic but who gives a rats ass.They sound GREAT just like they are and who's to say whats right and wrong with someones interpretation of a song and the way they choose to mix it?Anyway......killer effort on this tune and thumbs up to emeric for writing such a good song.

[drstawl]

Been A/B ing the original and your update for a while now.
On the monitors.

Hey - you cheated a bit: his was 128 and your file is some kind of other encoding scheme. It reads out in WMP as 492Kbps!!! (BS)
The filesize was close so you get off on this one!

Very creative breaks all the way through. Very well executed.

Your ability to capture Emeric's vocal style is amazing.

Are you some kind of Canadian Infiltrator? The ending vocal chorus was very Beach Boys so you get off there!

That acoustic guit recording is really nice!

My complaint was the drums. Compared to the original it sounded like a click track that came and went.

[Toki987]

superb!

[pglewis]

Kramer: Yeah, the vocs in that section have been a bitch to mix. It was a lot worse, actually. It's on the list, I may just re-cut 'em and see if that does the trick. Thanks for the listen and the kind words!

Doc: Mine is a VBR file, probably oscillates between 160 and 256 kbps. I'd ditch that bloated WMP piece of shit in favor of Winamp 2 for MP3s anyway, if I were you. As for the drums, there really aren't any. That was part of the challenge to myself, to do this without making the excuse that I didn't have a drum kit here. I decided to try to work around that with incidental percussion and vocal doo-dads. There's some drum samples in the bridge, most of which I lifted from other tunes I've done. Other percussion is stick click stuff that comes and goes in the mix (I mic'ed a concrete block in spots and a metal chair arm in the bridge). Thank ya for checking it out, bro.

Toki: Thanks!

[wfaraoni]

Wow, this may be the most spacial thing I have heard here!

Well balanced, lots of movement inside the cans Ive got on, vocals are Fantastic. love that end,Great all around!

If you still didnt get it.

I really liked this


peace
Bill

[Kramer]

*bump*

Im dissapointed in you guys.

A 3 year member like "pglewis" post a tune and he only gets 4 replies?Have some respect for your homerecording.com elders will ya!








Really though,give the song a listen people!

[fenderlikingood]

Originally posted by Kramer
*bump*

Im dissapointed in you guys.

A 3 year member like "pglewis" post a tune and he only gets 4 replies?

WHO?



























BACK IN A SEC.!

[fenderlikingood]

I would expect nothing less from you, Mr. Lewis!

Your hard work and attention to detail really show's through in this mix! Smooth as hell, it's just so warm and inviting!

Fuckin' perfectionist! I really enjoyed this PG!


4 word's come to mind...................WOW!, ERR, WAIT


Thank's, man!

Peace

Rick

[pglewis]

wfaraoni: Thanks for checking it out. The acoustic guits were double tracked; most of the other guits and backing vocs were done with 5 tracks each: hard left, 30-50% L, dead center, 30-50% R, and hard right. I would submix to a stereo pair so I didn't have to deal with a bazillion tracks while mixing. So, for a 2-part harmony I'd cut 10 tracks... sounds harder to do than it turned out to be in reality. As a side-effect, variances in the individual takes gave it some movement on its own without any extra work. I don't normally track like that, but as an experiment it seems to have worked out pretty well for stereo spread.

Kramer: "homerecording.com elders"?! lmao Thanks for the bump.

fender: Thanks, man... and I'm not a perfectionist! I'm just, like, picky and stuff. Yeah, that's it.

[MAC2]

Really enjoyed what you did with this tune!.....the arrangement & instrumentation....THE VOCALS....good stuff!!!

[M.Brane]

Interesting take on the original.

Very nice recording. Everything gels quite well. Good use of space, and quite clean considering the amount of stuff going on in there.

The vocal sounds are quite good. Care to enlighten us as to what mics/pres were used in tracking?

Extra points for creative improvisation on percussion sources.

[twist]

You mean you tracked each part 5 times and then did your panning trick, or were you using duplicated tracks? Either way the effect was awesome! Excellent job on a great tune. I hope Emeric hears this one.


Twist

[Pedullist]

Friggin' brilliant vocals!

Love the use of effects and fades...reminds me of Yes (and Queen, I hope I don't insult you by saying this!)

Very good!

[Thatupstateguy]

PG..............



I am fucking totally blown away....... this should be at least



GOLD,.... or MORE.....!!!!!!!!!!!!!1




Steve

[pglewis]

Thanks, mac... this one was a lot of fun to do, glad you enjoyed it.

M. Brane: All vocs were: C-1000 -> mackie (1604-VLZ) -> sound card. I tapped the insert sends on the mackie to bypass everything except the preamp. I think keeping everything at 24-bits helped maintain the definition, with all the tracks in there. For more creative percussion: the "shaker" on 2 & 4 in the last verse is a cigarette lighter.

twist: Yeah I tracked each part five times, panned 'em all out, balanced it as much as I could L/R, and then submixed to stereo to keep the track count down. Just duplicating tracks doesn't really buy you much, unless you shift some tracks in time by dragging them or something. It's the variances among different takes that really opens things up, IMO. Thanks for the listen, Emeric has heard this... I expect to hear from his lawyers any day now.

Pedullist: Thank you! Really, vocs are something I've taken a long time to get comfortable with. I'm still not totally there. This tune was an anomaly where my vocs didn't make me cringe as much. No insult taken!

Steve: Thank ya, sir. You are too kind. No really, you need to develop a mean streak .

[David]

have some respect for your homerecording.com elders will ya!

Yes sir! , four yrs and counting here, and belive me when i say i've heard some great mixes in here..and above all, a large amount of great tunes. This is outstanding work, one of the best i've heard hands down. I know emeric is very proud of how you captured this. Big Talent here folks..

[Emeric]

Thought I'd better post once in this thread before it drifts into the archives.

Excellent job PG!

The vocals are excellent! The space you created and the dynamic use of reverbs is very cool. The dynamics of the tune are right on as well. Only thing I'd like is a little less verb on the main vocal lead, I think the saturated backup vox got that covered, and it would make your lead a little smoother sounding.

This blows my version away and I mean that. Thanks!

Oh yeah, dig the bagpipes!

[Khompewtur]

Whoa! this sounds great.. but im confused who is who and who did the original.

1:18 and 2:28 when the back vox kick in sound very heavenly, excellent job.


Is it YES or is it CS&N i am thinking of at the harmonies at the end??

[participant]

He's bigger than Jesus. Yep.

Well...

-----> (tongue in cheek)

Luscious. Harm o Knees. TripleM will worship you... (wait... has he read this thread yet?) Clean.

Jeez... goin thru the magic popup-book of metaphors here and cant find one that expresses what your music-thing does to me, here. Haven't heard Emeric's orig-- must do that.... later... for now, one more time....

....ah.... guitars.... backward cymbals... jaw hits floor... razor hits nuts.... brainbag is shaved


Seriously.... very n'eyes

-C

[pglewis]

fresh/David: Thanks, man. Hey you're one of the /real/ elders around here, a 99'er! My recordings have improved a lot since I started coming around here, listening, and asking questions about what other people have done in their recordings.

Emeric: Thanks for the (indirect) inspiration to get off my ass and actually record something without making excuses for once . Backing off the main voc 'verb is easy enough with the way I have it bussed out in vegas, I've added that to the list. I also agree about moving the "ooohs" in the beginning back to where they originally were... I listened to an earlier mix and I agree, I like the transition better that way. Bagpipes... well, I just had to.

Khomp: I did the cover version, emeric did the original. I was listening to some old tunes I have sitting on the hard-drive a while back and decided I wanted to try a version of this tune. Not sure of the vocal influences on the ending harmonies. I've heard Yes, Queen, CSN, and Beach Boys mentioned now. I'd say Rundgren was a factor for sure, but I'm flattered by any of those comparisons. It seems weird to say in this thread, but vocs really aren't my forte. I've always been very very self-conscious about my singing. Thanks for checking it out.

Chad: "razor hits nuts..." Heheheh! Man, if only I could have worked in a sample of that somehow. I did lift a pretty obvious sample from an HR collab... no one has mentioned it yet. Totally appreciate the kind words. This was a lot of fun to do, it made me approach things totally differently than I normally do.

[dobro]

Emeric plays guitar better than you do. It doesn't slow you down though, cuz your arranging skills and above all, those *voices* have a way of bringing out the lyrics - your skill is in drawing attention to meanings that were residing in the lyrics all along.

It's a fuck of a skill, pg. Find ways to keep using it.

Does it only kick in when you're inspired by the song?

You've put together a beautiful piece of music here. You know, this song means more to me now than before. It's a fuck of a skill. Forget the praise, and find ways to keep putting that skill to use.

[lynx]

What a cool song, I missed the original when it was first posted.

This is a very original remake, a true "remake"

I won't comment on the vocals because they are absolutely fantastic and most people have already touched on it already.

Beautiful

[JR#97]

Holy shit, PG. This kicks ass. I really enjoyed seeing this come to fruition. I was really looking forward to hearing a finished version after you nickle and dimed me a few time when you first started it. thanks for sharing! All of the cubicle dwellers around me think it's killer, too. They're probably sick of it because I've been listening to it for about an hour straight, but screw 'em.

I still think your lo-fi version kicked more ass though.

[pglewis]

dobie: Thank you. Sometimes it doesn't even kick-in when I'm inspired . To be honest I enjoyed the process more than the result here, but I've had to listen to it sooooo many times.

lynx: I definitely try to get the essence of the tune without making a carbon copy if I'm gonna do a remake. I've always believed that a good tune can live a million different lives. Getting vocal compliments from guys like you who can really sing means a lot to me. Thanks for giving it a listen.

JR: Thanks for enduring several crappy early sketches! The better version is still up at http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/...d=1908&alid=-1