Take a listen to this short clip...

[Fender]

Hi, I'm recording the song "breath" by Faith Hill and my sister is going to be singing. I was just wondering if you could listen to what I have so far. Any suggestions to make it more energetic?? There is only vocals in the intro right now.

Thanks.
The link is... www.i-drive.com

the username is: serbod
the pass is: hello

[MrLip]

The beginning of this is really good.

As for energy, when the drums come in, I can hardly hear the kick drum, snare, and toms (if there are any). The hi-hat/cymbals are loud and clear though.

How did you record the acoustic guitar? Condenser mic? Sounds really good.

The vocal sounds great too. What mic? Your sister has a good voice.

[MrLip]

I listened to this again. Man, the singer is great.

Maybe the acoustic guitar is a little loud.

Around 1:11 I would put up the kick/snare.

I really like your sister's voice. Let us know when you've finished the whole thing!

[gibs]

Totally agree with MrLip...up the drum thing...your sister is a really good singer too....gibs

[Fender]

thanks guys. I wish I could turn up individual drums, I'm using a drum machine so I'm gonna have to edit the drum sounds on the keyboard itself I guess. The snare is really low I agree. I'm redoing it as I seak and I''ll upload my final. I'm sequencing the drums this time so I can quantize them cause I was a little off in the last one.

Thnkas a lot.

Adam.

[CMiller]

Sounds good, really good. I agree with what everyone has already said. I'm not familiar with the original song, did you try to recreate it or were you going for your own version?

Aside from the obvious, the mix is good, but I'd like to hear a more stereo acoustic guitar, or at the very least panned more toward the center (specifically toward the beginning of the tune). It lends a more intimate feel to the song. Much the same way your sister's voice is positioned as though she was singing to the listener. I'd like to have the acoustic sitting in front of me. A couple really good examples of what I'm talking about can be heard on Recording Engineer's stuff and JitteringJim gets a great intimate acoustic.

Great work though, let us hear it when it's finished!

[monty]

Still sounds like Stevie Nicks to me. And I love Stevie Nicks.

[Fender]

Thanks for all your good replies. With all your help I'm doing the song again and its sounding better, alot better. The problem I'm having now is really annoying, my computer is starting to studder becuase I'm using so many effects etc. Will I need more ram or a faster CPU?? I have 64 megs and my cpu is pentium II 400.

Thanks again,

Adam.

[dobro]

Yeah, nice sound, and nicely put together. I like that great big fat splat bass sound, although it's unusual for this type of tune. You do all the instruments again? Miles away from Django. What are you up to mostly?

[dobro]

Oh, yeah, 'more energetic', right... Well it's hard to sound energetic with this kind of tempo, right? How about getting your fiddle friend to come in on the second verse with some quick back and forth scrubbing on the violin (quick, somebody help me - what's this kind of tension violin move called?) in order to raise the ante.

But sometimes you can raise the ante by getting more spare, rather than more energetic. For example, come the time when the electric guitar opens up, how about just a few long, lingering notes? Rather than building it up all excited crescendo-like, take it out into the open all alone and standing under a lonesome sky, if you catch my drift. Then, when the vocal comes back, it'll knock you over with its warmth.

Just an idea.

[MrLip]

Hah. Get more of both.
But directx real-time effects eat lots of CPU. So if you want to be able to use more real-time effects, time to upgrade your CPU.

Or else apply them (the effects) directly to the wav; but then they won't be 'real-time' anymore.

[Fender]

thanks, does anyone mind taking a listen to my updated recording. It's in the thread called "heres an update". Tell me what you think.

Thanks, Adam..