As Promised, Here's my fun little song!

You get your 5 yr old to clean his room everyday??? I'm jealous. :D

Cute little song. I'd like to hear the lead vocal centered. But I see you're balancing it with the acoustic guitar. I think tracking the acoustic with two mics and then hard panning them will open up a space in the middle for the vocals. Or have your son play that guitar part twice and pan them L50 and R50. Or just leave it the way it is because it works this way too... :)

Thanks for sharing.
 
Hi Chili,
Yeah, he has a little of that obsessive-compulsive stuff from his mother, I'm afraid... He also gets up from the table after a meal, takes his plate/cup/utensil to the sink, gets the rag from the sink, and wipes down his area at the table. He started doing that, of his own accord, about 6 months ago (when he was 4!), and the first time he did it, I was shocked! But then I realized, he comes by it pretty naturally! It took having 5 kids to get to this point, though. None of the other kids had it this bad!

I thought Kayley was centered in the mix. I'll have to go check it again tomorrow. I'm thinking that I had her centered, the guitar and my elec.piano to the left at varying degrees, and Kara (harmony) to the right. My mixing time was intermittent, between interruptions from my dear ones here, though, so I'll be back to check it after (hopefully) a good night's sleep.

Did anyone notice Kayley (the lead) clipping at the beginning of each chorus? It sounded fine on my monitors (AT studio headphones), but when I played it on my mp3 player, it sounded a tad overdriven right there. Let me know what you hear. You all have much better ears than I.

Thanks in advance for any critique/feedback! I much appreciate all the help I get here!
 
Here is what my oldest daughter said:

it feels like the arrangement is still missing something...... what could it be?????? it's fine for now though. There was some overdrive on my speakers, though i don't know if thats just my speakers because i know that didnt happen on the headphones.
-kacia

Can any of you pinpoint what is missing, or help me with the overdrive issue??
 
I've read that condenser mics' diaphragms can get encrused with microdust and/moisture, and cause crackling sounds. That's what I hear...crackling...when she drives the mic hard. [IIRC, the diaphragm is actually a 'sandwich'...2 diaphragms together with a tiny air gap between. I think random staticky discharge happens when the airspace is contaminated???] Try another mic, try to isolate each componant until you find the source....chords, mics, preamps, etc.

I also think I hear flutter..which, having once had a lot of that in my records, I got rid of by avoiding over-processing tracks and masters...compression, expansion, harmonic distortion enhancers, verb...two or more applications ... harmless by themselves...that in combination become digital poison.

The flutter could also be mp3 compression artifact. I got rid of that by upgrading my conversion software...from Audacity's free one, to a dbPoweramp subscription variety.

You'll figure it out. Just try different things..
 
hmmm... the only processing I did was very light reverb, since I record in a very flat room. Oh, and I did run ever so slight compression on the lead vox, since every time she sang, "Five things..." it got too large. I think I'd like to have her try again, only with the input turned down, or maybe she could turn her head a bit on those highs.
I'm curious about the condenser stuff, though, because I take really good care of that mic, since it's the only one I have. She was standing at least a foot away from the mic, too. But I noticed a crackling right toward the end of the song. Well, I hope she'll be willing to experiment a little more.
She burns out easily on this recording stuff, being only 13. But what a voice, huh? She's got some vocal personality! It's so natural for her.
 
Here's something to try...take a track...bass range is good , piano, fine. Open you mastering progran and let it play. Mess with the compression and EQ widgets...listen for the artifacts as you intentionally over-apply. Compression is a real culprit for producing ugliness beyond certain levels, I find. I hardly ever go below -12db/1.8 in a master. That's about where the snare loses its snap. The more I use, the more crap I can hear. That might be my program only. But the important thing is to get a feel for what you can get away with, without killing wholesome goodness.

Time, experience, lots of mistakes. And getting your ears attuned to hearing awfulness the first time you listen. Takes a while.

A pretty sharp family band y' got there, ma. :^)
 
Pretty cute....I've got a daughter called Kayley too (only we spell it the celtic way, Kayleigh...).
The part that sounds louder you can handle with a compressor or track volume automation, that shouldn't be problem. Sweet song and don't ever let the kids stop making music!

Joey :):):):)
 
Haha, not bad.


I always thought making beds was a dumb thing to do. I mean, you're just gonna trash it all up again, so why bother? ;)
 
Nice song & nice voices.
I had a similar clipping prob with an MP3 but not the wave file - it could well be that you have a similar prob to me.
If you can look at the wav in a freq analyser you might get a clue.
I found that - on two tracks I had - I learned to deal with it thereafter - I had a build up of freqs below 100 - they didn't appear as sound to my ears but had a knock on effect with higher freqs. I had to run a hard high pass filter just above the problem area. This filter didn't really effect what I heard initially but made a huge diff to the file in compression to MP3. I also learned to hear what was happening further up the freqs. I've subsequqntly learnt to be careful with a particular mic, and to do some low end roll off on things in my equip list that cause such build up.
Nice that the squid does the right thing & takes responsibility.
 
Good to hear such young talent.

I could also hear what sounded like clipping on the lead vox. If you're going to retrack I'd suggest simply turning down your preamp a bit, should fix the problem.
 
Thanks so much for the feedback, guys! I think I'm gonna have to take some time to wrap my head around the frequency advice, Ray. Thank you for trying to explain, and opening my mind to some new things. It'll take me a bit, but I'll go read more about the frequencies, and play around with my software, to see if it starts to click for me!

I've read you guys talking about it before, but my brain sort of glazes over. It's time for me to get a handle on it!
 
hehe, this is nice man. i smiled when i heard this.

your daughter has a really sweet/soothing voice. awesome voice in fact. :) sounds like a song disney would use on a morning show. the mix sounds pretty clear/clean overall. sometimes the vocals sound louder than in other parts and you can tell by the change in the frequencies (and when these collapse with others).

but overall, nice song. the chorus is stuck in my head now, getting reeeeeeeeaaaaaaady getting reaaaaaaaady ... 5 things i do everydayyyyy. noooooooooooo. lol. it won't get out of my head.
 
Thanks, outerspacezoo, for your comments! Sorry it took me so long to respond, I had some trouble with password/unable to be here for a few days!
I see that you're new to the site.
Welcome.
 
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