First New Post In A Long While - How's This Sounding So Far?

dewhitt

dewhitt

Dave DeWhitt
Hi All,

This is a new track I just recorded with my trio in a live format using real, honest-to-goodness mic'd guitar and bass amps and drums (everything I've previously done has been using software sims). I would appreciate any feedback on the mix, as I'm at the point where I'm too close to it now, and all perspective has gone out the window!

Original Mix:
https://soundcloud.com/davedewhitt/heavy

Newest Mix:
https://soundcloud.com/davedewhitt/heavy-4-8

Thanks!

Dave
 
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Thanks for listening, guys. I appreciate it!

Paulisher, I'm guessing that pic means you think it needs more bass drum?

Armistice, yeah...I'm loving the bass tones for this type of music...I have a TC Electronic BG250 bass amp in my studio that I use, and the bass player brought over a SansAmp VT Bass unit that he put in front of it. We mic'd it with an AKG D112 and also took a direct input (which I actually ended up using most in the blend). I didn't really do anything to the resulting track other than add a touch of compression to help it sit even in the mix.

Thanks EricIndecisive. It's funny, cause I love to double-track stuff and make it sound huge, and it's taking all of my strength of will to just keep this recording very basic so that it's a true representation of the trio format and the live sounds we're getting. In the past, I would normally track tons of guitar parts and pan them out wide, but with this format, it's just the one guitar track. I'm resisting the urge to start adding more guitar. Must resist....must resist...lol.

Thanks for listening!

Best,

Dave
 
I liked the guitar and drum sounds a lot. Good playing. Reminds me of Bad Company.

The vocal is a little bit cloudy. A cut somewhere around 500hz - 1000hz might help.

Kick might be just a bit loud.

Bass could use a little stronger low end. Maybe a boost around 80hz - 120hz or so?
 
Actually I think the kick is loud enough. Perhaps my comic relief was misplaced. Excellent job, good song and yes I would resist the urge to add another guitar track. Sounds good as a trio. BTW can I assume that you recorded the instruments live perhaps with a scratch vocal then added the vocals later.
 
Hi All,

Thanks for the additional comments.

TripleM, that's seriously useful feedback, thanks! I created a new mix with your suggestions, cause when I tried them out, they all seemed to help...sweet! I pulled a little reverb off the kick and lowered the level just a smidge. I also bumped the bass by a few dB at 100 Hz...it's hopefully not a huge change, but just enough to fill out some of the low end. For the vocals, that's my voice, and I do feel pretty cloudy these days, so there may be no helping it with EQ :) However, when I went back and looked at the channel strip settings, I did have an old saved config that I had applied to the strip, and it had a bump in the 500 and 1000 Hz bands, because I found in the past (different mic and preamp) that the bump there helped my vocals sit in the mix a little better. Not so with this new setup, so man....great ears on that one! I removed the bump, which effectively cuts 500/1000. I've posted the new mix up here, and I think the changes are subtle, but I believe they do make it better:

https://soundcloud.com/davedewhitt/heavy-4-5

Semimatt, I'm really glad you like it. Having someone crank up the speakers and rock out is pretty much exactly the reaction I'm hoping for, so thanks for listening!

Paulisher, comic relief is always a good thing...I'm just slow sometimes. The pic cracked me up for sure, but I wasn't sure if you were sending me a message or not :) Also, thanks for supporting the single guitar track, I need all the help I can get on that! When we recorded this, we actually rehearsed it a bunch of times with vocals, and then a bunch of times without vocals (with me just making faces and mouthing words at the guys...pretty weird really) and then we recorded it without vocals and I added them in later. It worked for this track cause it's simple, but I can see that might be a logistical problem I have to solve as we move forward...recording (or at least monitoring) vocals as we go forward with more tunes. We still have one more thing to record for this one, which is the bass player doing the actual BGVs. I sang the ones that are on this track as a placeholder until he can get back over here to record the real ones.

Thanks again!
 
I think the bass is sounding stronger now. I think you can actually turn it down a db or two.

Vocal is better too. You might get away with a couple db boost between 5K and 6K. Might provide some clarity and presence. Just a guess. Give it a try and see.

Sounding good to me.
 
So good to hear something new from you, Dave! I've gotta put something up myself... Hrmm.... Anyway.. Here are notes I made while listening on studio monitors (Adam A7X).

Toms need to come WAY up they're almost gone as is.... general low-mids need a bit of taming throughout the song (master bus, perhaps?)
Space between the guitars and bass seems oddly mis-matched, but that might be the way the two instruments are EQ'ed.
Cymbals in the drums could come up a bit.
Bass high-freqs could come down a bit, but not so much so as to get rid of them entirely. Right now, they're pretty pronounced, and could be a bit distracting.
Consider doubling the guitars in places? Doubling vocals? Seems sparse, as-is.
3:02, when the guitar "wah" comes in, it's almost entirely covered up... Gotta bring that entrance out more! Should be a huge guitar entrance there.
Vocal's EQ seems tame compared to all the other instruments. I'd bring the mid-high's (perhaps 4-6K HZ?) up a bit to make the vocals sparkle a bit more.
Kick drum *really* needs to come up. It's almost non-existent at the end when the train-wreck is in full motion, and those kicks should be pounding me in the head.

Anyway... Good times! The song is stellar, as always, man. Thanks for sharing!
 
Hey Jason! Yeah, I'm happy I finally have something new to share. I guess it's really been a couple of years since I really had anything new like this, although it seems crazy to me that it's been that long. After I finished my CD, I was determined to go back to the drawing board and try to get myself set up to do more organic recordings with a real band, real amps, real drums, etc, etc, etc. So, that's what I've been doing I guess...just going through major gear acquisition and then finding the right bass player/singer to gel with Paul and me and complete the trio. Anyway...I am now set up to properly record the trio format, so I'm hoping that now we'll start to produce more music like this.

Thanks very much for the detailed feedback! I'll definitely take a closer listen at the drums and see what I can do. One thing that stinks is that after the guys left a couple of weekends ago and I started messing with the raw tracks we had recorded, I realized that my right drum OH had something wrong with it...some clipping or distortion combined with a really low overall level. So...this mix is completely missing that right side OH, instead I have the left OH just panned up the middle. My drum setup now is a Shure Beta 52 on kick, Sm57s on snare, tom, and floor tom, an MXL SDC for hats, and then two Avantone CK-1 SDCs for overheads. I'm still a little unsure about the best way to record drums with this combo...I used to do a sort of Glenn Johns technique when I didn't have the hat mic and all the toms mic'd. Now that I have mics directly on everything, I'm sort of scratching my head about the overheads. For this recording I left them the way I had them in the Glenn Johns config, but I think going forward I'm going to move them out in front a little to try and capture more of just the overall kit. Anywhoo...that could be why the cymbals are low...I'm struggling with a bad OH track. I will see if I can do some automation or something with what I have though...

I didn't actually EQ the guitar at all, except to just cut below 60Hz. Personally, I'm loving the raw guitar tone, it's a Les Paul Junior with P90s through a Marshall 100W head and 4 x 12 cab. I will play around with bumping up the level when the way part comes in during the hits in the middle. For bass guitar EQ, the latest mix (4.6) has the bass bumped up at around 100Hz per a suggestion from TripleM, and I think that really helped to thicken up the bottom end of the bass guitar. Did you listen to that latest mix, or the mix in my first post, which was pre-corrections? I ask because I also added about 2 dB at 5500Hz to the vocals per another great suggestion from TripleM. You guys are both hearing the same thing there, so great minds! Just curious if you are hearing that still in the latest mix. Hmmm...I think I should go back and edit my first post to add the later mixes there...

I've been resisting the urge to double up on guitars, just because this is a trio, and I'm trying to keep the arrangement exactly how we play it live so that we can reproduce it when we decide to go out and rock the Delaware valley :) Doubling some vocals is something I've considered though...maybe just a subtle thickening on some of the key lines...?

Thanks again for the great comments. I'll look forward to hearing something new from ACS!

Edit: Here's a new mix with many of the suggestions above - https://soundcloud.com/davedewhitt/heavy-4-8

Very Best,

Dave
 
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Listening to the newest mix....

Awesome guitar sound. You can't beat a Gibson into a Marshall. I think it's all really pretty good. Love the bass. Drums sound nice and punchy but natural to me. I also really like the one guitar mix. Sounds authentic. Great playing all around. Good mix. Very well done.
 
Thanks, Greg...I really appreciate it! Yeah, Gibson and Marshall...it's just beautiful. Compared to what I was getting previously with sims....man, no comparison in my opinion. There have been times over the past couple of years when I was questioning my sanity as I was pretty much single-handedly keeping my local Craigslist up and running with all my guitar-related purchases, wondering if it was going to be worth it. But yeah, I think now it was some of the best time and money I've spent :)

I was hoping you'd check this one out...thanks for listening!

Dave
 
So what Marshall is it? I've recently bought and sold a few Marshall heads myself. Right now I'm using a JVM410 and a 1979 JMP 2204.
 
It's actually nothing great, it's just a JCM2000 DSL100 with a 1960a cab...but the head is one of the older DSL100s, which apparently sounds better than the newer ones. I think this one was made in 2007-ish maybe? I only use the green crunch channel with the volume up pretty high and the gain up maybe half way, and I'm hitting the front end of the amp pretty hard with my pedals...particularly an MXR micro amp for a boost, and a Fulltone OCD for mild overdrive (at least it's mild the way I have is set...this thing can be a beast if needed I hear). Mostly the way I use them, the pedals just take what the amp is already doing and juice it up. I used an SM57 on the cab, and I recorded it at an obscenely loud volume :guitar:

Those amps you mentioned are killer. One thing I'm contemplating for the DSL is to have the output transformer upgraded. The amp tech who works on my stuff is really pushing that, and he says it's the best way to take this DSL to the next level. Not sure it's worth the money, but maybe if Santa is good to me this year... :D

Best,

Dave
 
dewhitt said:
It's actually nothing great, it's just a JCM2000 DSL100 with a 1960a cab...but the head is one of the older DSL100s, which apparently sounds better than the newer ones. I think this one was made in 2007-ish maybe? I only use the green crunch channel with the volume up pretty high and the gain up maybe half way, and I'm hitting the front end of the amp pretty hard with my pedals...particularly an MXR micro amp for a boost, and a Fulltone OCD for mild overdrive (at least it's mild the way I have is set...this thing can be a beast if needed I hear). Mostly the way I use them, the pedals just take what the amp is already doing and juice it up. I used an SM57 on the cab, and I recorded it at an obscenely loud volume :guitar:

Those amps you mentioned are killer. One thing I'm contemplating for the DSL is to have the output transformer upgraded. The amp tech who works on my stuff is really pushing that, and he says it's the best way to take this DSL to the next level. Not sure it's worth the money, but maybe if Santa is good to me this year... :D

Best,

Dave
Click to expand...

Dude, the DSL is a great amp. I like em a lot. And I'm with ya on the Green Crunch channel - great sound. I had my hands on my buddy's OCD for a little while. It's a cool pedal but a little too heavy-handed for me. It's almost like an amp-in-a-box. Sounds like you've got a killer setup to me though. Gibson w/ P-90s - 100w tube Marshall - 4x12 - loud - how can you go wrong with that? You can't, and you surely didn't. I don't know about the transformers in those DSLs, but if you're looking to upgrade your sound, I'd humbly suggest looking into some different speakers depending on the sound you're after. Speakers make a huge difference! The stock 1960a G12T-75s are nice if that's what you're using, but something more custom tailored for a specific style can take you into real tonal heaven. If this recording is your typical sound, I'm hearing some Greenbacks in your future. I ran Greenbacks X-patterned with the stock G12T-75s in one of my Marshall cabs for a while and it sounded friggin awesome as hell. Really good pairing. Think about it.
 
Yeah, the OCD has that stack sound in a pedal. I was initially worried about using it with the crunch channel on my DSL, just thinking it would be too much. But keeping the drive low it seems to work great, it just gives it a nice kick in the head. The speaker update idea is very intriguing. There is a version of the G12M Greenback that is rated for 65 watts now, the G12M-65 "Creamback". Were you using the 25 watt Greenbacks? Is there concern about the power handling of those with a 100w head? I wonder if the 25 watt Greenback "sound" is partially derived from the fact that they are overdriven and compressed though, so that might not be the same with the 65 watt version...hmmm...more research needed :)

Chuckduffy, thanks for checking it out, I'm glad you liked the guitar!

Best,

Dave
 
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