From This Valley Cover - Feedback Appreciated!

Thanks for sharing, and welcome back to recording! May it suck you back in ;)

You've got a great starting point here. Everything is pretty clean, and you can hear all the elements. If you left it as is, it would be perfectly pleasing to listen to.

First thoughts: Lead female vocal need to be further out front. Bring them up at least 1-2db, like where the male vocals are. Sounds like they could use a little presence as well in the 4-8k range. They're a little dull compared to the male voice.

The acoustic isn't a very exciting sound, but I don't think it needs to be in this song. I might try to take a little bit out of the low mids? Not too much though. That's the energy in acoustic guitars. Just gets a little muddy in the middle of the song.

There's not a real sense of acoustic space. What kind of reverb are you using? I would try a nice stereo verb to give the track a sense of space. It's all very narrow.

I think the overall mix could benefit from some presence.

Performance itself is great. What wonderful harmony work at the 3/4 point of the song!
 
I thought the performances were real good. Both singers have nice voices.

The female vocal was tough to make out. Could you give us some details on how it was recorded? Mic? How far away was she from the mic? What did the room look like? It's just a bit mumbly.

The guitar is slightly trebly/harsh. It sounds kind of mic'd and kind of direct at the same time.
 
General recording notes:
* Recorded in my living room, with no acoustic treatment. Microphone is handheld, so maybe 6" from the singer. I need to get a mic stand...
* Microphone is an MXL 990, powered by a Nady SMPS1X Phantom power supply and into a Lexicon Alpha USB interface. Cheapo nady pop filter.
* The DAW is Reaper, with some ReaVerb (using free reverb files I found on the internet), ReaComp and whatever the built-in Reaper EQ plugin is
* Guitar is a Yamaha AC3R recorded directly through the USB interface.

Brian Miller said:
Thanks for sharing, and welcome back to recording! May it suck you back in ;)

You've got a great starting point here. Everything is pretty clean, and you can hear all the elements. If you left it as is, it would be perfectly pleasing to listen to.

First thoughts: Lead female vocal need to be further out front. Bring them up at least 1-2db, like where the male vocals are. Sounds like they could use a little presence as well in the 4-8k range. They're a little dull compared to the male voice.

The acoustic isn't a very exciting sound, but I don't think it needs to be in this song. I might try to take a little bit out of the low mids? Not too much though. That's the energy in acoustic guitars. Just gets a little muddy in the middle of the song.

There's not a real sense of acoustic space. What kind of reverb are you using? I would try a nice stereo verb to give the track a sense of space. It's all very narrow.

I think the overall mix could benefit from some presence.

Performance itself is great. What wonderful harmony work at the 3/4 point of the song!
Click to expand...
Thanks for the comments! I noticed what you mention about the female vocals when listening to it again this morning on my regular headphones - her voice starts out loud and gets quieter (we recorded the first and second parts of the song separately). So I'll definitely bring her up a bit for the second half.

I'll try to mess with the EQ a bit to make it clearer... though I'll admit I have little idea on how to do that other than to look at the FFT and bring down some of the lower frequencies. But, as TripleM says, it's a bit harsh too. So Bring down the higher frequencies as well?

I'll have to look into the difference between regular reverb and stereo reverb, but I agree on everything sounding quite narrow. I would like the guitar to be a bit "wider" but I don't know how to accomplish that.

TripleM said:
I thought the performances were real good. Both singers have nice voices.

The female vocal was tough to make out. Could you give us some details on how it was recorded? Mic? How far away was she from the mic? What did the room look like? It's just a bit mumbly.

The guitar is slightly trebly/harsh. It sounds kind of mic'd and kind of direct at the same time.
Click to expand...

See details at beginning of post. I haven't found what settings I like the best for recording the guitar (it has a few modeling options built in), but I recently put new strings on and I'm not a fan of how bright they are so far. But, the treble/harshness is there in real life too, so I need to figure out what to do about that.
 
Regarding the female vocals: they definitely need to come up in the beginning of the song by at least 1-2db. Try an aggressive high pass filter: bring it up to 200hz or even higher. Go until it sounds thin and then back it off a touch. This should help clear it up. Then maybe a wide 1db boost in the 4-8k range to help her cut thru the mix and add some presence. Avoid her harshness range (usually 2-5kz but everyone's voice is different).

DI acoustics generally need a lot of processing to sound good. Give a moderate boost to the low end (but shelf off the rumble usually 60hz and below), and pull just a bit out of the low mids to make it less muddy.

A good reverb will help the whole mix have more space and take the heat off of the DI guitar.
 
Brian Miller said:
Regarding the female vocals: they definitely need to come up in the beginning of the song by at least 1-2db. Try an aggressive high pass filter: bring it up to 200hz or even higher. Go until it sounds thin and then back it off a touch. This should help clear it up. Then maybe a wide 1db boost in the 4-8k range to help her cut thru the mix and add some presence. Avoid her harshness range (usually 2-5kz but everyone's voice is different).

DI acoustics generally need a lot of processing to sound good. Give a moderate boost to the low end (but shelf off the rumble usually 60hz and below), and pull just a bit out of the low mids to make it less muddy.

A good reverb will help the whole mix have more space and take the heat off of the DI guitar.
Click to expand...

Thanks again for the awesome feedback. I did what you suggested, and added some reverb on the guitar... so all 3 channels now have an individual reverb. Is it common to add some reverb on the whole mix as well? Seems like double dipping might make it kind of muddy. Anyway, the difference is subtle, at least to my ears (all I've got to listen on are some $30 PC speakers and the $20 monoprice 8323 "studio" cans) but I've attached version 2.

I'm going to go mess with the guitar more and see if I can't get a better sound out of it for future recordings. It has a built-in mic in addition to the piezo pickup that I can fade between, as well as 3 different modeling modes.
 

Attachments

  • from this valley 2_rev2.mp3
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I the new mix sounds better, yes.

I would say that it is not common to add reverb to the whole mix as well, but I could be mistaken. I used to do that years ago when I didn't have the option to do much otherwise, but I think it would be overkill. You can mess with the amount of verb on each track separately depending on where you wish to place them back to front.

I'm generally not a fan of DI acoustic guitar tones, but this one doesn't sound too bad. I feel like the reverb accentuated even more of that almost metallic ringing frequency that I don't care for so much. I played around with the little EQ in WMP and 8k seemed to be the offender for me, but that's just me. If you like the tone, then keep it. It certainly isn't bad. Personally I would try sweeping a narrow EQ boost across the guitar track, see if any area really offends, and then make a cut there. It might warm it up a little.

You both sing well. It's a good performance.
 
heatmiser said:
I the new mix sounds better, yes.

I would say that it is not common to add reverb to the whole mix as well, but I could be mistaken. I used to do that years ago when I didn't have the option to do much otherwise, but I think it would be overkill. You can mess with the amount of verb on each track separately depending on where you wish to place them back to front.

I'm generally not a fan of DI acoustic guitar tones, but this one doesn't sound too bad. I feel like the reverb accentuated even more of that almost metallic ringing frequency that I don't care for so much. I played around with the little EQ in WMP and 8k seemed to be the offender for me, but that's just me. If you like the tone, then keep it. It certainly isn't bad. Personally I would try sweeping a narrow EQ boost across the guitar track, see if any area really offends, and then make a cut there. It might warm it up a little.

You both sing well. It's a good performance.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, the metallic ringing is there in person as well. It may just take some time for these new strings to mellow out or something, because they're the same strings I had before, and they definitely weren't this "bright" or "sparkly" (however the guitar people want to describe them). I tried all the different settings on the guitar itself, as well as using my mxl 990 to mic it at various locations (which sounded even worse), so I might just be bumping into an equipment limitation. I messed with the EQ's a bit more and I think I was able to even it out a little bit. Maybe I'm just spinning my wheels, haha.

Thanks for all the feedback!
 

Attachments

  • from this valley 2_final.mp3
    7.3 MB · Views: 1
Last edited:
Vocal levels are better here.

If an awful metallic ringing was recorded at the source, there isn't much you're going to be able to do. Cuts in the 8k range may warm it up, but it might just dull it all out.

I say take what you learned, be done with this one, and work on getting a better guitar tone for the next track. Good work!
 
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