Slow acoustic ditty -- panning & reverb?

[mattdee1]

Hey all

I recorded a solo acoustic version of this tune I've been playing with the band for a year or so. In general I'm really happy with how it sounds in this format.

Admittedly I'm a bit of a novice finger-picker so I may have struggled a bit keeping perfect time with the click but no matter--I've got a good buddy who is a virtuoso finger-picker and he agreed to lay a track down for me in a few weeks.

All comments are of course welcome, but in particular I'm struggling a bit with:

1) Reverb on vox--is it too much? I keep going back and forth on this.

2) Panning--I have the guitars slightly left and lead vox slightly right. Not sure if it works. I did this so that when the harmonies come in I could have them slightly left for a balanced stereo vocal effect

"Casual Deception" (named by the bass player.. I think he watches too much soft porn on Cinemax )

www.soundclick.com/mattdee

Appreciatively,
MattDee

 

[jmasek]

That's a nice song. I would cut back the reverb on the vocals and instead double the part. Your voice is ok, but has a "thin" quality that could benefit from doubling (and maybe boosting the low-mids a bit). I tend to be "traditional" in that I prefer vocals panned to the center, or (if doubled) equal L/R. But this does sound pretty good.

 

[mattdee1]

That's a nice song. I would cut back the reverb on the vocals and instead double the part. Your voice is ok, but has a "thin" quality that could benefit from doubling (and maybe boosting the low-mids a bit). I tend to be "traditional" in that I prefer vocals panned to the center, or (if doubled) equal L/R. But this does sound pretty good.

Thanks for listening.

I originally toyed with the idea of double-tracking but I've found that whenever I do that with a stripped down acoustic song the doubling becomes overly obvious. Maybe when I re-do the guitars with my buddy I'll test drive the double tracking idea.

 

[heatmiser]

This sounds pretty cool man. I am a big fan of reverb, but feel as though this may be a bit too much...more than that though, there seems to be excess sizzle to the vocals...too much sibilance or an excess of a cetain higher frequency giving it a little bit of harshness. Smooth that out a little and I bet the big verb would work better. I didn't mind the panning in this case although it is a bit unusual. I really like the harmonies and felt the BGVs sat just right behind the lead. Guitar sounded fine if a bit boomy. Nice job .

 

[mattdee1]

This sounds pretty cool man. I am a big fan of reverb, but feel as though this may be a bit too much...more than that though, there seems to be excess sizzle to the vocals...too much sibilance or an excess of a cetain higher frequency giving it a little bit of harshness. Smooth that out a little and I bet the big verb would work better. I didn't mind the panning in this case although it is a bit unusual. I really like the harmonies and felt the BGVs sat just right behind the lead. Guitar sounded fine if a bit boomy. Nice job .

Awesome, thanks Heat.

I'm starting to see what you mean about the sizzle. I think I need to learn the ins and outs of de-essing.

What did you use to listen? I know that the impression of panning can vary, particularly between speakers and headphones.