Blues...

Buck62

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Here's another song from my friend's Blues band... Karl Foxx and Chicago's Finest.

The song is just over 8 minutes long, but features some great vocals and organ, and a stellar harmonica track.

The song was done in one take.

I wish all my recording jobs were this easy and enjoyable!

Go to the bottom of the page.... "Sweet Little Angel"
http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/alternative/bucksjams/

Buck
 
sweeeet.

Man, this guys voice is velvet. The recording is velvet. Sometimes, I thought that the organ? on the right was a bit loud, but at other times it just blended in well.

Drum level is tight. bass sound is balsy. TImng seems to be on point. Snare is at what I consider a perfect level.It just an all around good mix IMHO.

THose guys can play fo sho. I love the instrumentation and the lead mans voice.

Ok, since I am beginning to recognise the characteristics of some mics, I will venture to say that this is definitely the rode ntk on the vocal. You know how I "traditionally" feel about the rode ntk. Well, this goes against all of that. THis is really how I feel: you managed to get a silky smooth, velvet sound out of that mic, I dont know how on earth you did it. But this is the second rode ntk I've heard that I REALLY like. THis one and ruebarb's post. If all the ntk samples I have heard were like this, I would totally be ordering the mic.

Now, you've got me thinking about it again. Hey, what eq did you have on this? I suspect that you took away a tad bit of the high end, or maybe angled it a little, because it does not have that annoying hash. Its just silky like a good mic should be.

I thought the organ sound and the sound on the left(harmonica??) needed some more reverb. They sound a bit too direct right now. On more critical listeining, however, I realize that they are in the right space, just a bit too loud .

peace.

I wish I had a baby that would give me a twenty everytime I asked for a nickel :)
 
Hey, thanx CJ! :)

Would you believe that's an AKG C3000 on the vocals and harmonica track?.... because it is!

The thing that warmed it up so much is my Envoice.
Usually, the C3000 is pretty harsh in the upper-mids, but when you've got a decent preamp (and the right settings), anything is possible. ;)

It was hard to get that "perfect level" on the keys, because I didn't want to take away from the feel of Bobby's playing.
Sometimes he's bangin' away, and sometimes it's a soft-touch.
I had to do some active mixing on that track throughout the song.

More reverb on the harp and keys? Yeah, that might sound pretty good. I just went with what sounded good to my ears when I mixed it. It's wierd how putting a song into MP3 format can change some of the dynamics, though. Knowwhatuhmean?

Thanx for checkin' it out, and the nice comments... :)

Buck
 
I was just going to post this, I compared it to my favorite reference, and I still think it needs some more reverb.

My favorite reference is anything by Andrea Bocelli.

He released an album three weeks ago, Cieli di toscana, and in its second week, it was in the top ten chart in five , yes thats right , 5 , countries. Which is no surprise. his album , Sogno, was the no.1 world album for over 56 weeks in a row. Which is not surprising. One of his singles has the most sales of any single in Germany AND the netherlands. Andrea Bocelli.

Anyhoo, I am going to have to eat ramen noodles all week for missing that it was a c3000, BUT on the other hand, I had previously said that I prefer the sound of the c3000 to the ntk, and this proves it without a doubt. I was just listening to "are you ready" and I prefer this vocal sound by 3 times.

That mindprint envoice must be MEGA. I just compared this to a vocal sound I really loved, and it stacked up in all areas, even thought that other vocal was a u87 into an api. I can provide a link if you are interested.

Hey, Even on monty's test, I prefered the c3000 to the ntk. I might have to buy a c3000. Is this the 3000 or the 3000B. Which mic do you prefer, the ntk or the 3000. I am guessing that you will say the ntk. It cost more and the world hyped it more.

I LOVE ME A C3000. The ntk sucks big time.
 
wow....I gotta say that guy has such a great voice...

The harmonica sounds great too. I'd like a bit more reverb on the guitar.

that's pretty much all I can say....GREAT mix.
 
Executivos,

Muchas gracias!

Yeah, Karl has an awesome set of pipes.
The man has paid his dues, and earned the right to sing the Blues.

Thanx again!

CJ,

The vocals on 'Are You Ready', which you "prefer by 3 times" is the NTK. :D That's what a tube mic sounds like through a tube preamp... sweet and warm.

I have the original C3000, not the "B".

The other song on that page that was recorded with the NTK is 'Mas Tequila'. All the other tunes had the C3000 on vocals.

I gave up trying to play "guess the mic", because I'm not that good at it. I just try to do the best with what I've got... which is all mid-grade stuff.

Buck
 
buck62,

you wish. :D

I said that I prefer this vocal on this song three times more than I like the vocal on "are you ready". In fact, I dont care for the vocal on "are you ready".IMHO, its neither sweet nor warm

I took a peak on ebay. the c3000s' are going for about $200. I am SERIOUSLY considering one.

I tried to get mas tequila a few days ago, but I cant stream on my pc and the download function is turned off.
 
A quality reading of a classic tune.

I wanted to listen through it once to get a feel for the performance... not much you can critique with that band. They're pretty hot.

I wish I had a good blues recording in front of me to compare this to, but I usually don't buy them. I've always thought that blues music is so much better live, it's almost a waste of time to record albums. ;-)

These are just my own personal takes. I come from no authority whatsoever. I played in a mediocre blues power trio once with a couple of other white guys, and, uh, that's about it. :)

I'm not sure that I think this needs any more reverb. This recording sounds so live, I can almost smell the smoke in the club. Especially with the vocal. Ain't no need to wash that in 'verb, baby!

Love the keyboard. Especially that solo. Niiiice.

I have only two subjective criticisms.

One, I think the guitar sounds very cold. I'd personally like to hear a little more tube in there.

And also, I wouldn't mind hearing the drums just a bit more. But that may be in conflict with this band's style - as a blues fan, I started out with those '60s recordings from Britain, so I like to hear a bit of thunder in the fills. :)

Good band, good recording. Good job.
 
Eurythmic,

Thanx a whole lot for listening, and for the compliments. :)

The guitar is an old (American made) Fender Strat through an old Fender Twin Reverb.

Nothin' but tubes in that amp! ;)

I know I mentioned this earlier, but a song really loses some sound quality during the conversion to MP3.

When my partner and I did the final mix of this song, we were amazed at how real it sounded coming out of the monitors, and also my home stereo.... like the band was "live" in my livingroom.

I have some live recordings of this same band, (recorded 2 weeks ago) which was recorded with only two SM57's going directly into a commercial-grade CD recorder.
I'm thinking about posting some of the tunes just for the hell of it. ;)

Thanx again...

Buck
 
out of curiousity, what mp3 encoder are you using? I had a lot of trouble finding a decent one...(I was looking for free ones and they all pretty much sucked in the highs)

Music match is free and it actually sounds VERY good even at 128kbps.
 
Not to interrupt, but...

For 128kbps distribution, LAME.

For 198kbps/VAR distribution, LAME also.

For 320kbps archival, Blade.

Blade is the only encoder that accurately reproduces highs, but it only does it artifact-free at 320kbps.
 
It has its uses...

For instance, usually when I'm archiving my music, I'll put all of the data files on one or two CDs, and then I'll make an archival quality mp3 to keep on my hard drive in case I ever feel like listening to the song (but don't feel like digging out a CD, or putting up with artifacts).

Or, maybe I want to compress five or six commercial CDs from my collection, but again, don't want to put up with artifacts. With Blade320, I can fit all of those albums onto one CD without losing sound quality.

Obviously, since it IS a distribution format, there's only so much use for a 320kbps mp3. But I keep Blade around because as artifact-free as LAME mp3s are, LAME does color the sound just a tad.

If you're interested, I'll post a link later that compares the different mp3 encoders in terms of sonic digrams. It's very interesting.
 
If you're going to use a lossless codec, why not keep the original wav?

The quality of an mp3 doesn't degrade when you listen to it, sir. :)
 
I was refering to using an mp3 as a source sample. The quality DOES degrade (that's why they call it lossey) when you use the mp3 as a source, and then re-encode it.

And why use a lossless codec instead of a wav? Because it's less than half the size of a wav, and still retains 100% of the audio quality!!!

Read up!

W.
 
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