New Jongleurs tune - "Fraud"

Armistice

Armistice

Son of Yoda
Hi again all

Our latest effort.

Fraud

As the other half of the band is about to go and do the daddy thing, I thought I should get this one finished before the happy event, now about 10 days away or thereabouts.

So this is our "traditional" show ender, and a much better recording than last time I tried - it fairly rocks/grooves along at the end.

It's one of his (Rich's) songs, so he's singing and for the benefit of all I've mixed my croaky backing vocals waaaay into the background.... I was not in fine voice that day!

Rich also plays the right side acoustic and that's all the lazy bugger does, apart from a few backing vocal tracks.

I'm on electric guitars, left acoustic, bass and drummage as well as mixing, recording and general production duties. First recording using my Vox 4W "stack" for a guitar amp... I think it's done well! And at the end of the song I tackle the existential dilemma of whether it's still permissible to play wukka wukka wukka wah wah rhythm guitar...:)

As usual, I've heard it too much now to be objective, so all tips and feedback appreciated..

Cheers
 
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That's pretty soothing and mellow.

No real nits from me.

I might dispute your claim of "rocking" at the end though. It's still really mellow. It's probably the splashy, jazzy drums and distinct lack of distortion.
 
Jeez, 160 views and 1 comment - slow day on the forum for comments!!

Really nice mix Armistice - everything sounds very smooth, good stereo spread and you've got a bit of a retro sheen to it all that I like a lot. I felt that the vocals could come up a touch (particularly when they first come in) as they sit in the mix, masked slightly by similar frequencies of some of the instruments. Other than that, bien!
 
sounds nice. I'd bring the drums up a bit. They get a little lost sometimes.

the vocals sound great. I really like the reverb you have on the lead vocals. very nice.

Are all the electrics your little VOX? They sound great.

Overall really good!
 
VomitHatSteve said:
T
I might dispute your claim of "rocking" at the end though. It's still really mellow. It's probably the splashy, jazzy drums and distinct lack of distortion.
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Lol... for a band that consists of two acoustic guitars, that's rockin' out! :D

Thanks Rob - I had another listen in the car on the way to the station this morning and yes, especially in that first verse, I can see what you mean.

Aaron - yep all the electrics are the Vox... no effects either, apart from the wah, just guitar to amp.. I'll have a listen to the drum level too, I never know exactly where to sit them, volume wise.. and they're only programmed so I tend not to want to make them a feature!

Thanks for your comments.
 
Good tune. Got a certain 'Sting' vibe to it. This one will go into rotation.

I agree about the drums. Fine in the beginning, but get buried during the main part of the song where there's lots more going on. I like the bgv's as is, but maybe spread out a little more. Personal taste thing. Great tone on the guitar and your acoustics always sound good.

cool man!
 
Hey - I guess the sort of '70's mellow folk rock style isn't really my bag, but I think that's kind of your thing and I you do it well.

The guitars sound good. The octaves in the electric solo sounded especially nice.

The drums seem a little subdued in the mix even though I understand that they should be somewhat so given the material. It seemed to me that vocal levels varied a little too much maybe? Some of the verses and choruses were just right or possibly too quiet, while a few chorus sections really jumped out at me. Could be my less-than-ideal listening environment though.

I think I saw you write somewhere that you use external pres with that yamaha, is that right? I too use a standalone and have read about bypassing the pres and it seems there's not a lot of consensus about how and whether that can be done. Do you simply turn the gain on the yamaha inputs all the way down? You get a pretty warm sound and I'd like to get a nice external pre someday and see if that reduces some of what I percieve to be harshness in my own recordings.
 
Hey heat, thanks for listening. I've just now put a new mix up with the drums a little forward in the latter half of the song and flattened a few of the vocals out here and there and boosted others... all while not knowing that that's what you were typing... :laughings:

I can bypass the internal pres on my Yamaha AW4416 because it has inserts on the first two channels. Pretty rare for a standalone. So if you think about it, an insert takes the signal after the pre and allows you to add an external effect, say, so what I do is use the return channel only (with a standard TS plug pushed halfway in from my standalone) and just avail myself of the post-pre in channel. Works, as long as that lead doesn't move!

I pretty much run everything I can through a channel strip which I configure a few different ways depending upon what it is I'm recording. Especially good for DI bass when I can set the compresser to hit those louder notes early and then I can apply more compression at mix stage. Better bass players probably can work around this by playing more sympathetically but I'm always finding high or low notes really poking out a mile that I'm having to contend with.
 
I think the vocal levels are better now.

Interesting about the preamp and the half-inserted plug...thanks for explaining that.

My guess is that using a nice external pre and simply going through the channel input while keeping the gain at zero would change and improve the sound, but I guess it still would go through the unit's pres and pick up some amount of whatever undesirable color they may impart to the signal. I suppose the only way I'll know for sure is to try.
 
heatmiser said:
My guess is that using a nice external pre and simply going through the channel input while keeping the gain at zero would change and improve the sound, but I guess it still would go through the unit's pres and pick up some amount of whatever undesirable color they may impart to the signal. I suppose the only way I'll know for sure is to try.
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This is the exact question I've been trying to answer as the poor old Yammie's going to die sometime soon and I'll go PC recording from that point... but don't want to ditch the two nice pres I have - I'm not keen on doing what you're thinking of, but can't really see another way yet, as they're both analogue devices without digital outputs!
 
Apart from the sound of the count in this is sweet!
I don't know why but the tone or reverb on the count in bothered me - not on the sung voice parts just the count.
Bass line is cool, wah is subtle & good.
This MIGHT sound offensive but isn't - Gallagher & Lyle could get this sort of vibe rock happening on some tracks - those tracks are the good G&L tracks too!
 
Hey ray... I just had the reverb set on the vocal track and didn't change it. I'll have a listen with it off/less.. Now I'll have to google Gallagher and Lyle and see if I should be offended or not! :laughings:
 
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