Newest Rocker - "Lover who won't go home."
- Thread starter K-dub
- Start date
DogsoverLava
Member
So this song sounds like what would have happened it the Huey Lewis tour bus had crashed into the Tom Petty tour bus in 1985... a cool mash-up with some Elvis Costello in there to boot.
Mix: Right away -- drum sound (snare) way too much verb for me. Cymbals really crashing around and dominating and washing all the upper register room away. A little rough on the ears. Make sure you are hearing this mix as we are - your listening environment may be masking this.
Vocals -- would like a slight boost and perhaps a bit more depth or warmth to them - tone is a bit too crisp for me but I don't know exactly what to tell you to give direction.
Guitar solo -- totally buried -- bring it up, thicken the tone a bit, and give us some more gain and sustain on it (but out front).
Crazy Bass distorted notes at or around 2:15 --- gotta fix those.
General -- in the arrangement there are a couple times when you suddenly get that brickwall of sound where everyone is banging out root 8ths -- everything gets muddy when this happens and all the space within the song (space our ears need to differentiate and follow along with different parts) drops out.
Ending is cool.... liked how you handled that
Mix: Right away -- drum sound (snare) way too much verb for me. Cymbals really crashing around and dominating and washing all the upper register room away. A little rough on the ears. Make sure you are hearing this mix as we are - your listening environment may be masking this.
Vocals -- would like a slight boost and perhaps a bit more depth or warmth to them - tone is a bit too crisp for me but I don't know exactly what to tell you to give direction.
Guitar solo -- totally buried -- bring it up, thicken the tone a bit, and give us some more gain and sustain on it (but out front).
Crazy Bass distorted notes at or around 2:15 --- gotta fix those.
General -- in the arrangement there are a couple times when you suddenly get that brickwall of sound where everyone is banging out root 8ths -- everything gets muddy when this happens and all the space within the song (space our ears need to differentiate and follow along with different parts) drops out.
Ending is cool.... liked how you handled that
bouldersoundguy
Well-known member
Good song. Cymbals are a bit bright, and they have that garbled sound that might be from the mp3 compression. There's a clip on the "s" in the word "scary". Overall it could use more space, maybe because it's mixed/mastered so loud. On the TT Dynamic Range Meter it reads about 6dB. It's constantly hitting 0dBFS which will cause some converters to clip and sound nasty.
Snare would sound better without all the verb. 
At first I planned to complain about the chorusy-like effects (what exactly is that effect?). But then I decided it works pretty well on this.
The vocal is getting covered up a bit by the other tracks. Other than that, the levels seemed pretty good.
Love that bassy drone thing at 2:15 (how did you produce that?). But I wouldn't use it just once. I'd bring it back again before the song ends. If possible.
Isn't it more difficult to find a lover who will come home in the first place? Getting them to go home never seemed to be my problem.
At first I planned to complain about the chorusy-like effects (what exactly is that effect?). But then I decided it works pretty well on this.
The vocal is getting covered up a bit by the other tracks. Other than that, the levels seemed pretty good.
Love that bassy drone thing at 2:15 (how did you produce that?). But I wouldn't use it just once. I'd bring it back again before the song ends. If possible.
Isn't it more difficult to find a lover who will come home in the first place? Getting them to go home never seemed to be my problem.
My wife was right ... though she framed the cymbals as being "tinny". I rolled off the highs on them to curb the wince factor a little ... but I think that I'm going to have to pull stuff down more in the mix. Thanks all for the thoughts on that.
I liked the verb on the snare, but I can see sense in pulling it back some.
The bassy thing at 2:15 is a synth patch in Absynth 4.0 -- in for that moment in the song and then gone. I could put it somewhere else ... but was afraid of overuse of it.
The guitar solo has an odd story behind it. This is an upgrade from an old project I'd worked on 20 years ago with my old college guitarist, who has since passed on. When I knew that I wanted to update this song, I wanted to, as a tribute to him, add his solo (which I love) to the solo part. What I then had to do, in order to do so, was figure the exact tempo I'd originally worked in. Since I'd long sold the equipment that we originally recorded with, and all that I had left to work with was the original stereo wav file of the project, I inserted the wav of the recording into Sonar, and attempted to match it to a tempo grid.
This was a bit of a bitch. It was complicated by the fact that when I first started recording many years back, I was a bit of a knucklehead, and I did stupid stuff.
... like made the tempo of this piece 135.75 bpm.
Yep. I'm THAT stupid.
When you're hearing the guitar solo, what you're actually hearing is the original wav blended in under the current project. Bringing the guitar part up would make the blend more noticeable. I did eq a lot of the highs and lows out of it, and bump the region of the lead ... but it's a careful fence I walk, and the balance is tricky to negotiate.
The effect on the voice, Trip -- was another unusual thing I did. I subbed out the main to a vocorder, and then brought it up just to where it adds, but doesn't overwhelm. It's almost like it's always there, but then it isn't. It's just an audio "tickle". I agree w/ DOL's comment on the vocal timbre though. I think warmer would improve the tone.
Thanks for the comments folks. Great stuff and I'm truly appreciative.
Kev-
I liked the verb on the snare, but I can see sense in pulling it back some.
The bassy thing at 2:15 is a synth patch in Absynth 4.0 -- in for that moment in the song and then gone. I could put it somewhere else ... but was afraid of overuse of it.
The guitar solo has an odd story behind it. This is an upgrade from an old project I'd worked on 20 years ago with my old college guitarist, who has since passed on. When I knew that I wanted to update this song, I wanted to, as a tribute to him, add his solo (which I love) to the solo part. What I then had to do, in order to do so, was figure the exact tempo I'd originally worked in. Since I'd long sold the equipment that we originally recorded with, and all that I had left to work with was the original stereo wav file of the project, I inserted the wav of the recording into Sonar, and attempted to match it to a tempo grid.
This was a bit of a bitch. It was complicated by the fact that when I first started recording many years back, I was a bit of a knucklehead, and I did stupid stuff.
... like made the tempo of this piece 135.75 bpm.
Yep. I'm THAT stupid.
When you're hearing the guitar solo, what you're actually hearing is the original wav blended in under the current project. Bringing the guitar part up would make the blend more noticeable. I did eq a lot of the highs and lows out of it, and bump the region of the lead ... but it's a careful fence I walk, and the balance is tricky to negotiate.
The effect on the voice, Trip -- was another unusual thing I did. I subbed out the main to a vocorder, and then brought it up just to where it adds, but doesn't overwhelm. It's almost like it's always there, but then it isn't. It's just an audio "tickle". I agree w/ DOL's comment on the vocal timbre though. I think warmer would improve the tone.
Thanks for the comments folks. Great stuff and I'm truly appreciative.
Kev-
Last edited:
cakewalkKaKed
HOORAY FOR BOOBIES !!!
reeeeeeely enjoyed that thanks 
DogsoverLava
Member
Would saturation or modulation help here? I was playing with Saturn for a while and it did some really nice things that might help you knit this but boost it without seeing the thread. I leave that to others with more experience to chime in beyond my question.
PDP
There once was a note
Great tune Kev, I like that snare sound on tunes like this too. (Like "Bang the Drum all day by Todd Rundgren ) You could shorten the time a touch, so you can still have that effect without turning it down completely.
Cool Rockin tune. I think saturation is a good idea for this type of song also, I'd experiment with that.
Cool Rockin tune. I think saturation is a good idea for this type of song also, I'd experiment with that.
Could you elaborate on what you mean by saturation or modulation? What is Saturn? Thanks DOL!
Yep. Still working on it, P.
DogsoverLava
Member
I'm still a relative novice in their use but here's where I started reading about Saturation. 16 Of The Best Saturation Plugins In The World | getthatprosound.com
You can demo most of the ones in the link but I'd let others with more experience talk about their application in better detail because I'm still fumbling around with them.
You can demo most of the ones in the link but I'd let others with more experience talk about their application in better detail because I'm still fumbling around with them.
Thanks ... I check that link out.
In the meanwhile, I remixed based on the suggestions garnered above ... and the new mix is up top ... and here.
I can hear the vocal better now.
I didn't notice this the first time, but there is a cymbal over on the left that sounds a bit swishy at times. I'm guessing it's an mp3 and/or streaming issue.
You gotta bring that throbbing bass in again. Maybe just bring it back a few seconds after it stops. Like stop it for 4 bars and bring it back.
I didn't notice this the first time, but there is a cymbal over on the left that sounds a bit swishy at times. I'm guessing it's an mp3 and/or streaming issue.
You gotta bring that throbbing bass in again. Maybe just bring it back a few seconds after it stops. Like stop it for 4 bars and bring it back.
The mp3 is 128 ... so that is likely the cause. I hear nothing on the DAW. I will consider your request on the bass. There is another spot that it will fit in, but I wanted to be judicious in its use.
Thanks for the comment! Folks that know me know, as an artist, and engineer ... I'm in constant conflict. Once I get it to the point I go, "There is nothing more I can do with this?" Only then I know I'm done.
That sort of becomes ... I know it when I know it.
Crazy Luke
New member
I like the fact that you have the snare pop out in the mix (backbeat is important in this song, ala "Boys of Summer), but I think you might have used too much saturation on it. This is something that that I struggle with myself, as to, how much is too much. You have plenty of white noise, now try experimenting with another way (maybe a good look-ahead limiter) to get the snare to pop out, without squashing the body of the snare.