And now for something completely different.... for me....

Chris Tondreau

Chris Tondreau

Member
Man, it's been a long time since I've posted here. I've been doing a lot of reading, buying gear, upgrading, improving physical space, working, etc. But, I'm back, for better or for worse.... :p

I've been working on this for a client of mine named Leslie, who is the singer on the track. She came to me with this country song by JoDee Messina that she wanted to turn into a pop song with a bit of a dance flavour to.

I programmed the drums, played 95% of the synth parts, re-wrote bass lines, created horn parts, played bass, guitar, etc. You get the idea. She and her dad had a lot of input along the way. The result is probably the best recording I've done so far. In the interest of self-improvement, like most of the rest of us here in the clinic, I still want to make it better.

All constructive comments are appreciated. Thanks in advance!

http://www.soundclick.com/greenroomrecordingmusic.htm

Chris
 
the horn part reminds me of that paul simon song.....'don't call me al' or something like that.............

i'm not crazy about the drums.....the snare is okay....but the kick doesn't seem to have the right sound for a song like this......

nice guitar playing.....never heard the song, but this version sounds alright.....
 
Nice Melody and arrangement. The kick sounded somewhat dead and needed some pitch boost. I enjoyed the vocs and your git perf was on point!
A tweak here and there and this joint is tite!
 
I listened to the song before I read your post Chris and I thought this would be a good country tune. The mix and the overall performances are very good. Did she dub the vocals in or use a harmonizer?
 
Hey, thanks alot (already!) folks!

DrStawl - Thanks for checking it out. Sorry it wasn't available yet.

BSanfordNYC - I recorded the lead vocal with one mic straight on and with another omni mic back about three feet. I added reverb to the room mic and left the first mic dry with only a bit of EQ. The room mic sounded thin (as you would expect), but because it was more of an effect, I EQ-ed it a little thinner too, so as not to compete with the main vocal. In my mixing last night, I brought the room mic up a fair bit. I think I might need to go back and adjust the EQ on that room mic, and maybe that will help? Maybe bring the room mic down a bit, but increase the reverb on it to keep the same effect, only without the presence?

Powderfinger - I was thinking something along those lines (You can call me Al.... maybe I need to get Q in to play a funky bass line too, like in the song?) exactly when I "visualized" the horn part in the chorus. Guess I was successful!! hehe....

MisterQcue - Thanks for poppin' in! We often meet on "other threads" ;) Can you do that fretless solo on You can call me Al? :cool:

Powder and Q - Thanks for the guitar kudos! The drums have been a struggle, and they're my biggest criticism too - particularly the kick. I'll revisit the mix and give some specifics of what you're hearing and maybe I can track something down. What I do remember is that I'm using one sample layered over another - one with a character that I like that the other lacks, and vice-versa. I've compressed the crap out of both of them. Maybe that's the problem - perhaps too much? On my home stereo, the kick is pretty kickin'. On my car stereo, they're "okay." On my monitors, they sound "okay" too, but monitors don't really give a thumping kick on anything, which is what I'm after. Yeah, a couple tweaks are in order there. I'll get back on some specifics.

I think a little more life in the kit overall is in order, but I'm not sure how to get it. Use only one layer? Don't compress so much (think that might be it, personally)? Bit more reverb on snare, toms, something else?

Thanks again!

Chris
 
I set my clock back one hour, not 15 years!!!

Just kidding. :)

It does have an 80's flavour for sure, but that's ok.

The vocals are thin as someone else commented, as well some weird resonance going on with the reverb settings.

I like the tune, though, catchy!! A wildcard as Cyan would say.

Good work!
 
I think cutting some of the ultralows in the kick might clear things up.
Regarding the mix:

It's very hard to tell whether it's the encoding or the mix but something isn't right yet...could you post a high quality mp3 please? (192kbps)
 
Dragonworks- Thanks! The harmonies were overdubs.

Emeric - I've changed the EQ on the vocal a bit, and did some other tweaking there. It's getting better. I just discovered the SIR reverb plug-in. :D This gives me a perfect excuse to try it!

Pedullist - I lowered the "thumpy" dance kick sample a touch and boosted the "rock kick" sample a bit around 3K to give it some more edge. It's sounding better now. Unfortunately, soundclick will only allow encoding up to 128kbps with their free account.

Thanks, folks, for the kudos and critiques. I'll try to post an update soon.

Chris
 
Okay.... it's posted. Go to the same link - it's pretty apparent - Bye Bye - update1.

I tweaked the EQ and the reverb on the "room vocal" track, as described above. I was going to try the SIR reverb (VERY nice, BTW... and FREE!!) but it brought my computer to its knees with the given demands on it already.

I tweaked the EQ on the kick drum and added a little more 'verb to the snare. Here's what I've got going for the kick drum:

2 samples - a "dance" sample (about 1/3) and a "rock" sample (about 2/3). The dance sample is compressed about 2:1 above -30db. EQ is roughly +3db on everything below 500hz, levelled off to zero shortly thereafter, peaked up +7db around 4k, and then rolled off towards the top. The rock sample is compressed about 4:1 above -21db, and EQ is zero on the low end, brought up to about +3db around 1.2K, peaks at +8db at around 5.6K, and then rolled off as it heads towards the top.

There wasn't as much compression as I thought there was. Bringing the EQ on the rock kick up at around 5.6K, and changing the ratios between the kicks (they were almost 50/50, slightly in favour of the rock kick) seemed to liven it up a bit.

Thanks for all the input so far!!

http://www.soundclick.com/greenroomrecordingmusic.htm


Chris
 
the mp3 sounds like it was encoded at a really low rate. I know you said 128, but it sounds half of that. Therefore, basically mix comments would be out the window.

Musically, sounds like you did a ok job with the synth parts....very disco/80's dated sounding, however... same with the vocalist...maybe even 60's with her with 80's backdrop.
 
Hey Chris!!

I was thinking about the kick drum thing and thought I'd make a suggestion.(if you can still do it) Instead of layering 2 kick samples together you should search online for a sample that is closest to what you looking for.

As to the overall song I thought the idea was cool and the performances (as someone already pointed out) were done well. I'm a little picky (as you know and not that you should care:D ) but I think that the mix can be improved as to the placements of the instruments, panning and the order they are layered.

This is just my two cents, I'm sure some people would disagree in one way or another.

Later,
sonicpaint
 
Re: Hey Chris!!

sonicpaint said:
I think that the mix can be improved as to the placements of the instruments, panning and the order they are layered.

Click to expand...

Hey, Sonic! This is exactly the sort of thing I was hoping someone would offer suggestions regarding. Is there anything in particular you had in mind that you could direct me towards??

Chris
 
Re: Re: Hey Chris!!

Chris Tondreau said:
Hey, Sonic! This is exactly the sort of thing I was hoping someone would offer suggestions regarding. Is there anything in particular you had in mind that you could direct me towards??

Chris
Click to expand...

Do you mean about suggesting some changes or do you mean towards a place on the web for drum samples? I don't want to make suggestions toward your mix when they might not be asked for, so I thought I'd clear that up first.

later,
sonicpaint:D
 
Hi Chris. I downloaded this a couple days agoe and am listening on cans at work.

I am very familiar with JoDee Messina's version of this song. With that in mind, the vocal performance really didn't do much for me. Very mechanical sounding. Plus it was very thin sounding. She didn't sell the song to me, but I'm not into dance/pop stuff too much, so maybe it's ok. There seem to be some pitchiness in the vocal and other places where it seems like there wants to be pitchiness and isn't. Did you use Autotune on this? C'mon be honest :p :D. Maybe it's just the processed thin sound of the vocal that's throwing me off.

This arrangement never seems to achieve a groove for me. The song seems kind of herky-jerky to me. It seems like many of the drum fills are kind of clumsy. Also, it seems like the music just stops in some spots (except for the drums) leaving holes in the overall groove of the song. I think those are the things that is giving me the herky-jerkey feeling.

The whole mix seems kind of thin to me, but that could be the combo of the encoding and the cans I'm listening on.

Hey...I'm still working on just trying to get a good acoustic guitar & vocal only sound, so take this for what it's worth :D.

I think it's a good idea to turn this into a pop song. I think it would work well. I think this sounds ok over all, with just the couple things above tha bug me. Good work & keep it up.
 
Sorry... been away a few days. Got eaten by the "work trolls" and some new struggles with the SX2 installation. Anyway...

Sonic - I've got more samples than I know what to do with - lots of the Wizoo stuff in there. Yeah, what I was referring to was the part about "I think that the mix can be improved as to the placements of the instruments, panning and the order they are layered."

Jagular - I'm being totally straight with ya... I don't even HAVE an autotune plugin/device, etc. Partly due to finances (it would be nice to have for other singers who want/require it), and partly out of philosophy. I know *everybody does it*, but for my own personal standards, I like to get the best of what I can do onto a recording. If I can't do it, it will be exposed later when I try to do it live anyway, and I'll wind up looking silly. If I can't do it, I either practice more, do more takes, or change the part to something I can do (or live with something a little less than perfect).

I'll go back to the arrangement and see if I can smooth some spots out. You're talking about things like the transitions between chorus and verse - that sort of thing, right?

I've got to look into another encoder. You're not the first person to criticize the encoding. I'm using blade encoder at the moment, which among other things, is limited to 128kbps.

There is an encoder built into Cubase, but I have to find out if it is still a "limited use" thing, as it was in version 5 when it first appeared. You had, like, 25 free uses or something before you were encouraged to go and buy it. It wasn't all that great anyway. It was the Freunenhaufer (?) one - or something like that.

I've heard lots of good things about lame encoder, which I think I heard is also free. Perhaps time to do some research?

Thanks again!

Chris
 
I love the '80s, so I enjoyed the recording, except for the drums. There's been a lot of discussion about the drum sounds and tweaking their eq. That's all fine and good, but the root problem is the drum programming itself -- it's simply not good enough. The biggest problem is the bass drum, which is too busy and not tastefully employed.

It seems like you might have trouble thinking like a drummer. In general, this is good. You can probably hold a steady job and form complete sentences that contain words with more than three syllables, but you need help laying down a backbeat.

You should probably find some MIDI drum parts and cut, paste and tweak them. Did your recording program come with some basics? If not, this mgiht be enough to get you started -- http://www.goodwinpro.com/musical/midi/drums.htm.
 
Cool tune. LIstened to update 1
There a big spread between the rather dull sounding loud kick and edgy vocals thats kind of leaving a whole in the mix.
Nice guitar parts! Good touch there.
 
you should consider putting some gated reverb on the snare to really take us back to the 80's:) Is this a mono mix? I would really like to hear it with more pannings. Interesting effects you've put on the vocal, it really fits the feel of the song.

Al
 
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