Queen of the Amberlite

A

aaron514

New member
I am in the process of recording and mixing some of the songs my dad wrote over the years, in the hopes of putting it together into and album for him. I was hoping for some advice on the mixing quality. The instruments I recorded myself are piano, acoustic guitar, and electric guitar. I then sent him the audio through an mp3 and he recorded himself sing and playing harp on his phone. Then he send me his wav file and a mixed it all together. I think it turned out pretty decent. But I think there is still work to be done. Also I know that harmony for the chorus is pretty bad. If this is the wrong place for this someone let me know. Thanks in advance

The new mix is the (Home Recording)
 

Attachments

  • Queen of the Amberlite.mp3
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  • Queen of the Amberlite (Home Recording)-001.mp3
    5.3 MB · Views: 5
Last edited:
aaron514 said:
Man, I must have done a worse job than I thought. I can take it guys I really can lol
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relax this is a slow forum. we need more users and activity here it takes awhile to get a response.

i think most of the instruments sound good, and the singing is good. maybe do something to the vocals, like add a little reverb or lower the volume a little bit. thats my two cents, love the harmonica solo.
 
Thank you sorry for being impatient. I think turning the volume down on the vocals would be a good idea. There is already a little bit of reverb but it's not very noticeable.
 
I liked the song. I liked the line about losing her teeth in a fight. Good singing. I thought the vocal ton was nice. On the harmony, I'd double the part that you had and pan it to the left. I'd then track a high harmony part (twice) and pan them the same way. I'd bet it'd really pop.

The acoustic guitar sounds fine once the song gets going. In the intro it's a bit brittle. The piano chords in the intro are a little startling - not relaxed like the rest of the song.

The mix leans a little to the left in spots. The acoustic guitar is on the left, and there are sections where there isn't enough going on on the right side to balance it.

The harmonica sounds decent. But it's just a little bit harsh. I'd EQ a notch out somewhere in the 2400hz - 3000hz range. Just a real thin slice at about -3db to -4db.
 
I greatly appreciate that. I'll get on all those things. I just asked to see if my dad could do a high harmony to it. He said he would give it a shot. Ill post the updated version when I get a chance. Might be a little while but I'll get it done.
 
Just curious tho when you say double the harmony tracks and pan to the left, do you mean pan one all the way left and one all the way right?
 
aaron514 said:
Just curious tho when you say double the harmony tracks and pan to the left, do you mean pan one all the way left and one all the way right?
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Sorry for being confusing. I seem to recall hearing a low harmony part panned to the right. So I'd double that part (sing it a second time) and pan the second performance to the left. Then I'd add a double tracked high harmony part, and pan those performances - one right and one left.

But that's just me.
 
Great pub song. I think it might work better without the additional vocals, I think the lone voice holds attention just great. Seems like it could benefit quite a bit from some panning, the instruments kind of fight for the same space it seems. Nice recording.
 
I think the lead vocals, harmonica, and steel string go nicely together. The lead guitar sounds like it's apart. It is darker, muffled, whereas the others have decent brightness. I don't have a specific recommendation to fix that.

Agree with Eastern about the backup vocals - they just aren't tight with the leads at all. It may be addition by subtraction there.
 
First of all, it's pretty damn cool that you're recording your dad's songs. Good on you.

I agree with what the others said about the harmony vocals. They could be effective but need some editing or another take. They're kind of overlapping the lead vocal in time, not really in sync. I don't mind a little of that in a track with a folky feel to it, but there's too much here for my taste. They're also too loud relative to the lead vocal.

The lead vocal needs some attention. It's not sitting in the mix. I'd drop the volume and maybe have a look at the low mids. Might need more compression too.

However, what distracted me the most about the song was the lack of tightness between the lead guitar and the acoustic. It announces itself right in the very beginning, just as soon as the lead guitar comes in, so there's no missing it. You don't want that to be the listener's first impression of the song.
 
Good organic recording. Maybe place a low-pass filter on the acoustic guitar around 4 or 5K for more lead vocal clarity.
 
View attachment Queen of the Amberlite (New Piano)-001.mp3

I'm back at it again. I recently got some free time to work on this track a little bit more. I was getting a little burned out on it previously, so I think a break did some good. I added some new piano rhythm to it and some new lead guitar. I panned the piano rhythm/bass line to the left 30% and the lead guitar 30% to the right. Added a little verb to the guitar and left it in the middle. Did the same with the lead vocal, as well as lowered the volume a tad. Didn't really know how to eq or comp the piano so I didn't really do anything to it besides pan it. I think everything sound a lot better than before. Everything I think has it's own space now for the most part. Only things I could think of changing would be maybe bring the volume of the background vocal down a little bit. That and eq the harmonica better. I cut out about 3 db just under 10k I think, would have to look. Still a little harsh to my ears. Just not sure where to cut.
 
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