Radio Paradise - What is peace of mind was a radio and a good woman?

maximusbs

Brad Smith Music
Edit: What "IF" I could spell and wasn't retarded! There goes my clever intro!


You can be the first to find out! Over-ambitious arrangement? Yep. Cliches? You bet! Over 40 tracks and 500 lbs. of instrumentation in a 5 lb. sack! It's here. You might even find Grandma's washboard and a nose harp in there! :D

PS - Yes, the radio static is intentional, though probably ill-advised :eek:

Let me have it! :spank:

Brad
 
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I'd guess that overall...a bit bright...could be my earbud work headphones. But they are usually dull so I thought maybe the song is bright. I'd be interested to hear what others say about that. Nice trick with the radio dial. Sounds like I'm playing Grand Theft Auto or something :)
 
Ha! I loved the country-ish jam and the world music/talking heads sort of thing on the radio in the middle :D.

You've got good clarity and separation here especially with all of the elements coming and going. I guess the telephone vocal kind of jumped out a bit too much for me, but the way you captured the "normal" vocals sounded very well done to my ears.

Overall it seemed as though it could use something to glue it all together more...sounded a bit disjointed at times maybe...I dunno...never tried anything like this...perhaps you're breaking new ground in which case I have no frame of reference...seems as though quite a bit of effort went into this...thanks for sharing it.
 
Ha! I loved the country-ish jam and the world music/talking heads sort of thing on the radio in the middle :D.

You've got good clarity and separation here especially with all of the elements coming and going. I guess the telephone vocal kind of jumped out a bit too much for me, but the way you captured the "normal" vocals sounded very well done to my ears.

Overall it seemed as though it could use something to glue it all together more...sounded a bit disjointed at times maybe...I dunno...never tried anything like this...perhaps you're breaking new ground in which case I have no frame of reference...seems as though quite a bit of effort went into this...thanks for sharing it.

Thanks for listening Heatmiser. Yes, I did put a lot of work into this. I rebuilt the drums and bass twice! I re-recorded the country riff at least 15 times! This is breaking new ground for me - I don't know of any other song with this kind of arrangement and probably for good reason too. The song started 15 years ago in my hair-metal band days and I re-wrote the lyrics and arrangement.

I'm a little frustrated with the mastering part, because it seems to be changing the mix levels as I try to pump up the volume. I keep getting crap that seems to bulge in the 'mix bag' and other crap falling out all together! I'm really hoping for some more input from other members to help me understand what's happening here.

Thanks again for taking the time -

Brad
 
I'm listening on headphones but it sounds pretty good. Maybe add some clean vocals over top of the telephone voice to blend it in there better. I like the radio break in the middle, it is a little disjointed but I think it works. Maybe if you actually played that part through your car stereo or some other radio and recorded it that way, so during that break you could get some environment sounds that make it seem like you are maybe sitting on the porch actually listening to the radio.
 
You've got good clarity and separation here especially with all of the elements coming and going. I guess the telephone vocal kind of jumped out a bit too much for me, but the way you captured the "normal" vocals sounded very well done to my ears.

Overall it seemed as though it could use something to glue it all together more...sounded a bit disjointed at times maybe...I dunno...never tried anything like this...perhaps you're breaking new ground in which case I have no frame of reference...seems as though quite a bit of effort went into this...thanks for sharing it.

I agree with this. The different tracks are all really well separated, I think maybe if they overlapped more or if you stuck another track of something in there it would sound more 'whole'.

Overall really good though.
 
Really nice, clean. The radio filter on the voice ('wouldn't it be so nice') works, but it's too loud and stands out too much. I'd make it a little bit dirtier and try and make it fit in better (pan maybe?). I see what you're trying to do with the static and I think the idea is good, but for some reason it doesn't work. I think maybe you should try to get some of that bleepy 'searching signal' sound in your radio static (there's some around 2:47). Dig out some of the lower end of the static? Solo guitar at 2:28 doesn't seem to fit in as well as it could. You obviously pushed it to the back of the stage on purpose, maybe a bit too far? Your hard work definitely payed off though.
 
There is a lot of really nice stuff happening.
I love the bass sound.
I wish I could get my bass tracks to sit and growl like your dog does.
Any pointers?
 
There is a lot of really nice stuff happening.
I love the bass sound.
I wish I could get my bass tracks to sit and growl like your dog does.
Any pointers?

Pointers on my bass sound huh? Ok, start with a crappy Squier bass. I use the bass amp in Amplitube (bounce asap to save cpu), play with a pick, turn the tone knob down a half on the bass, add compression, then some more, then some eq. :) Let me know if it works for you or if I can add anything.

Thanks for listening to my track and compliments too :D
 
Not too bad. It's very compressed sounding. It doesn't really breathe at all. Everything seems over-isolated and up front. There's no glue holding it all together. The bass is way boomy. The mono drum machine seems lifeless. The radio transitions are a good idea, but they need to be smoother. On the plus side, you captured pretty good sounds and the performances are all pretty good. Just fix the mix. To me, this sounds like an ambitious and pretty good, although over-processed, home-recording, but not really something that's ready for human consumption yet.
 
Not too bad. It's very compressed sounding. It doesn't really breathe at all. Everything seems over-isolated and up front. There's no glue holding it all together. The bass is way boomy. The mono drum machine seems lifeless. The radio transitions are a good idea, but they need to be smoother. On the plus side, you captured pretty good sounds and the performances are all pretty good. Just fix the mix. To me, this sounds like an ambitious and pretty good, although over-processed, home-recording, but not really something that's ready for human consumption yet.

Thanks Greg,
Yes, now I know you heard what I've been hearing. I've been slamming the mix though a limiter to get the levels up to standard and it's just killing the drums and sucking the life out of everything. Compression :eek:. Do you have any quick pointers on getting final level up without kicking the crap out of everything with compression (limiter)? I keep getting comments about 'nothing holding it together.' There's about 6 different guitars recorded all serparately and with radically different eq; there's about 8 different reverb and compression settings. I'll start looking into those unless you've got any other suggestions.

Thanks,

Brad
 
I'm no mastering engineer, but if the mix aint ready, slamming it through a limiter only makes things worse. I've been getting pretty transparent results by having a good stereo mix to start with. My "mastered" mixes sound just like my pre-mastered mixes, only louder. I make sure the stereo mix is as good as it can be before compressing it. It also helps, I think, to use a series of limiters instead of cramming it through one set to kill. Line up 4 or 5 "mastering" limiters, and set each one to gently compress the stereo mix in succession until you get the desired loudness you want. EQ in between limiters if necessary. And really, forget about competing with commercial loudness. You'll probably never get there with good results by using modest home-recorder gear. Just make a good mix and if you just have to squash it for more loudness, go conservative.
 
Yeah drums are pretty slammin', in your face, which doesn't really fit the jangly nature of the guitars. Like your vocals.

During the big heavy distortion part, the guitar seems to cover up the drums.
 
Greg, singlespeak, Seafroggys-

I just went back a re-learned some things about mixing. Starting with the kick, snare and vox around 0.0db and working the rest from there. Nobody told me :confused:
Greg- going easy on the limiter helped, but I didn't need it so much when my mix was right :o. I fixed the radio tunings. I tamed the lows, but left the bass in face - I like it contrasting/almost leading, the acoustic. I think the whole still lacks a little glue and it may be due to the fact that this song really demands a live drummer to give it bounce and dynamics. The finger-drum-gods were not smiling upon me this time. :(

- thanks again, let me know any final thoughts if you have the time :D
Brad
 
Hey Brad,

I've been away for awhile, but I just got a chance to listen to this. First impression, it's a really good mix with great clarity and separation of all the different parts. I'm still shaking my head over the really creative and unique approach to the middle section. Man, that's a cool idea, and I can't imagine it was easy to patch it all together. If I have to offer any constructive thoughts, I would say maybe transition into the middle radio "tour" over a slightly longer period, it seems rushed as is. Same for the transitions between sections. I'm sure you played around with that, so you may have landed on the best way to do it, but something there is bothering me a little, not exactly sure how to fix it.

I also agree that while everything is sitting pretty in it's own space, there seems to be an overall cohesiveness that's lacking. I went out and listened to "Finish What Ya Started" from the mighty Van Halen, because it's in a similar vein and I thought it might be a useful mix comparison. The good news is that you're very close. I think the VH drums are one of the main differences - they sit further back in the mix with a nice reverb. Maybe something as easy as more reverb on the drums would help your mix gel? Or maybe reverb on the stereo bus to tie everything together?

Sorry to say it, but I'd ditch the telephone vocal effect in the chorus responses. You could pull it down a little in level, or maybe double it, as a few others have suggested, but to me it's sticking out in a bad way, and I'm not sure those changes will help it enough. What about changing that line to a harmonized backup instead? You've got a nice open chorus with lots of room for backups if you like that sort of thing :)

The only other thing I might change is the rapid (16th note?) sound in the chorus. To me it seems just a tiny little bit off time, and it's distracting. It's also mixed in a way that makes it tough to hear, so for me, it creates a kind of bad tension. What instrument is that? I'm wondering if a simple tambourine might not fit the bill there to give the chorus a lift...just a thought.

I just went back a re-learned some things about mixing. Starting with the kick, snare and vox around 0.0db and working the rest from there. Nobody told me :confused:

That's interesting...I always mix starting way lower than that - kick, snare, bass, etc down around -6dB and vocals a little higher (you know me :D), so I'm surprised to see that you start around 0.0dB. That would be an interesting side topic to see what the general approach is. I'm just wondering if you might not have more luck with limiting at the end if you weren't starting so hot...

Reading back through this it seems like I had a lot of things that I didn't like, but honestly that's really not the case. I'm nitpicking for sure, and I really like what you did with the tune. It's definitely ambitious, and it's a cool way to show your chops in a bunch of different genres. Nice job man!

Best Regards,

Dave DeWhitt
www.soundclick.com/davedewhitt
 
I thought the vocals sounded good. Liked the harmonies.

The acoustic guitars are REALLY sparkly and crispy. Too much high mids and highs for me.

The snare is lacking a bit of power.

The bass level seems uneven to me. It sits well a lot of the time, and then in spots it gets REAL boomy.

Liked the radio tuning thing in the middle.
 
Good concept, I think you've pulled this together pretty well. I like the vocals. The tune reminds me a little of zz top with some of the guitar sounds and the arrangement. One thing that doesn't sit quite right for me is the snare which has too much of that compressed popping sound. If you find the snare disappearing behind the guitars and vocals you can try doubling it with a different sample, different compression and blend the two
 
Dehwitt -
Thanks for the listen! You nailed me! I thought my minor theft of VH's finish What ya Started was more transparent - apparently not :o I used that song to try to achieve the separation and tension with the guitars. I will try the verb on the drums to see if that helps. The 'telephone' effect is supposed to be a "radio" effect...get it...yea, well, nobody likes it... and it was the only thing about the song I've been married to since I wrote the lyrics. Damn.:( Oh, well, if you think a harmonized 'Mutt' kinda thing might work....I always luv that stuff.
That 16th thing is a bastardized/frankensteined bass guitar sampled and looped, because I'm too damn stoopid to figure out how to get a keyboard sound to do that cool 16th note, auto-cycle kinda friggin thing used in Linkin' Park kinda crap...I dunno... I suk! I'm a guitar player.

the 0db mix thing I thought sounded good (http://www.tweakheadz.com/perfect_mix.html) because my peaks always come from the snare; every song. Then I found that over-using the limiters in mastering was causing problems and wrecking my mixes. Any other advice is welcome.

Thanks a TON for the nitpicks and compliments all the same! I got some work to do.
You rok bruthu!
:cool:

TripleM

I was just thinking about how that acoustic sound lacks some smack and I think you nailed it - too sparkly - I'm on it!
Thanks man! :D


Bulls Hit

good tip on the snare, I want it to cracks, but the peaks and compression are killing it - I never thought about trying another sound and ADDing it to the existing one to 'widen' the tone, since I can't go any louder.
Thanks!
:)
 
Dehwitt -
That 16th thing is a bastardized/frankensteined bass guitar sampled and looped, because I'm too damn stoopid to figure out how to get a keyboard sound to do that cool 16th note, auto-cycle kinda friggin thing used in Linkin' Park kinda crap...I dunno... I suk! I'm a guitar player.:)

Ha ha...that's so funny to me because I'm in exactly the same boat. I have a tune I'm working on right now that is crying out for some Linkin Park/Evanescence style white noise or something, and every time I sit down to try to come up with something, I end up wasting about an hour and then feeling like a complete moron at the end of it because I have nothing that's remotely like that, and nothing that's even a happy accident that I could work with. Ugh. I'm pretty sure a lot of that stuff is done with just simple oscillators and/or distortion on loops, etc, but I'm still working on the rhythmic part, which is kicking my ass for some reason. I'd be eternally grateful to anyone out there who knows of a good tutorial or youtube video or whatever that shows someone chopping up and mangling effects like that for that style of music.

Best,

Dave DeWhitt
www.soundclick.com/davedewhitt
 
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