Dogman said:
Nice sounds man...Good voice. How'd you record this? How about processing? It sounds dry, in a good way. Not too verby. Nice job on the buildup part. I kept waiting for it to take off, and it went longer than expected...really interesting there. Nice tune.
I think it sounds pretty good. Very clean....
About time I get some comments! I thought I did a bad job!
I'm not gonna lie, this was a really hard song to go through considering all the evolutions it's been through. The singer wanted to say *alot* more than what we ended up with here. But of course, we could only push that piano loop for so long. The song would of came out to 10 minutes before the edits.
Recording wise was also hard considering it was done at different places. But, enough of that personal storytelling bs, let me answer that directly:
The piano loop is a segment the singer brought from his house. He just gave me the tempo and I loaded up into pro tools. It was actually a sample he conjured up from these old sample disks he used to make. I couldn't say how or what was used to record it, but after listening to about a minute of the track, that piano part stuck out.
So I suggested if he wanted to loop just those few bars and work from there. It ended up being the entire song.
Vocals was a very intimate session at home in my mix room. Very simple gear, just an 002, in which I use the pres from a mackie VLS. Except the room is treated, so I get pretty good sounds in there.
I used this MXL V67 I got (that dreaded green mic that keeps on comming up), but it had been so abused by heat wear and mishandling that it has softened up alot and gives the quality I like to the vocals. I have alot more mics to choose from (that are better), but I dunno, I think this mic really sounds good on this guy's voice. As you guys have kindly pointed out.
The vocal FX (subtle) was done by
waves morphoder. I beleive the key was in F# major, so I set the morphoder accordingly. Which beleive me was been burnt out on this album. The reasons are and I quote, "dude, it's gotta sound spacey. We like space, therefore, we put out spacey shit."
All the drums you will be hearing as I post new songs where done under one roof. It's really a friend of mine that had a perfect space with a high vaulted ceiling. Plus he uses PT HD with a rack of Big Red pres, so thats pretty much the sound of the drums for the album. Not my favorite choice, but considering the limited budget, you know how that goes.
Drums are pretty standard. A total of 9 mics. One MD421 on the bot snare, one 57 on top snare, 2 Nady CM95s for the overheads, Beta 52 and beta 91 on kick and
a CM90 on HH. Toms wherent needed on this one, but I used 2 MD421s on those.
About the verbs, yeah I definitly agree on the dryness! There was a huge fight on this. I like it a bit dry, but the band loves huge reverb sounds. However, since I'm producing it, I was just like,
"guys guys, verb is good, I agree! But too much and you're asking for an a really bad dream sequence to a hippy movie. Plus if you're trying to get local airplay, or internet airplay, whatever, it'll probably be smashed a good amount. So that'll exagerate the verb."
For that I used Rverb, which isn't too bad. I'm always working with Lexicon and TC electronic stuff, but this was one of these mixes that was done inside the box. I just spent a little while hooking up a good setting for all the reverbs. 3 different verbs. If I remember correctly, all the short verb stuff was set up with
a room verb (guitars, lead stuff), the long verb was set up with a warm plate (vocals and piano), and drums had there own short plate verb. I originally went with the convolution verb for drums, but lately its been more of a dissapointment than an advantage. Limiting on the parameters you are given.
So what you hear at this point is what everyone settled with. But just know that there was a good fight behind all that!
Guitars and bass have been, for the most part, DI'd during this specific project. Honestly, I miss micing up the cab, but this is the sound that works for these guys, so thats what we decided on.
-You mentioned it was kina long going into the tension part, do you think it was pushed out too far? (just wanna get a feel for your opinion as a listener). Cause like I said, I'm still kina debating that.
It's really supposed to be a short song with a simple message. So we're kind of in this waiting period to see if it works well over time or if we still have to edit a bit more.
I think it's well mixed, excellent restraint on effects, great vocals. Good band, good song, well engineered and produced. Well done, Lee!
you guys don't know how much I appreciate good comments.
But seriously guys, don't be afraid to point out the overall picture if it feels funny or not so attractive!
But just to put it out there....
the guys dont care what people think (I know they do), but I'm like the father, so I have to care what people think about my kids.
I just wanna make sure that people dig it genuinely or if I'm too involved in the project to see any short commings in the presentation.
so feel free to keep any questions or anything that sticks out, whatever be the case
