Well, I may have never actually listened to The Cure before, but it sounds like you did a bang-up job on this cover!
Great, I introduced you to something new (for you)! Thanks for the listen.
Maybe it's just my room, but halfway through, right after the vocal section, there's a few notes on the guitar lick that pop out - lots of resonance. Could just be my room, but they stick out pretty loud. It's in the last chord of that interlude lick after every vocal. See what others say... but sounds really good dude. The vocal especially. I like the swelling/synthy sound behind it, particularly near the end. How are you doing that? Is it a 100% verb tucked underneath with delay?
There could well be some resonance on that section, I mixed this entirely on headphones but I am going to check it with my monitors now. There's a third guitar up the middle there - it's mixed louder and a little brighter. There will be some "movement" from the stereo chorus and Jaguars do have a tendency to random resonances due to their bridge design which is part of their appeal to me. None of the guitars are compressed at all on this, I may try a touch on that middle section. Regarding the swelling sound behind the vocal, that's a reverse reverb trick. I posted a tutorial in the Reaper forum a couple of years ago on how to do it. I'm don't know what DAW you use but this may be applicable or transferable in some way:
1. duplicate the track you want to add the effect to.
2. Select track and under "Items" Select "Reverse track as new take".
3. Add a big reverb plugin of your choice to the track, 100% wet.
4. Under "Items" select "Apply track/take FX to items as new take".
5. Under "Items" select "Reverse track as new take".
6. Remove the reverb plugin from the track.
7. Under "Items" select "Glue Items within time selection" or "Crop to active take". This gets rid of the other take lanes on the track and cleans the whole thing up.
Thanks for the comments and listen.
OMG. The Alesis HR-16. I used that on so many of my early songs. It was tits back in the day. "Real" sounding drums. LOL! It sounds great in this tune. You're using it way better than I ever did. I like the weird, swishy effect on the cymbals. Not sure how you're doing that. Cool, laid-back tune. I love the Cure, but don't know this song. I need to listen to the original. Give me a minute.............
Holy shit! You've pretty much nailed this. I think I may actually like your version better than the Cure's. Yours is clearer and better mixed. Nice job!
Thanks very much, Nervebag. When I do my covers I usually have some goal in mind and that is to re-create the sound of records that I really like. Hopefully they have interesting production techniques and stuff, that I want to teach myself how to do. In this case I wanted to record that classic amp and guitar combination that is really at the heart of the album.
The HR-16 does sound remarkably good on this but it was a lot of work to do it well. There are four outputs, configured as two sets of stereo. I couldn't manage to totally isolate any instruments to their own output so I recorded each drum separately into the DAW by sending only one thing to the output at a time. Repeat until finished! The cymbal effect was done using a real 18" crash cymbal. I recorded all the hits twice then pitch-shifted one of them up a semitone. I extended the cymbal decays by putting two compressors on them with a fast(ish) attack, 10:1 ratio and a very slow release. I finished off with a phaser, using slightly different settings on each track.
Hey Bubba. Well, you picked one of the most boring songs the Cure ever did! But you do a credible job. That Jag sounds beautiful--super glassy. It's making me want one. I see why that JC-120 is popular. There is something funky going on with your guitar FX that I hear in the opening riffs, and everywhere that riff happens. Something is detuning your guitar, make it sound sour and out of tune. I listened to the Cure's original and didn't hear it. Here's my guess: there's some phase interaction between the two mics, made more noticeable by the chorus or whatever other FX. You could test it by muting one of the guitar mic tracks.
The drums and bass sound good. Vocal was excellent too. Let me know if you're interested in singing something for me.
Ultimately the song drags for me, but my gripe is with Robert and company. Well done.
LOL, I really do like this song - I've always found it to be quite hypnotic!
I'm not hearing the dissonance you mention so I can't really comment on that
Both left and right guitars have the amp's stereo chorus on it (which isn't tweakable) then a very slow flanger. It's probable that one of the guitar tracks is very slightly out of tune to the other as I used new strings and I had to re-tune a bit during the session. I certainly can't pick it out as a problem but then again I do quite like unsettling sounds on a track.
Regarding the singing, thanks very much for the comment but I usually really hate my vocals and this was probably a fluke, ha ha!
