The Jars

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chuckduffy

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This is a tune I recorded a couple of weeks ago. I had a friend of mine cut some drum tracks for it and I'm trying to mix it. I feel like I've totally lost it trying to get level and eq balance and my ears are shot. My voice is an accquired taste that most people never accquire - I know I'm pitchy as shit but that ain't gonna change.

Any ideas about level and eq balance, panning, etc please hook me up! - ps - I don't know what you would call the style - maybe a little remish but it isn't metal, dubstep or pop :-)

Original version


Thanks to everyone who listened and for the great ideas - I took a sham-wow to the alot of the verb on the vocals and some other instruments and tried to re-pan and re-balance most of the other stuff.

Updated 02-11


Thanks
 
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Ex Athens Ga. guy here so always willing to listen to something R.E.M.-ish-y. Hmm well right off the bat it sounds like too much acoustic guitar, it kills that great mood between the voice, elec guitars and the drum track which sounds great for the song-kudos to the drummer. Nice guitar riffs and good tone-I like the singing, not perfect pitch but right for the song. This really has a good sound already, if I was mixing it--I would mix the acoustic down bass up and let the voice and guitar hooks carry this song. Nice drum track it should be more prominent.
 
Stratomaster said:
Ex Athens Ga. guy here so always willing to listen to something R.E.M.-ish-y. Hmm well right off the bat it sounds like too much acoustic guitar, it kills that great mood between the voice, elec guitars and the drum track which sounds great for the song-kudos to the drummer. Nice guitar riffs and good tone-I like the singing, not perfect pitch but right for the song. This really has a good sound already, if I was mixing it--I would mix the acoustic down bass up and let the voice and guitar hooks carry this song. Nice drum track it should be more prominent.
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Thanks man. I pushed past the point of no return and my ears were shot. I will check out the acoustic and bass. I find that I can only mix for less than two hours now, even at very moderate volume before I lose it. One thing that is really bumming me out is that somehow I lost the vibe I had on the guitar that does the repeating melody line. It's a Gretsch hollowbody through an ampeg and had this great smoky right on the money vibe in the original mix that I did with addicitive drums. I can't for the life of me get it back and it's driving me nuts. I am also an ex athens guy (91-92) and I lived in atlanta in virginia highlands for a couple years (93-94). My band then sounded nothing like this, much heavier trio - guitar/bass/drums. Got some great memories/stories.
 
I dropped the acoustic by about 2db, bumped the bass and Gretsch lead by about 2db. Removed some eq I had added to the Gretsch and added more long plate to make it trail. Probably too much

 
I think its a great track. Pretty swelled in reverb for my taste. Sounds like I'm listening from the next room. I don't mind big verb, but I would play around with individual reverb location, verb eq, attack and length on the instrument tracks verses the vocal track. i think the differences would make the big verb on the guitar more defined. Great tune!!! i don't mind your voice at all. :)
 
Elton123 said:
I think its a great track. Pretty swelled in reverb for my taste. Sounds like I'm listening from the next room. I don't mind big verb, but I would play around with individual reverb location, verb eq, attack and length on the instrument tracks verses the vocal track. i think the differences would make the big verb on the guitar more defined. Great tune!!! i don't mind your voice at all. :)
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Yeah - I have a chronic addiction to reverb that I have to break/deal with. With that said - outside of the verb there is a huge problem with 'far away' sound on this track that I can't get a handle on. One big part of it is that I have the drum overheads jacked up really high just to get the crash to the right level - I need to just automate that. There's way too much 'air' from that, and it's getting compressed on the master bus.... The acoustics are also suffering and I really don't know why. I guess I'll figure it out someday :-)
 
chuckduffy said:
Yeah - I have a chronic addiction to reverb that I have to break/deal with. With that said - outside of the verb there is a huge problem with 'far away' sound on this track that I can't get a handle on. One big part of it is that I have the drum overheads jacked up really high just to get the crash to the right level - I need to just automate that. There's way too much 'air' from that, and it's getting compressed on the master bus.... The acoustics are also suffering and I really don't know why. I guess I'll figure it out someday :-)
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Then my question would be, how did you mic the instruments. Typically if you close mic them then your distance is controlled with your reverb. The verb on the vocals is very big imo. i think adjusting those would go a long way. Are all the reverbs stereo? are u using reverb on the tracks or busing them to a stereo aux? If so, have the pan on the send match the pan on the track. Also stereo verbs don't have to be panned 100 left and right. You can bring them in. Especially on vocals. Are you using the same verb for everything? You probably know all of this, if so i apologize.
The drums sound great to me. i would leave them where they are. Bring the vocals way in, the acoustic just outside of that, and the great guitar just outside the drums. Again, great tune!!!!
 
"Bring the vocals way in, the acoustic just outside of that, and the great guitar just outside the drums."

When you say bring them in here are you talking about the direct signal panning, reverb panning (or both) or controlling depth with verb pre-delay and size? Meaning - bring the stuff to the left and the right closer in to me, or bring the stuff behind me closer to me :-)

I'm using different verbs for the electric guitars and vocals. I know the width is really high on the plate I used on the electrics, and the verb panning doesn't match the panning of the direct signals.

I tracked the acoustic three times - panned pretty far left and right and one up the middle an octave higher using a capo. Now that I read that back I'm sure that's why it has no definition - it's spread pretty much across the entire stereo field. The acoustic doesn't have any verb on it.

I tracked the electric with a condensor about 1.5 feet from the center of the single 12 inch on my Ampeg amp.

Thanks for getting me thinking! I don't know how I turned this thing into a big washed out mess.
 
chuckduffy said:
"Bring the vocals way in, the acoustic just outside of that, and the great guitar just outside the drums."

When you say bring them in here are you talking about the direct signal panning, reverb panning (or both) or controlling depth with verb pre-delay and size? Meaning - bring the stuff to the left and the right closer in to me, or bring the stuff behind me closer to me :-)

I'm using different verbs for the electric guitars and vocals. I know the width is really high on the plate I used on the electrics, and the verb panning doesn't match the panning of the direct signals.

I tracked the acoustic three times - panned pretty far left and right and one up the middle an octave higher using a capo. Now that I read that back I'm sure that's why it has no definition - it's spread pretty much across the entire stereo field. The acoustic doesn't have any verb on it.

I tracked the electric with a condensor about 1.5 feet from the center of the single 12 inch on my Ampeg amp.

Thanks for getting me thinking! I don't know how I turned this thing into a big washed out mess.
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yeah, thinking in terms of front to back with the instruments. Done with reverb, high pass filters etc and im sure other techniques. And yeah, i would try using one acoustic track, or maybe the octave track in certain spots. The electric is great man.
 
I kinda like the swelling reverb and the vibe of the song. The guitars are sort of retro and remind me of what bands sounded like back in the late 1960s at Saturday night dance at the YMCA gymnasium.

Good tune!
 
60's guy said:
I kinda like the swelling reverb and the vibe of the song. The guitars are sort of retro and remind me of what bands sounded like back in the late 1960s at Saturday night dance at the YMCA gymnasium.

Good tune!
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Thanks man. I'm really torn up between verb as a style decision and verb as hiding and verb as 'wrong'. Who knows the answer. I just want to do the song some justice.
 
I think it sounds great. I liked the one with more reverb, I think it fits the song. Sort of that Chris Isaac sound, which I guess he got from Roy Orbison or someone from that time period.

I know what you mean about ears being shot, and you sort of start going around in circles, and start doing all this tweaking, but I'm not sure it really matters much in the end.
 
Thanks Macle - I guess it only matters if you find the vibe, and then ruin the vibe and then circle back to try and get the vibe - FOREVER :-)
 
Way to freakin' go chuck. I think this sounds great man. Guitar sounds sweet and I really liked your vocals. Kinda reminded me of the guy from wilco or something...maybe? Anyway, tons of character there. The whole thing kind of felt like wilco going back to the late '50's - early '60's. If someone had described it that way to me, I wouldn't have thought it appealing (so no offence intended), but this really works.

I went straight to the updated version and found it to be sufficiently soaked in verb, but I didn't hear the first. No mix ideas from me, sorry. Just wanted to post my approval.
 
Well I only listened to the second mix but I thought it was pretty cool. This song has some vibe! The current amount of reverb on the voice, while certainly a lot, works imho, especially given the interplay with the lead guitar.
 
heatmiser said:
Way to freakin' go chuck. I think this sounds great man. Guitar sounds sweet and I really liked your vocals. Kinda reminded me of the guy from wilco or something...maybe? Anyway, tons of character there. The whole thing kind of felt like wilco going back to the late '50's - early '60's. If someone had described it that way to me, I wouldn't have thought it appealing (so no offence intended), but this really works.

I went straight to the updated version and found it to be sufficiently soaked in verb, but I didn't hear the first. No mix ideas from me, sorry. Just wanted to post my approval.
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Thanks man, I really appreciate it. I've been going round and round with this tune since saturday with alternate mixes and I actually completely destroyed it. Thank god for project backups. I reverted to saturday mornings version and I'm much happier :-)

The 60's wilco comment was cool as I'm a wilco fan. I don't think that I sound much like jeff, but I guess the instrumentation is fairly wilcoesque :-) Funnily enough one thing that actually bothers me about the last two wilco releases is the absolutely
bone dry and hyper-compressed vocals.

Like all my tunes this one started with a single guitar line and me mumbling some words (there are two sides to every story) along with a drum machine. I got a new guitar for the first time in 20 years and I'm really loving it - Gretsch 'Electromatic' and it joins up so nice with my little ampeg 15 watt with a single 12 inch. I just stick a mic in front of the amp and it does its thing.

Thanks again for the kind words!
 
jamie_drum said:
Well I only listened to the second mix but I thought it was pretty cool. This song has some vibe! The current amount of reverb on the voice, while certainly a lot, works imho, especially given the interplay with the lead guitar.
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Thanks man, I really appreciate it. The vibe is the thing, I don't catch one often and I gotta hang on for dear life when I do :-)
 
chuckduffy said:
Thanks man, I really appreciate it. I've been going round and round with this tune since saturday with alternate mixes and I actually completely destroyed it. Thank god for project backups. I reverted to saturday mornings version and I'm much happier :-)

The 60's wilco comment was cool as I'm a wilco fan. I don't think that I sound much like jeff, but I guess the instrumentation is fairly wilcoesque :-) Funnily enough one thing that actually bothers me about the last two wilco releases is the absolutely
bone dry and hyper-compressed vocals.

Like all my tunes this one started with a single guitar line and me mumbling some words (there are two sides to every story) along with a drum machine. I got a new guitar for the first time in 20 years and I'm really loving it - Gretsch 'Electromatic' and it joins up so nice with my little ampeg 15 watt with a single 12 inch. I just stick a mic in front of the amp and it does its thing.

Thanks again for the kind words!
Click to expand...

Yeah, I probably am not familiar enough with that band to have made that comparison, but it does appear you weren't offended, so that's good. I have one live wilco bootleg and I hear the song Handshake Drugs a lot of XM radio and I love their sound on that.

I think more than the sound of your voice, it was just the style that brought them to mind. Your singing, like his, seems really earnest without sounding too polished. Just right for this sort of material imho.

I too have an Ampeg 1x12 which I love. It is an old '60's Reverberocket. Great tremelo and verb and a warm, rich sound, but not very versatile at least in my experience. Every once in a while I wish I could sound more modern.

Anyway, great track here and while I'm at work right now, I plan to listen again tonight. Thanks.
 
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