Ever had a song that just fell together perfectly with no/little tweaking?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Armistice
  • Start date Start date
Armistice

Armistice

Son of Yoda
I'm working on one now.

There's just two of us in the band, me and him, he's played acoustic guitar and done 3 vocal tracks, I've played acoustic guitar, a backing vocals track, 3 x electric guitar tracks, bass track and am just programming the drums at the moment.

As I'm playing a rough mix to the other guy, I realise that (a) it's sounding pretty damn good, and (b) I have not yet touched EQ or compression on any track. Some minor fader riding of volumes and I could just about let this out...

No doubt I'll fiddle around a little yet, but normally I'm trying to wedge things in and carve out sonic holes for other things... this one just worked - even more interesting because we're essentially an acoustic duo, and none of the electric guitar bits even existed before - I've just subconsciously picked the right guitars and amp settings somehow.

Just thought I'd share - when it gets to the MP3 clinic perhaps everyone will tear it up and I'll realise I was completely wrong, but it's a nice feeling so far.
 
Yeah, serendipity. I've worked with a handfull of other writers where we're able to channle each other and the proccess seems to invent itself. The best stuff I've ever done (IMHO) came from these sessions.
 
mjbphotos said:
That's the way it should work!
Click to expand...
I do indeed concur wholeheartedly.

A mix that "works" is all about the core sounds. 90% of your effort should be expended before the RECORD button is ever pushed. Another 5% is "tailoring" a suit that already fits reasonably well. The extra 5% is "sprinkles" (that perfect reverb, a stinger here and there on a single word or something, adding some weird flanger to the background vocals or what not - Bringing out the personality).
 
One time before I try to record a little acoustic band. I advise them to tweak everything until they are happy with their sound. So they went tuning everything correctly , drums, guitars, rehearse a lot etc. Guitar gears too and amps are well adjusted to the best sound they can produce.

The band then sounds fantastic live, so I tell them they are now ready to record --- hit the recording button and everything sounds perfect in the DAW.. Almost no adjustment except for some very minor fader adjustment.
 
I've done a few things where I had very minimal instrumentation and refused to mix or add much in the way of FX afterwards. I've generally been happy with those mixes but only because I decided that they should sound lo-fi and bad.
 
The first time this ever happened i had to phone a friend just to tell someone! it was a great day. since then, i've gotten better at getting it right at source and now I find myself only cutting/adding 1 to 3db on EQ's and only compressing gently where needed. i've also found that if i find myself having to add a crazy amount of effects and hours of my life to make a sound work that it's often easier to get the band member back in and re-record the part as it saves a lot of time in the long run. or if it's electric guitar/bass parts i normally grab a DI as well when tracking and have done some real reamping where needed.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top