Food Eater

[chuckduffy]

Hi,

Since it seems to be picking up a little around here I thought I would try posting a song again, been awhile. I posted a version of this few months back that clocked in at 1:20. Then a few months later I got the idea to chop a verse, plant a 40 second solo in the center of it and make it a 2 minute song. I got a buddy of mine to play the solo cause I can't play solos.

Then I asked one of my favorite someones from this here little group to add BG vocals. I guess that can be a trivia question.

11-29-2012 - Original Mix

12-01-2012 - Updated Mix Dried up the BG vocals, backed off the reverb on the lead vocal. Thanks Greg - good idea

12-02-2012 - Updated Mix Backed off the verb on the lead another 1.5 db. Separated, panned and lowered the BG vocals

12-03-2012 - Updated Mix Lowered the 'ah' background vocals some more. Edited out a really off bg vocal. Panned the 'ooze' bg vocal off center. Lowered the right guitar a couple DB during the verse singing. Dropped the verb from both guitars as there is plenty of verb from the amp. Thanks everyone cause this is getting alot closer to getting rid of the 'fight for space'.

SO I got a two minute song now, with a crazy ebow solo and a choir of awesome bg vocal going on.

Chuck

 

[robgreen]

Great to hear this one again Chuck, it's a real fun song - it's got all the elements of a chuck duffy original. The panned twin guitar lines are excellent. It impresses me how many ideas you managed to squeeze into less than two minutes too

The mix is super clear. I thought I could hear a couple of timing issues mainly in the transition between sections. I guess it's where you planted the guitar solo (at 0:38 and 1:08). But then I listened a few more times and couldn't hear it so much at the earlier point - maybe I just got into the groove of the song a little more.

"I've been searching for something since I crawled from the ooze" - excellent!

 

[Greg_L]

I like it. Funky and weird. Mix sounds pretty decent. I can hear everything pretty clearly. The vocals and especially backing vocals are way too reverby for my tastes though. The backing vox kind of muck things up with all the room on them. The solo is atrocious to me. It hurts the song. The tone is like bees and it's just not good. I'd like it better with a more subdued guitar solo or a solo with a completely different instrument like a farfisa or a kazoo.

Fun song though.

 

[chuckduffy]

Great to hear this one again Chuck, it's a real fun song - it's got all the elements of a chuck duffy original. The panned twin guitar lines are excellent. It impresses me how many ideas you managed to squeeze into less than two minutes too

The mix is super clear. I thought I could hear a couple of timing issues mainly in the transition between sections. I guess it's where you planted the guitar solo (at 0:38 and 1:08). But then I listened a few more times and couldn't hear it so much at the earlier point - maybe I just got into the groove of the song a little more.

"I've been searching for something since I crawled from the ooze" - excellent!

Thanks for saving me from page two oblivion I hear you about the transition. I have issues with the cut point too - mostly because I know its there and I know exactly where it is. It's hard to find the right point to slice across an entire song. But like you mention, sometimes it bothers me, other times not. I should have just recorded the whole thing over, I guess it would have taken about 1/2 an hour with the length of the song.... The whole idea for and extended solo to fill out the song was from Heat in a comment on the original post back in July, and I'm glad I did it - I really like short songs, but 1:20 was just pushing it. He was originally gonna do the solo, but came up empty. Since I REALLY wanted him to do something on it I asked him to do the BG vocals, and I love them. The theme of the song came from something Dennis Hopper said in Blue Velvet - sorta "I'll eat anything that moves", though he wasn't talking about food lol

 

[chuckduffy]

I like it. Funky and weird. Mix sounds pretty decent. I can hear everything pretty clearly. The vocals and especially backing vocals are way too reverby for my tastes though. The backing vox kind of muck things up with all the room on them. The solo is atrocious to me. It hurts the song. The tone is like bees and it's just not good. I'd like it better with a more subdued guitar solo or a solo with a completely different instrument like a farfisa or a kazoo.

Fun song though.

Thanks man. I agree with you about the BG vocals. I should dry them out, especially since it's heatmiser and I really love the part. I'm a chronic reverb junkie, so over the past year I've been learning to dial it back bit by bit. As far as the solo - I pretty much mentally called that you would hate it. I was on most of the old tone thread, evern participated a little, and know where your heart/ears are on tone. I wanted something weird/jarring that totally clashed with the more vintage tones of the Gretsch/Ampeg combo. My guess is there wouldn't be many people in the middle on it - hate it or like it is probably about it.

I'll take another run at the mix incorporating your suggestions about verb and post it later.

Thanks for checking it out Greg

 

[chuckduffy]

I posted an updated mix up top incorporating Greg's suggestions, also unmuted a track of vocals for the 'i'm gonna eat it' and 'ooze' parts that I had mistakenly muted....

 

[heatmiser]

Hey - sounding good chuck.

This time I know they're two separate mixes 'cause I can hear your BG vocal parts now that were missing on the 1st version. I'm sorry about the guitar. I suggested it, you offered to have me do it and gave me months. It really sounded to me like it was right up my alley, but every time I tried I just spat out generic blues licks. Nothing kills a song quicker than generic blues licks. At least what you got is unusual. I'm not a fan of the tone or anything, but hey, I had my chance!

I thought I imprinted all of that roomy verb on the vocals I sent you? Probably a mistake there...sorry. In retrospect, it was excessive. Did you add additional verb to them on your first mix? Just wondering about how you'd dry them up...I couldn't hear too much difference between the two mixes in that area.

If you ever do record this song again I'd love to be a part of it and bet I could do better. Thanks.

 

[chuckduffy]

Hey - sounding good chuck.

This time I know they're two separate mixes 'cause I can hear your BG vocal parts now that were missing on the 1st version. I'm sorry about the guitar. I suggested it, you offered to have me do it and gave me months. It really sounded to me like it was right up my alley, but every time I tried I just spat out generic blues licks. Nothing kills a song quicker than generic blues licks. At least what you got is unusual. I'm not a fan of the tone or anything, but hey, I had my chance!

I thought I imprinted all of that roomy verb on the vocals I sent you? Probably a mistake there...sorry. In retrospect, it was excessive. Did you add additional verb to them on your first mix? Just wondering about how you'd dry them up...I couldn't hear too much difference between the two mixes in that area.

If you ever do record this song again I'd love to be a part of it and bet I could do better. Thanks.

Hey heat - not only did I put additional verb on them, but the verb return was about 5 db higher than the track itself ! I can totally hear the difference as things are much clearer in the center. Also backed off the verb on the main vocal by about 2db. The verb on yours is fine, no where near the normal verb insanity I always start off with, then back slowly away from....

We'll work on one from scratch as opposed to re-doing this one

 

[miroslav]

Yeah....cool/weird tune...almost has a Zappa vibe to it...but I would still dry out the vocals a touch more, and maybe try moving the BV to the sides more so they don't fight with the LV.

 

[chuckduffy]

Yeah....cool/weird tune...almost has a Zappa vibe to it...but I would still dry out the vocals a touch more, and maybe try moving the BV to the sides more so they don't fight with the LV.

Well - I don't have the best judgement in the verb department, so I will try backing off a bit more I hadn't thought about the BG vocals - I don't actually know how they are panned. Heat gave me a stereo pre-mix that I just put up the middle. I wonder how I would go about moving them to the sides without messing them up...

 

[heatmiser]

I had them panned all over the place! I think I sent you a stereo WAV, right? If so, they should split into 2 tracks on your DAW, right? That's how it works on my Roland with stero tracks anyway...to best simulate what I had panning-wise, I think you should pan the 2 tracks hard L & R...if that's too wide for you, just bring 'em in a bit until it works.

 

[chuckduffy]

I had them panned all over the place! I think I sent you a stereo WAV, right? If so, they should split into 2 tracks on your DAW, right? That's how it works on my Roland with stero tracks anyway...to best simulate what I had panning-wise, I think you should pan the 2 tracks hard L & R...if that's too wide for you, just bring 'em in a bit until it works.

In cubase it comes up as a single stereo track, panned up the middle - which I think is equivalent to however you had things panned when you bounced. I will play around with splitting and panning. Miro makes a good point - def something learned over this past year that the middle needs to have a nice notch of empty for the vox. My panning choices nowdays are pretty much LCR, where only the vocal or maybe a solo of some kind lands in the middle (not including kick and bass of course...)

 

[heatmiser]

Yeah, you may be right. I'm not 100% on that stuff, but I know in my Roland any stereo tracks can be "unlinked" and separated. When collaborating, I've sometimes found that separating and panning them hard L/R sounds better than leaving them however they were. If my tracks for you are already linked, then leaving the panning alone probably mirrors what I did. I know I spread the various voices out across the spectrum, but probably could've been more aggressive with that.

Myself, I generally pan stuff equally across the entire L/R range. Typically lead vocals, bass, kick & snare are dead center. OHs are usually hard LR as well as hand percussion (usually). Guitars, keys and BGVs fill in the spaces in between to taste. Why am I telling everyone this?...sorry, just bored I guess!

 

[chuckduffy]

I put an updated mix on the top post. Seems like the lead vox is much clearer to me. Lemme know what you think....

 

[miroslav]

Lead Vox is much better....maybe push the BVox to the sides a touch more and dry them out a pinch more.

 

[TripleM]

Fun song. Love the bass. Kind of reminds me of some late-60's jam band sound. Like the drums too.

Vocals get covered in spots. The reverb dates the song. It's gonna sound like it was recorded in 1968 if you keep it like that.

Sounds a couple of pitch problems in the backing vox in a couple of spots.

 

[chuckduffy]

Fun song. Love the bass. Kind of reminds me of some late-60's jam band sound. Like the drums too.

Vocals get covered in spots. The reverb dates the song. It's gonna sound like it was recorded in 1968 if you keep it like that.

Sounds a couple of pitch problems in the backing vox in a couple of spots.

THanks for checking it out TripleM! If it puts you in mind of a Late 60s jam/party band, that's great cause that's what I was shooting for. As far as 1968 - it was a great year, and I am kinda/sorta going for a vintage vibe here - the verse guitars are mainly my Gretsch 'naked' through an Ampeg Jet.There are HUGE pitch problems with the lead vocal, which probably led to me not noticing anything with BG vocals - though oddly they sound fine to me, unless you mean the parts where I double my own lines I backed off the verb on the lead a huge amount from v1 to v3, and I think that was a big change for the better. I completely 100% agree that there are a couple points where the vocals get covered, and I would LOVE to get that sorted out.

 

[robgreen]

I've listened to your updated mixes Chuck - just to prove that you can't please all of the people all of the time, I prefer the second mix. I think the vocal sits a little better with more reverb to me. I'm a reverb junkie too though - between that and a love of bass it's a wonder I achieve any clarity...

I can't make my mind up on the backing vocal you unmuted - whether it adds anything to the song or whether they just need to find their own space in the mix more. It may be the latter.

It made me smile that shortly after saying my last tune was an earworm, you post one of the catchiest songs on here in a while - I've heard it playing in my head every time I visited the fridge over the last week

It also brought to mind another tune I liked, but I just couldn't think what and it's been driving me insane. Anyway, I finally worked out that it's "I'm a Mummy" by The Fall - I don't know whether it's a song you know, but although it's not melodically similar it's definitely your era, and it's got the same feel and lyrical bent. If you don't know it, I reckon you'd love it - but unfortunately I can't find it on youtube to post a link.

 

[chuckduffy]

I've listened to your updated mixes Chuck - just to prove that you can't please all of the people all of the time, I prefer the second mix. I think the vocal sits a little better with more reverb to me. I'm a reverb junkie too though - between that and a love of bass it's a wonder I achieve any clarity...

I can't make my mind up on the backing vocal you unmuted - whether it adds anything to the song or whether they just need to find their own space in the mix more. It may be the latter.

It made me smile that shortly after saying my last tune was an earworm, you post one of the catchiest songs on here in a while - I've heard it playing in my head every time I visited the fridge over the last week

It also brought to mind another tune I liked, but I just couldn't think what and it's been driving me insane. Anyway, I finally worked out that it's "I'm a Mummy" by The Fall - I don't know whether it's a song you know, but although it's not melodically similar it's definitely your era, and it's got the same feel and lyrical bent. If you don't know it, I reckon you'd love it - but unfortunately I can't find it on youtube to post a link.

Oh - as far as *my* BG vocal - stressing the words 'ooze' and "i'm gonna eat it" with that goofy alice cooper kinda voice is crucial to the song lol I actually really like the Fall, and I'm familiar with the track. I've had comparisons over the years when I sing in the lower range.

I always have to mindful that part of asking for advice is learning to figure out what's best for the song and balance accordingly. There are many bands, who are still among the living, actual recording artists who get considerable airplay that use *GOBS* of very large, apparent reverb. It's not just for the 80s, or particularly dated. Sometimes its just in a genre the listener isn't familiar with I also have absolutely no problem with sounding like 1968, or 1980 or any other era I like. I just like recording songs and ending up with something that I can live with....

 

[miroslav]

The reverb is not really bad, and I get it that it's what you are going for with the BV...I would just pull the BV out more to the sides still, and leave the reverb as-is. It's really about making the LV come through more, and not so much about the reverb itself.
There are spots where the LV, BV and that guitar thing all seem to be fighting for the same attention....and they all kinda hit the same frequency range which doesn't help.
Maybe you just need to push the LV up more, and dry that out some, and leave the rest alone.....