Cheap Wine

[NotThatBright]

I was able to get behind the kit for the first time in a couple weeks yesterday, and I hammered out a cover of Blood For Blood's "Cheap Wine". I did this song about 6 months ago and wanted to hear the difference between the two, given the recording/mixing tips I picked up here. There certainly was a difference.

I don't have the right voice for this song, so the vocals are lacking. I used a chorus effect on the secondary/backing vocal, as this vocal should sound different than the primary. It should really be two different people doing the two vocals, but what are ya gonna do.

What I'm most in doubt about are the kick drum and the overhead levels... also if I have too much reverb on the drums. Are there any rules of thumb to be followed regarding reverb on drums? As it is, I have what I think is a low amount of reverb on the kick and the snare, and twice as much on the toms. Opinions on anything are appreciated.

As a fan of Sanford and Son, I was always disappointed that there was no mention of Ripple in this song.


My preference- has the guitar out front:

https://soundcloud.com/user92696274096/cheap-wine-good-mix/s-KScYR


Drums out front- regular snare:

https://soundcloud.com/user92696274096/cheap-wine-revised/s-ICKKs


Drums out front- inverted snare track:

https://soundcloud.com/user92696274096/cheap-wine-inverted-snare/s-QX1uX

 

[Steenamaroo]

I think this sounds pretty tight man!
I'm no drum expert - far from it - but in casual listener mode nothing annoyed me.

Over time I did start wondering if the snare wasn't snappy enough. What do you think about that?
Kick too...maybe a bit of slap in there to carry it?

Vocals sound cool. I think the effect was just enough to do the question and answer thing without sounding overcooked.

Nice one.

 

[Schwarzenyaeger]

I'll give it a listen later!

Just wanted to say, you are either churning these songs out daily or you have a large back catalog

 

[TripleM]

I love the feel to the song. Reminded me of Black Flag... What was that song about watching TV they had? I love the playing.

Things sound kind of lo-fi. GUitars are a little muffled. I'd like more snap out of the snare. Kick sounded OK. Bass sounded OK too. The vocal might benefit with a small EQ boost around 5K.

 

[NotThatBright]

I think this sounds pretty tight man!
I'm no drum expert - far from it - but in casual listener mode nothing annoyed me.

Thanks. That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said about anything I have ever done in my life.

Over time I did start wondering if the snare wasn't snappy enough. What do you think about that?
Kick too...maybe a bit of slap in there to carry it?

I added some attack to the snare, and also made a mix where the snare track has that "phase" switch flipped. I'm not sure what that does, but it produces a pretty different snare sound. I also screwed with the EQ on the kick to get a slap.

Vocals sound cool. I think the effect was just enough to do the question and answer thing without sounding overcooked.

I took a couple minutes and yelled a new secondary vocal with a better effect. I am a singer, you see.

Nice one.

Thanks for the kind words and the advice.

 

[Steenamaroo]

Thanks. That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said about anything I have ever done in my life.

I added some attack to the snare, and also made a mix where the snare track has that "phase" switch flipped. I'm not sure what that does, but it produces a pretty different snare sound. I also screwed with the EQ on the kick to get a slap.

Heh, no worries.

Is the snare snappier now in both mixes? I'm away from the speakers and using cheap headphones but it seems to be.

The phase switch is commonly called that but really it's a polarity inversion.
Forgive me if any of this is patronising but recorded audio signals in your daw show as fluctuations either side of zero. Ie, positive and negative.
Say, for example, you had a sine wave which went pos, 0, neg, 0 etc...
If you duplicated it the output would be twice as loud because all the positives add up and all the negatives add up.
If you inverted the polarity of one, its positives would become negative and vice versa.
The two tracks played together would be working against eachother and would completely cancel out to give silence.

In the real world you'll never achieve silence due to acoustic reflections + positioning, but two mics with opposing polarities, both pointed at the top of the snare, would give you a really thin weak sound.

In the case of a top miked snare the polarity setting is really choosing whether or not the snare works 'with' the overheads' (since they're pointing at the snare from the same direction), taking into account the phase difference due to the distance of OH mics from snare.

In the real world, flip it back and forth and pick the one which sounds best.

 

[NotThatBright]

I love the feel to the song. Reminded me of Black Flag... What was that song about watching TV they had? I love the playing.

TV party! What a coincidence... they mention Monday Night Football as one of their favorite shows, and looks what's on the TV right now.

Things sound kind of lo-fi. GUitars are a little muffled. I'd like more snap out of the snare. Kick sounded OK. Bass sounded OK too. The vocal might benefit with a small EQ boost around 5K.

I added attack to the snare, and did the EQ boost at 5K. Just a small one, but I agree it sounds better.

I picked lower guitar tones, since the song is heavy. I even tuned my guitar down two frets. How's that for dedication?

I put the new mixes at the top. Thanks again.

 

[NotThatBright]

I'll give it a listen later!

Just wanted to say, you are either churning these songs out daily or you have a large back catalog

This is the first new one I'd done in probably a month. Everything else was stuff I'd done in the past and not mixed/EQd/recorded/mastered correctly and was trying to learn from. I'm just about out of old stuff except for some originals I did.

Only takes a couple hours to do a song. I usually only have 30 minutes or so to play the drums. The best I can do in that time is what I go with, and the guitars and bass are generally simple for the songs I cover. And if they're not, I make them simple... sometimes so much that the song is unrecognizable by the time it's done. Then it goes in the "originals" pile!

 

[NotThatBright]

Heh, no worries.

Is the snare snappier now in both mixes? I'm away from the speakers and using cheap headphones but it seems to be.

It is. I ran the snare track through the compressor on my mixer... I didn't use any compression, but I raised the attack. I normally put the attack somewhere around 4 (the range is 1-10). I put it at 7. If I go any higher than 7 it gives me a headache when I listen with earbuds. It definitely adds some pop.

The phase switch is commonly called that but really it's a polarity inversion.
Forgive me if any of this is patronising but recorded audio signals in your daw show as fluctuations either side of zero. Ie, positive and negative.
Say, for example, you had a sine wave which went pos, 0, neg, 0 etc...
If you duplicated it the output would be twice as loud because all the positives add up and all the negatives add up.
If you inverted the polarity of one, its positives would become negative and vice versa.
The two tracks played together would be working against eachother and would completely cancel out to give silence.

In the real world you'll never achieve silence due to acoustic reflections + positioning, but two mics with opposing polarities, both pointed at the top of the snare, would give you a really thin weak sound.

In the case of a top miked snare the polarity setting is really choosing whether or not the snare works 'with' the overheads' (since they're pointing at the snare from the same direction), taking into account the phase difference due to the distance of OH mics from snare.

In the real world, flip it back and forth and pick the one which sounds best.

Not patronizing at all (forgive me for spelling like an American) That was a good explanation, you saved me the trouble of having to research it.

I did one more mix, finally ditching all the EQ I had on my tracks, some of which were ridiculously high. I just realized after doing it that these high EQs (which were all on drums) must have prevented me from ever getting the guitar level I wanted. It's finally clicking in my head that all these different sounds are essentially fighting each other for space, and high EQ settings take up a shitload of room at the expense of sound from other tracks. I'm sure that's an oversimplification, but I think I got the gist of it.

 

[dobro]

I thought the inverted snare sounded better than the previous one, but my favorite version was the guitars out front mix, cuz the drums aren't as strong as the guitars.

The performance is okay, the mix is good, but I think the best thing going on here is the song itself. I liked how you're playing with the words.

 

[TripleM]

The inverted snare sounds better. I think that mix actually sounds pretty good. I'd probably strike a balance between "guits out front" and "drums out front".

Turning out to be a pretty good mix.

 

[Tobe]

No mix preference... great song!

 

[NotThatBright]

I thought the inverted snare sounded better than the previous one, but my favorite version was the guitars out front mix, cuz the drums aren't as strong as the guitars.

The performance is okay, the mix is good, but I think the best thing going on here is the song itself. I liked how you're playing with the words.

Thanks. I certainly agree, the song itself is the best thing here. I hadn't listened to it for a while but when I decided to record it I did everything from memory. I only screwed up a couple words at the part where it gets slow. I got the music part wrong at the beginning just before it gets fast, as well as the part right after the it gets slow (I should have had the guitar match the bass). Of course, the original probably has real chords used instead of power chords and I can't play real chords. Whether cutting through traffic on the highway or trying to put up one last rep on the bench press, this song has been getting me motivated and pissed since the album came out around the turn of the century. God bless BFB!

I listened to the original since putting up mine and I admit mine is somewhat of a travesty. Usually I just say "my version sucks compared to the original" after butchering a song, and while technically speaking this is better than just about all of my covers, my version has none of the power or venom of the original. Maybe I'm just too swell a guy to duplicate that sort of thing? Listen to the original if you want to hear it done right (Livin' In Exile album).

Thanks again for the critique.

 

[NotThatBright]

The inverted snare sounds better. I think that mix actually sounds pretty good. I'd probably strike a balance between "guits out front" and "drums out front".

Turning out to be a pretty good mix.

Thanks for the comments!

 

[NotThatBright]

No mix preference... great song!

Thanks pal!