1st of 12 chapters

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mark VH
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Mark VH

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I just finished recording the first song of a musical rendition of the 12 chapters of Ecclesiastes. Reading thru it a while back, I was surprised how well it might fare from a rock treatment. I am really pleased how far the technology has come, so that we can make quality recordings for a fistful of dollars in our homes.



(It's only a 2.5 meg file)

Machine: 500mhz 256meg RAM, SBlive with APS drivers

Monitoring: Dana Audio monitors powered by Optimus power amp and 10 band eq.

Software: N-tracks, FruityLoops, various free plugins

Mic: sm58 thru Tascam MkII 4-track mic pre for vocals

Guitar and Bass direct thru old Ibanez PT5 floor multiFX pedal

Enjoy.
 
Not a bad work indeed !

Just the drums sound a bit thin (especially the snare, and the BD).


I would add a BIT of room to the voice... maybe open it a bit....


The chorus are nice !!
 
Man for what you were using that sounds pretty damn good!
 
I liked it all except for the snare sound....it was subpar compared to the rest. nice vocal and vocal break with the flanging. very good job for only spending a "fist full of dollars!!"
 
Excellent mix. That is the least "direct-sounding" direct guitar sound I have ever heard. Man, you must be some sort of wizard to get a mix like that out of your rig. I have to admit that I have been hearing a lot of songs lately where people used their Tascam 4-track for mic pres. I'm thinking about dusting mine off for a little work.
 
I could have swore I replied to this song. I remember listening a few times.

Anyway,
Nice big sound!! I like the vocal presence alot. Nice git work and I really like the cold stop. Nice dynamic touch to the arrangment.

Rocking tune!!

Theron.
 
Thanks for the kind words guys.

The Ibanez PT5 fx unit is an early 90's model with the analog tubescreamer circuit included. I run with a slight touch of reverb and delay for a little gloss, and compression that is ahead of the distortion. I tweak the eq so that it sounds good thru my monitors. Everything you hear is out of the unit, and recorded that way. Fullness comes from recording 2 takes and panning L & R, but not all the way. (I do the same with each vocal harmony line.)

In fact, I used no eq at all in the mixdown on guitar, bass, and lead vocal. They sounded ok as recorded, and if I have to agressively eq something, that usually means it needs to be louder. Premixing and processing was done on the backing vox to cut down on cpu at mixdown.

I am taking the advice about the snare sample and some ambience for the lead vocal.

The other big boost to the sound is the free Endorphine plugin. After I mixed down, I ran the stero file back thru in a new project with gloss from the free AwindaSoft Lite Reverb and then finally thru Endorphine. Endorphine is a dual band compressor and stereo enhancer which saturates analog-style rather than squashes.

In my experience, sometimes less really is more, whether its distortion, or effects, or eq. The musical ideas and their arrangement seem more important than expensive gear and fancy recording technique.
 
do you have a link for the Endorphine plugin? I could use it I think.

Theron.
 
I myself would like to check out that Endophine Plug-in as well.
 
I have replaced the snare with a more aggressive sample, and ran the lead vox thru the Silverspike Roomverb plugin to get a little space. Thanks for the input.



Or for us guys who are filtered at work or can't wait for a 2.3 meg download...

http://users2.ev1.net/~thevanhoevens/music/vanity.wma

The wma is less detailed but is half the size, and our firewall lets these through, so maybe yours will too.
 
Hey Mark,


I finally downloaded your music at home since the Boeing firewall for uploading plug-ins is impossible. I chose the wma file anyway just to speed up the process. I was impressed on how well it came across my lil pc speakers in the family room. Everything sounded pretty good, the drums sounded fine and the vocals were better than what Id expect from a sm58 in the pc environment. Of coarse I m partial to the subject matter and like the lyrical content and the message. I look forward to the next 11 installments. If you get to the point of making an entire CD I wouldn't mind getting a copy. Nice stuff.


Peace,
Dennis
 
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