Acoustic singer/songwriter.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Steenamaroo
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Steenamaroo

Steenamaroo

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Hi all,
I posted up a test recording of an acoustic singer/songwriter a few weeks back and we've now started into the proper recording.

Here are the first three tracks so far.





They're pretty sparse mixes but give or take a few bits and bobs they're gonna stay that way.

As always, would love to know what everyone thinks of the mixes (and songs).

Apologies if there's the odd clip. Sometimes I just yam on a master compressor so that I'm in the same ballpark for comparing to commercial tracks.
Thanks.
 
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Sorry, links were dead.
All fixed now.
 
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Nice enough sounding recordings. The singer sounds like he's holding back and instead he needs to be giving it all he's got. I need to be able to feel it, you know? I need for it to be real and to feel what ever emotion he's trying to convey :D
 
Aw man, how disappointing. I thought it was really heartfelt sounding. lol.

Cheers for the feedback.
 
listened to longshot - I think you captured it pretty well :)
 
Cool tune man! Listened to longshot. Really dig it. Intimate sounding track!
 
Listened to all three, and I love the sound. I think on longshot the mando could come up just a tad. Also could come up on the first section of hotelroom. As it is now, my ear is straining to hear it, or even tell what instrument it is. It adds some cool accents, bring it up just a touch. The guitar on hotelroom is a touch muddy, at least on my monitoring system. Maybe a cut around 200 would help clear it up. Overall, I think this is really great stuff. The kind of stuff I would buy. Clever lyrics, good quality recording, and I personally like the vocal delivery, a lot.
 
Very nice. I seem to have been doing alot of this kinda stuff lately. I dig it.
 
Thanks guys.
You know, to some extent I agree with foul phil, but i sorta don't want to if that makes sense.

The guys a nightmare recording wise. He's really bad when he knows we're recording. like, he forces it or something?
Vocals end up being overdubbed word by word so what I did was I got him round to record guitar, and 15 mins before he was leaving I said, "just throw down some scratch vocals for my reference".

Those scratch vocals are what you're hearing.

Now, against my better judgement he's here tonight "touching up" the vocal recordings. We end up replacing about 90% of the vocals with what I consider to be really struggled takes.
He agrees, yet still insists on doing them.

We're in limbo between settling for a slightly substandard but natural take, and an over produced over-overdubbed abortion.

Any tips guys? How do you deal with this.
 
Steenamaroo said:
Thanks guys.
You know, to some extent I agree with foul phil, but i sorta don't want to if that makes sense.

The guys a nightmare recording wise. He's really bad when he knows we're recording. like, he forces it or something?
Vocals end up being overdubbed word by word so what I did was I got him round to record guitar, and 15 mins before he was leaving I said, "just throw down some scratch vocals for my reference".

Those scratch vocals are what you're hearing.

Now, against my better judgement he's here tonight "touching up" the vocal recordings. We end up replacing about 90% of the vocals with what I consider to be really struggled takes.
He agrees, yet still insists on doing them.

We're in limbo between settling for a slightly substandard but natural take, and an over produced over-overdubbed abortion.

Any tips guys? How do you deal with this.
Click to expand...
I've been struggling with the whole issue of creative control with a gal I'm recording. All you can do is state your case, and in the end, it's his music. He gets the final say. Kinda frustrating but that's the way it is. If you ask me, the vocals are pretty good as is. Post up the new version and lets hear what it sounds like.
 
I certainly will zero, thanks for that.
Maybe I spoke too soon. We've spent the night working on these tracks and it's come out ok in the end.
I have a bit of a history with this guy though cos he's a good friend, and we have a habit of completely ruining good songs together!lol.

Anyway, the three that are posted have had some retakes and I'll post them up tomorrow night.
There are three more than need to be sung....I'm not sure how they'll go but I'm eager to find out!

Recently I've just developed this idea of sing it once and it if sounds fine it is fine. I don't see the benefits of nit picking any more but I guess theres a compromise to be had.
 
Longshot is a really nice song.

He reminds me a bit of Donavan Frankenretter.

Tell him to lighten up a bit and just let it flow rather than over thinking it. He has talent!
 
longshot - cool song. I choose feeling over perfection every time (not that I can really achieve either usually).

Now, I don't think I've ever said this, but more reverb on the vocals...some big warm reverb would sound awesome on that voice.

I'd also make the bass punchier, it's nice and mellow, but without a rhythm track, I'd like to hear the attack of the bass a little more...not a ton.
 
hotel room - nice. The bass sounds punchier to me, i'd still compress a little to bring out the attack, but that's just me.

nice vocal take, i can feel it.

guitar I'd warm it up a little with something in the 400hz or maybe even 700hz range, to bring out the woodiness of the guitar.

but, it sounds great as is.
 
baby - same comments as above about the vocal reverb and guitar eq.

great songs...i really like them, and they sound great to me.
 
Thanks araron. Nice to get some specific points.
I (still) haven't hoked out my monitors so I'm running between about four different hifis at the minute.

I'll look into those things for sure. :)
 
Hi guys. Vocal update.
We recorded the second three songs last night.

I had a clean slate in mind so I threw up the ribbon as before and the sm7b. I don't usually do that but the blend of the two sounds great.

The tracking went really really well so I think we're going to redo the first three songs tonight and call it quits.
We did track in sections but i made sure there were long overlaps for editing and the transitions sound a lot smoother now.


I'll post up rough mixes of all six tomorrow, fingers crossed.
 
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I like how he "holds" back to be honest...I dont think everything needs to be belted out or dripping in emotion...sometimes that holding back creates tension, almost like your waiting for something


I listened to the first although the mixes are simple they sound perfectly done, nice performances too...enjoyed it
 
Sounds like a small pop on Longshot near lyrics "to make something last forever"... maybe I'm just hearing it wrong.
 
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