Another Cover

[dachay2tnr]

Those who heard us before already know we primarily do just covers. This time it's a Hall & Oates song. It's still not completely finished as I want to add some acoustic fills, but thought I'd at least get some mix comments in the meantime.

The song is Forever For You.
http://mywpages.comcast.net/jcaporaso/music/

I believe if you left click on the title it will stream. If you want to download it, right click and choose Save Target As.

Thanks for listening.

Mike

 

[Kramer]

Awesome performance.I dont have any mix comments other than the extreme panning on the guitars seems a little too much and maybe just a tad too loud.....thats just nitpicking.I always enjoy listening to you guys sing.My old man really dug the vocal groups from the 50's so I guess thats where I get my love for this style of music even though I grew up on harder edged rock n roll.(Im sure you grew up on rock n roll too. )

Enjoyed it as usual.

 

[wfaraoni]

Great vox as usual, but The verb and delay on it is way overdone as the song progresses. The synth seems too low in the mix to my deaf ears as well. afew of the flutelike synth sounds in the beggining 4,28,39 pierce through the mix and are far to dominant.

Then again I dont hear things like most folks do so take these mix comments with a grain of salt.


Peace
BIll

 

[mixmkr]

the vocal harmonies are the "piece of cake" out of all the departments.

you DO get some sustain on your plugged in acoustic sound. Maybe too much unaturally so.

The mix seems kinda compressed too.

The timbales seem out in left field panned that hard.

I think the vocals sound great...the mix and everything seems "smashed" and lacking in dynamics. It SOUNDS good, but seems very flat-lined.

 

[dachay2tnr]

Thanks for checking in, guys.

kramer - as always, I appreciate the listen and your comments. I thought the panning on the guitars really opened up the middle for the vox, maybe I need to rethink it a bit. However, I will take your advice on the volume and drop the gits down a "jest a tad."

Bill - not sure what you mean about the verb and delay becoming overdone as the song progresses. It stays at the same level throughout the entire song. Maybe it's just more noticeable in certain parts? This is the first time I've used a delay instead of just a straight reverb, so it's a learning experience. I only used the delay on the vox, though.

The synth in the beginning is a tad harsh. That's the "sound" I wanted, but without the harshness. I've been on the fence about it, and you've convinced me I need to work on it more.

Thanks for your thoughts.

mixmkr - glad you liked the vocals. That seems to be our strong suit, based on the comments we get each time we post a song (or the music is so awful, the vox are the only thing people can say something positive about).

The guitar, btw, was a mic'ed acoustic - no DI, no amp. Studio Projects C1 into a Mackie mixer with some slight compression from an RNC. They were, of course, double tracked and I did record with the gain turned up pretty good - dangerous territory with Mackie preamps. That's probably the explanation for the sustain, kinda like having your ear right on the guitar.

I'll take your advice on the timbales and center them more, but not sure I agree on the amount of compression. Maybe once I put it away for a couple of weeks, I'll hear it differently.



Thanks again to all for your comments. Even when I don't agree with you guys, you always manage to get me thinking about things.

 

[Emeric]

Really great singing. Hard to describe, just a good timbre and quality. The falsetto part is kinda werid, but...

I'm not sure what that percussion thing is supposed to be in the left channel. Sounds sort of like a woodblock.. don't know. I'd replace it with a real instrument or ditch it. Sounds super quantized.

Great work, dachay2tnr, enjoyed it much.

 

[Kramer]

kramer - as always, I appreciate the listen and your comments. I thought the panning on the guitars really opened up the middle for the vox, maybe I need to rethink it a bit. However, I will take your advice on the volume and drop the gits down a "jest a tad."

You are right dachay2tnr.The wide spread of the guitars does open the middle up nicely for all those vocals/harmonies.I think it might just be a volume thing with the guitars coupled with the compression.

Im listening again right now and the guitars do seem to be a little too loud......like at 2:54 when it breaks down to just vocals and guitars it's really evident to my ears........maybe rolling a little off on the low mids would make them fit a little better also.

I just listened to "We Just Disagree" by dave Mason and it has the exact stereo spread as this mix does.Acoustic guitars panned hard left/right and it works great with the vocal stuff going on.The guitars on that tune seem to be a little lower in volume allowing the vocal to be the focal point,and the eq of those guitars are a little thinner than the ones in this mix allowing the bass guitar to cut through nicely.I cant really hear the bass guitar at all on this tune.Kinda muddy and not defined.

Compared to some commercial CD's the overall Volume of this entire mix is a couple DB's too hot.

Just some ideas after listening again.I have trouble with all of this mixing stuff myself.LOL.

 

[HevyD47Ca]

NICE

i'm new to your stuff.
I think the performance is top notch.
Great vocals, are you singing all parts?

 

[dachay2tnr]

kramer - I think you are right on about the bass articulation. Plenty of bottom there, but not a lot of clarity. I'll need to do some work on that. I'll also back off a little on the final compression (although how am I supposed to win the volume wars that way??) BTW, I don't mind the comparison to Dave Mason - even if it's just his method of panning.

emeric - thanks for the input. Not sure what you mean about the wierd falsetto. However, I agree about the percussion. It's a timbale or bongo. There was a particular sound I was going for, but couldn't find it amongst the tools/sounds I had available. BTW, that part was "played" on a set of V-drums (as was the drum track). No quantization involved. Anyway, I'm thinking of just dumping it. The song doesn't suffer without it.

Hevy D - appreciate the listen and the kind comments. And no, I'm not singing all the parts. 4 vocalists in all - lead and 3 BGV's.

 

[David]

Top shelf vox all around! Are you the lead? Mix wise..well i can't offer anything (sounds great to me) but man those vocals are something special. GREAT WORK*****

 

[muzeman]

Great as always Mike,top notch!
Acoustic was superb,as were the vocals.

How did you record the guitar?

I always enjoy your music very much,sweet stuff!

Pete

 

[dachay2tnr]

freshears - thanks for the nice words, I'm glad you liked it. I'm not the lead singer, I did the guitar parts and one of the bgv's.

pete - appreciate the listen, as always. As you can see, we finally found a place to post our covers. It's the personal site of one of the group members. 25 meg of storage space, which should be plenty for us.

Thanks for the comment on the acoustic. I don't usually get many comments on my guitar work (except for, what did you do with the money your mom gave you for lessons ) It's a Taylor dreadnaught recorded using a Studio Projects C1 mic into a Mackie mixer, RNC compressor, and Delta 1010 sound card. The mic was about a foot in front of the guitar and I had the gain up pretty high. I doubled the part, and panned them hard left and hard right, which I think, as I mentioned to Kramer, opened up the middle for the vox. The BGV's are panned about 40% L and R and sit inbetween the gits.

 

[powderfinger]

the notes at the beginning (midi maybe?) are a bit harsh (i'm listening in headphones)........i like the acoustic.........very nice harmonies.......i like the drums

i like the melody...very pleasing

 

[acidrock]

Gotta agree about that first note.It's the only thing I don't care for.
I'm either deaf or the other guys are anal.I'm listening to this the third time and think it's fantastic.

 

[participant]

Hey there...

Mmm... large... kinda smooshed w/compression. The kick drum (fer instance) has a tiny dynamic range... thd thd thd... instead of thump thump!! thump!! th thump!! But compression is a matter of taste nowadays, I guess

The harmonies are very sweet. Very professional and tight.

All the vocals, up to the phrase "a rose is a rose", sound kind of flavor-deprived... after that, they sound more full... they're just ... colorless up to that point, IMO... some funky EQ going on there, possibly? Compression setting changed, possibly? Sounds like a faster threshhold at the beginning... slightly slower later (better).
IMO compression on vocs is one of the areas overdone many times... guilty here, too

Everything is well performed... the acoustic guitars (hardpanned) could stand some EQ sweetinging (e.g. "briter")

Nice touches... like the lil conga drum rolls, etc...

All critique here is very nitpicky... very nice cover.

This sounds like something "crawdad" would produce... and that's a high compliment.


c w/5

 

[muzeman]

I doubled the part, and panned them hard left and hard right,

Hey Mike,that was some tight playing man!
I couldn't tell if it was doubled or done in stereo.

Sounds like it's stereo using some great mikes,I guess that's the goal of doubling anyway.

Nice job!

Pete

 

[Guernica]

Hey Dachay....

.....WOW! those are incredible vocs man... ...just beautiful. Those bg's are soooo big and lush! ....just excellent

The only real nit i might have is the lack of bass. Im listening on my comp. speakers, and its virtually non existant. I'll hit this again from home.
This is a keeper for sure. GREAT stuff man!!

gw/5

 

[TripleM]

I don't think I've heard any of your stuff before. This was nice.

The job of tracking I think was done very well. Everything was so nice and clean. I loved the guitars. They sounded terrific.

Those harmonies were absolutely sweet. I loved them.

I thought the lead vox were nice. Nice tone and expressive. My only thing with them is that some of the notes or word pronounciations didn't seem to come out just right. For example, the word "Mystery" at :14. The singer seems to have trouble with that note in other spots. Another example, the fasletto thing around 2:30 just didn't seem all that smooth.

A little guitar tempo thing at :12?

These are all just nitpicks on a fine recording.

 

[dachay2tnr]

Powderfinger, thanks for checking in. I agree that the midi synth that starts the song is too harsh and piercing – especially in headphones. I will be changing it to a softer synth sound.

Acidrock – I think we need to hire you as our manager. You’re right about the first note and that will be addressed immediately, sir!

Participant – thanks for listening and for the valuable comments. Others have mentioned that this mix sounds too compressed. So I guess it’s something I need to look into further. I did notice last night that I had a software compressor on the kick drum. For the life of me, though, I can’t remember why I put it there. Anyway, needless to say, it’s been removed.

Lastly, I don’t know why you would hear a difference in the vocals in the early parts of the song versus the latter ones. All of the settings (eq, compression, reverb, delay) remain constant throughout. Anyway, thanks for the positive comments. And, btw, I don’t mind “nitpicky” – that’s what it takes to make a better finished product.

Pete – LOL. That’s me. I don’t play real well, but at least I’m real consistent.

G-man – it’s always good to see you checking in on one of my threads. Unfortunately, you are right about the bass. It’s there, but there is absolutely no articulation to it (which is probably why you’re not hearing on computer speakers). I’ve been playing around with the eq, and by boosting about 5db in the 3K area, I’m starting to get some definition to it. Usually I don’t like to go that drastic with eq, but I think I’m gonna have to on this track.

TripleM – thanks for checking us out, and for the nice words. Our lead singer has also mentioned not being happy with the falsetto in the bridge. The pitch in that part is quite low, and difficult to sing as a false note (at least for him). We will probably end up retracking it – bit I’m not entirely convinced he can sing it any better. As for “mystery,” that note is relatively high compared to the note right before it, and I think he doesn’t make the jump quite cleanly – so it sort of “scoops” up to the right note. Personally sometimes it bothers me and sometimes it doesn’t. I’ll see if he can do it cleaner, and, if so we will retrack that as well. Good comments, thanks.

Now, regarding the guitar tempo, what are you talking about? I’m a friggin’ metronome.

 

[TripleM]

Now, regarding the guitar tempo, what are you talking about? I’m a friggin’ metronome.

"Tempo" was a bad way to express it. The guitar was playing the individual notes of chords thru that section. The last note of that one chord was "late." At least I thought so. "Tempo" was my lazy-ass way of describing it.

See if you agree... Or rather "hear" if you agree.