Another lurker peeks out

[pglewis]

Howdy from another hobbyist and homerec nut trying to squeeze as much as possible out of cheap gear. For the past few months, I've been working with a friend's material to help him get a decent demo together. We're finally getting near (what we believe to be) the final mixes on some of the stuff.

On some stuff, I'm just playing "monkey boy"... push the knobs, get it to sound as good as possible. But after working with the artist for a bit, I've become more involved with some of the arrangements as well as cutting a track here and there. That, of course, means I can throw "objectivity" out the window. I've been quietly picking up some invaluable tips from y'all along the way, and I'd really like a few other ears filtering this stuff.

I played clean electric and bass on this one, as well as all the recording. The chorus is squashed a bit too much (don't print the mix at 4:30 in the morning, next time) but overall it seems okay. You just reach that point where you can't tell anymore, know what I mean?

Missed My Ride:
https://www.idrive.com/dreaming_polecat/

 

[Ric]

pretty unique sound. he likes hanging
out in dissonance eh?

one critique. the full spread/panned vox.
i'd bring em a little closer to center..

mho, dats all. nice job.

 

[gibs]

Short and sweet...Ric nailed the only glitch on the vocals...centering would indeed be a good move...just my op...nice tune and feel...kinda reminds me of that band that had the bee kid in their video and have a dead singer...gibs

 

[Teddie]

pg,

I keep getting booted to this URL: https://www.idrive.com/mydrive/unknownfriend.html from the URL you have posted above.

 

[pglewis]

The good news: you guys have already found something I totally missed (re: vocal panning). The bad news: I may have been a bit too quick with the razor back when I sub-mixed the vocs. The more I play with my toy DAW, the fewer destructive edits I make without backups. I may have the originals on DAT *fingers crossed*.

Teddy, I'm new to idrive so I don't know the quirks yet. You might try going to www.idrive.com and visiting dreaming_polecat.

 

[pglewis]

I still had all the original voc tracks, lucky me. I remixed it with a more sane vocal panning and cleaned a lot of things up. I think everything is sitting in the mix much better now (updated version on idrive).

Thanks for the feedback

 

[Ric]

Bingo on the panning on the main vox. Good idea leaving it spread on the bridge. That's vert tasteful. Now, my only problem
is the volume in spots on the vox.

1:04 thru 1:32 vox is buried...2:06 thru 2:36 vox is buried etc...and I think you'll find in areas like the above, judiciously use some EQ to bring out the vox, but don't over do it. Volume adjustments, vox can be louder(but be careful eq boosting will give a sense of louder) and slightly lower volume on the open chord guit strum. I would also push that guitar strum off center to open the middle up more for the vox. I'd try putting it at like..hmmmm...2 o'clock. Then, take the acoustic guitar track and pan it to 10 o' clock. Open up the middle for the vocals...with subtle panning...

You try the above and I think you'll have it. Each suggestion above can be overdone...so...pinches of change can make a dramatic difference.

-ric

[This message has been edited by Ric (edited 05-21-2000).]

 

[pglewis]

Ric: I came to the same conclusion about the vocs in the choruses. The distorted guit was stepping all over 'em. I took care of most of it with EQ, and then moved the distorted guitar to the left a bit. That combination helped a lot. I probably wouldn't have thought to pan the guitar on my own. I also decided to beef up the snare a bit. Sheesh, it's like trying to tune a guitar with a floating tremolo... make one change and 5 other things go outta whack . There are a lot of things that want to be heard, and only so much room for all of 'em in the mix. The keys are too buried now, but everything is much closer.

Anyway, keep sending 'em back and I'll keep fixin' stuff. FWIW, I encoded this latest version with LAME and noticed a lot fewer artifacts in the cymbals and the highs are a lot crisper. For those of you not familiar with LAME, it's a free command-line based MP3 encoder (run from a DOS box). I used the Fraunhofer encoder in CPA9 on the other roughs. Fraunhofer may be the best encoder at lower bit rates, but I swear my ears prefer LAME on anything 96kbps and higher. Has anyone else reached the same conclusion?