Beach Boys God Only Knows cover

S

stasz

New member
Hey everyone, here's another cover, this one of Beach Boys - God Only Knows. Feel free to criticize anything about it - the performance, the recording, the mixing, etc. Just wanting to get feedback in general.



Couple of things:

a) I wanted to have a strange-sounding intro - kind of a reharmonization of the original intro. Other than that, the harmonies/melodies for the rest of the song are pretty much true to the original. I did want to change up the instrumentation though, especially because it'd be impossible to recreate the lush instrumentation of Pet Sounds.

b) Towards the end of the song, in the right speaker, I'm getting some plosives on the mic. I was using a pop filter so I'm not sure what happened...I need to rerecord that part.

c) At the very end there's some creaking noises. It's not your chair, it's a squeaky vibraphone pedal :) Unfortunately that was my favorite take on the vibes, so I decided to just keep it even with the creaking.

Thanks for listening!
 
The track has some pleasant sounds which would work better if you fatten the whole thing up. It is lacking at the lower end and there are a few questionable notes spread evenly through the vocal. The biggest issue with the vocal is it's too thin and not anywhere near warm enough. I'd be inclined to copy your vocal takes a few times and apply varying amounts of chorus in small doses and have maybe eight tracks of the vocals. Some panned to a slightly different area of the stereo field but not to the extent that you have some part of it sounding like a lost belonging. Maybe three tracks of the lead vocal running a couple of ms, behind each other which can be as dry as you have them here and the chorus treated ones also panned in small increments and if you want to experiment with anything wide have it subtle and with a small amount of delay. All of this has to be done with a less is more in terms of shifting time and pitch or it will overcook. the instrumentation can be given similar treatment, i.e duplicate the vibraphone track a few times and have one with a shed full of bottom end and one with a very small delay and an original.

With each of the new tracks if you happen to try this can be controlled on the sliders or track levels if working in software to experiment with how small amounts of each track with their differing positions in the stereo field and different tonality can augment your original tracks and give a richness without making the whole thing sound too contrived.

Regards

Tim
 
Phrasemaker said:
The track has some pleasant sounds which would work better if you fatten the whole thing up. It is lacking at the lower end and there are a few questionable notes spread evenly through the vocal. The biggest issue with the vocal is it's too thin and not anywhere near warm enough. I'd be inclined to copy your vocal takes a few times and apply varying amounts of chorus in small doses and have maybe eight tracks of the vocals. Some panned to a slightly different area of the stereo field but not to the extent that you have some part of it sounding like a lost belonging. Maybe three tracks of the lead vocal running a couple of ms, behind each other which can be as dry as you have them here and the chorus treated ones also panned in small increments and if you want to experiment with anything wide have it subtle and with a small amount of delay. All of this has to be done with a less is more in terms of shifting time and pitch or it will overcook. the instrumentation can be given similar treatment, i.e duplicate the vibraphone track a few times and have one with a shed full of bottom end and one with a very small delay and an original.

With each of the new tracks if you happen to try this can be controlled on the sliders or track levels if working in software to experiment with how small amounts of each track with their differing positions in the stereo field and different tonality can augment your original tracks and give a richness without making the whole thing sound too contrived.

Regards

Tim
Click to expand...

Thanks for the in-depth response. I'd agree that I'm not happy with the sound of the track as a whole, and it really could be "fattened up" like you said. I suppose part of it comes from the fact that I'm using cheap mics (Audio Technica 3035). Though I don't think that's necessarily a barrier from improving the track beyond how it currently exists. I'll definitely experiment with the duplication of tracks and subtle use of stereo & pitch effects as you said.

I also might benefit by just practicing the vocal part some more, and doing at least a few more takes. The high range is part of the problem, but also the diminished chords spread throughout the song. There are some really tricky jumps in the lead vocal line, I think there may even be a tritone jump at some point.
 
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