dark hollow

[robgreen]

I liked it Heat - I don't really know much Grateful Dead, but it all sounds good to me and the mix holds together well.

I think you're brave going without reverb. mixing without reverb is a bit like jumping naked into the local swimming pool - all your insecurities are laid bare and you can't be quite sure whether anyone will like you exposing your chops.

It works though - the dryness gives the mix a great texture and clarity. It made me think of The Band doing a cover off Trout Mask Replica

 

[karumba]

this doesn't sound bad. maybe you could try to soften the playback a bit, since i think its a bit too sharp. vocalsound is fine. good job.

 

[heatmiser]

mixing without reverb is a bit like jumping naked into the local swimming pool

Yes, I suppose it is, although I want to be absolutely clear that I remained fully clothed throughout this entire process.

This doesn't really sound too much like the dead other than the melody. Chili may be able to bring more of that flavor to this. Thanks for checking it out rob!

I hope to hear something new from you soon.

this doesn't sound bad. maybe you could try to soften the playback a bit, since i think its a bit too sharp. vocalsound is fine. good job.

Thank you for the feedback. Aren't you the fella who has mastered some of ido's and rayc's stuff? If so, well done. If not, my apologies.

By sharp do you mean harsh? As in, too much upper mids? As in, it should sound warmer overall? Just trying to pin that down - thanks!

 

[karumba]

Thank you for the feedback. Aren't you the fella who has mastered some of ido's and rayc's stuff? If so, well done. If not, my apologies.

By sharp do you mean harsh? As in, too much upper mids? As in, it should sound warmer overall? Just trying to pin that down - thanks!

yes, i did ido's & rayc's stuff. thanks!
sorry for my short description. with sharp i meant the high frequency area. i've checked it, its mainly the metal of the drums around 14khz. it also could sound warmer overall. a bit staturation on e.g. the guitar bus helps here for sure. try ferric tds (i'm using it also for mastering): FerricTDS – released today within the KVR DC’09 « Variety Of Sound

you might also have a view on how you your stereobalance is. some instruments are quite "wide" (e.g. the one acoustic guitar), but the voice is (of course) mono. if the arrangment is not that dense & you can't (or shouldn't) apply widening tricks (not stereo widening tools, but e.g. stereo-delay on the chorus). you can try to add a stereo chorus on the vox just very slightly. try different chorus plugins, they all sound different (i'm using dimension D of the UAD). you could also double (tripple) the vocals in the refrain (if not already the case) & spread them just a bit left & right. don't apply the reverb for the vocals in mono (i'm not sure if you did, but there is no reverb at all in the Side-channel). and if you then narrow that one guitar a bit, the "stereo-distribution" will be good.

and since (my ;-)) words are sometimes hard to translate, here a very rough 10 minutes example (though based only on the 128bkit mp3 file). maybe this clarifies some of my comments.:

if you have questions, pls let me know.

 

[robgreen]

I hope to hear something new from you soon.

Cool, hopefully not long before I've got something ready to post Heat. There's a lot in the pipeline - I got one song with everything but lyrics, one recorded instrumental that I'm struggling to finish the melody for, one song fully written but not recorded, a cover I'm doing via email with a friend in London and a whole heap of tunes about the same recorded quality as the first Last Joke of Summer version that need retracking.

Just need to find the time to sit down with the house to myself and get some of this stuff done!

 

[heatmiser]

sorry for my short description. with sharp i meant the high frequency area. i've checked it, its mainly the metal of the drums around 14khz....

and since (my ;-)) words are sometimes hard to translate, here a very rough 10 minutes example (though based only on the 128bkit mp3 file). maybe this clarifies some of my comments.:

Aye Carumba!

No need to apologize, I just wasn't 100% sure what you meant. Thanks so much for elaborating. Your English is fine. When it comes to describing any advanced techniques you may as well be speaking German to me.

I like your example. The file type isn't ideal so I think we lost some detail there, but the drums do sound meatier and less tinny. Cool. I can look into that 14k region and see what I can do.

I'm not using a PC, but rather a roland portastudio for this, so no 3rd party plug-ins for me, but there are lots of decent effects I can choose from.

The spatial stuff confused me a bit and when you mentioned a chorus, I was like "eewww", but it is really subtle and I think adds some depth. FWIW, There isn't any reverb on any of these tracks. No doubling of voals either. One guitar panned to either side and a lead guitar up the middle. Lead vocal track slightly off to the left and one harmony vocal a bit more off to the right.

I tried to control the spatial aspect simply by mic positioning. Even though I wanted this to sound minimalistic and somewhat raw, I could probably do more to fine tune this. Thanks so much for taking the time and giving me some great ideas!