(David Bowie I Love You) Since I Was Six Cover Feedback

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ultrasound

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Hi. I would be so grateful if you could give me some feedback on a cover i did of a Brian Jonestown Massacre song called "(David Bowie I Love You) Since I Was Six". Its not so much of a cover as reproduction of the song I did as an exercise to improve my production skills. Its the first time I've actually paid attention to stuff like EQ and compression and all that and I've been doing online tutorials to help me out.

Stuff used was:

Yamaha FG-335 acoustic
Mexican Stratocaster
Hondo II bass
Addictive Drums
Sampled accordion
Behringer C-1 Microphone
Tambourine
 

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Awesome!

I love me some BJM, but I don't know this track, so I can't help in terms of how closely you copied the original production. Most of their tunes that I've heard and enjoyed were decidedly lo-fi. This may actually be superior production-wise to many of their things I've heard in the past. What a beautiful melody. I really dig your voice on this.

Mix-wise for me, there were a few minor things...

I think the accordion is a bit too loud and the vocals a bit buried (but Anton generally has his vocals pretty buried, doesn't he?). Also, I think the boom/thump of the kick is a little exaggerated and that could be tamed a bit. I would like the drums to be a bit dirtier and have more mid range life to them myself. As it is, I hear too much from the kick and cymbals, but not enough of the mids to balance that out.

Just my thoughts from listening on a modest set-up here. I really enjoyed this track though - thanks for posting it!
 
It sounds more like a track from Sapce Oddity (song for free something?) becasue of the accordian/harmonium drone - and there's the borrowed melodic phrases from Space Oddity itself.
 
hey heatmiser. thanks for the advice on the mix. i made the changes you suggested. i boosted the mids on the drums, tamed the kick drum and also turned down the accordion a bit and EQd it so it clashed less with the vocals. also i added a tube overdrive plug-in to the drums to dirty them up a bit. that was a good idea because the were much too high fidelity compared with the other tracks.

it would be cool if you could have another listen and tell me if its any better now.

does anyone else have some suggestions about how to improve this mix?
 
Ah, lovely, I'm a massive BJM fan and this is one of my fav tunes. Sorry i didn't get around to listening earlier, I would have liked to have heard your first version too.

I don't know much about recording so take what I say with a pinch of salt, but the accordian in the original version seems a bit heavier, more drony, esp. at the start. Maybe it's because you turned it down. But I think you could give it a bit of volume back at the beginning. It's like they have a lower octave in there too, but I might just not be picking this up because of the reduced volume in yours. I think the volume is good where you've got it for the rest of the song though.

Your guitar strum of the acoustic also sounds a bit lighter than the sound they've got going on with it, you can really hear the strings being strummed in the original. I'm just going on sound though, you know comparing the two. I know I'm not being terribly technical.

To be fair, I didn't mind one bit that it sounded a bit softer, because it totally works with your voice. I think you did a terrific job & carried it well. I enjoyed it as much as the original.

Shame there wasn't more of Joel's awesome tambourine playing in this tune though. :)
 
haha yeah it would be good to get joel to come round my house with his tambourine that would be fun.

thats a good point about the guitar. i think i will actually rerecord the acoustic strummed harder. although i think part of the problem is that my cheap nasty guitar. i dont think i can make the accordion any better though because i have only limited samples. ill see what i can do.
 
hey fritsthegirl. i recorded the acoustic guitar again strumming harder like you said. i think its a big improvement actually. thanks for the advice. take a listen if you want. i also made an attempt to sing it more sort of manly.
 
ultrasound said:
hey fritsthegirl. i recorded the acoustic guitar again strumming harder like you said. i think its a big improvement actually. thanks for the advice. take a listen if you want. i also made an attempt to sing it more sort of manly.
Click to expand...

Phew, my suggestion worked. :) Yeh, the guitar is more like in the original now, really well played. I like it. Intro sounds nice and loud, and it's got that BJM feel.

Good job on the vocals too. I like 'em a lot, I reckon you could crank them up a touch in parts, esp. 'see it many times, Yes I'm sure it shines in you' & 'In the darkness of my light, Shining on the chosen few'. It's just my opinion, but I think it would sound cool to bring your voice forward a bit more in those parts.

So...are you taking requests for other BJM stuff? :D
 
just checked out your threads because you left a pretty nice comment on my track.

this is fucking radical. when i saw the name of the post i was super stoked but i was totally blown away when i heard it. really big sound without sounding overproduced or not organic. i dig the vocals. literally spot on. i don't know enough about producing/mastering to add anything useful. but, do you record on computer or tape? only thing i can think of is if you did this digitally, a reel to reel might help you get closer to their sound.

but yeah. really cool. keep it up
 
You could probably even ease off another taste on the low end on the kick. It sounds okay through monitors, but through cans it's pretty big still. Also, that accordion - if you don't want to turn it down another decibel, how about putting a bit more reverb on it? That'd push it back into the mix a bit so it wasn't so prominent. It really draws a lot of attention to itself. 'The accordion that wanted to be heard.' :)

I l-o-v-e the way this one moves. How do you do that? It sort of shambles.
 
hey yeah ill try and ease down the kick some more and work on the volume of the accordion or maybe some reverb. good advice.

also, if anyone is alright at singing and would like to record the main vocal part then that would be awesome.
 
ultrasound said:
hey yeah ill try and ease down the kick some more and work on the volume of the accordion or maybe some reverb. good advice.

also, if anyone is alright at singing and would like to record the main vocal part then that would be awesome.
Click to expand...

I agree on the reverb on the accordion, I was going to suggest it myself but was too scared in case it was delay I was thinking of. Hey, why redo the vocals, you do good on those. Seriously.
 
Love the reworked drums. The dist. plug was a good idea and brings just the right amount of grit to them. Nice call.
The accordion patch is pretty gruesome....doesn't really sound like an accordion, but that's not a bad thing.:D The drone aspect of it works well. You've captured that early Bowie-leaning-back-in-a-chair-and-almost-falling-backwards-vibe pretty well.
 
hey teyshablue and others im glad you liked it. im going to make the changes suggested just as soon as i have some free time.

i think in the original track it is something like a harmonium and not an accordion but i could only find samples of an accordion. they are both pretty similar i think. theres also some other organ type insrtrument on the original that ive just left out.
 
Cool stuff! I like the accordion I wouldn't have known it was sampled if you didn't tell me. I like the kick sound but I get it can be overbearing. Maybe Roll off some of the serious lows. Addictive drums sounds pretty real too. Is someone actually playing or were the drums programed? I'm not a fan of the panned snare. I would like to hear a hair more vocals and bass.
 
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