"Desperation"

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K-dub

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This is kind of a retro rocker piece I just put together ... well, put back together.

Desperation

If anything jumps out as being off w/ the mix, I'd really appreciate mention of it.

THANKS for the help!

Best,

Kev-
 
Nothing sticks out as bad to me...sounds really good man. Excellent vocal delivery. The whole song sounds well done, Kev....really well done. Good clean mix. I hear the parts well....nothing stepping on anything else.

Another good one man... :D
 
Great retro sound and great tune!!!! Love it. The snare can maybe a little brighter, it's slightly...just slightly box-y, to my ears. But this is great. The slap back in the vocals is perfect. Nice backs-in the bridge especially. Very well done. Had me tapping my foot all the way through.
 
Sounds real good. I also like the slapback on the vocal. The gtr sound is cool. You'd do a great Stray Cat Strut I bet. :cool:
 
Actually, Tim ... following your suggestion, I went MORE in the Stray Cats/Rockabilly direction --

I completely replaced the guitar part w/ something swimming in that tone -- and did a faders down remix.

Normally, I start mixing from the drums up -- and make them the foundation of the arrangement -- this is rock and roll afterall, so the drums (and bass) are what makes ... um ... rock and roll.

I'll build the whole music bed and then add the vocals last, carving out as little frequency space as needed to fit it in.

This time though, I worked differently ... because I just couldn't seem to catch the groove I wanted working the other way. By the time I was putting the vocal in, trying to fit it seemed too much like shoehorning it --- the squeeze was too tight and cost me the groove -- the mix impact -- I was trying to achieve.

So I started instead with the drums and vocal ... nothing else. Once I got that interplay right, then I brought the rest of the elements up underneath the vocal ... so that the whole mix became subject to protecting the vocal and drums ... and everything else had to make room and slave for those two elements.

I think the new mix, with the new guitar ... is MUCH tighter, and has the elusive groove/impact that I was seeking.

I still wanted to keep it clean ... like Dogman commented on above, but I wanted this thing to really KICK it --

... and the first version just was a little too rock muzak for me --

I hope you folks stop back and take another listen. I think the new version is improved from the first.


I'd LOVE to hear what you all think ...

Best,

Kev-
 
Good lyrics.

The horn parts (except for the stabs) could use some volume envelopes to give them some swell.

This has a kind of CCR rock sensibility to it.

Mix and sounds are impeccable.
 
Casey -- that envelope on the horns suggestion is a true gem. Brilliant. It will create more realism in the horns, and allow me to poke them through the mix harder when I want more "push" to them.

Thanks so much, bud. That was just a winner of a thought -- which is why it never occurred to me.

:D

Kev-
 
Such a great sounding recording!!! Very nice.

Great vox. It's cool how during the resolve of the bridge, the vox start to sound a bit like Bowie.

Interesting bass sound. It's very, very low, but has just a hint of mid-attack. (At least that's how it sounds in my headphones.)

I can hear nothing wrong with the mix--in fact I hear a lot of 'right'!!!!!
 
Thanks Icanus!

The bass, frankly, was a beeeaatch to fit into things. It's SOOO frequency rich, that the eq on it resembles some freakish roller coaster ride. :D

Sometimes, when we do internet collab, the parts performed/recorded by one musician just don't catch the frequency pocket of other contributions. This is one of those occasions -- between the kick and the bass. Normally, one can find enough room to fit the two comfortably together, but on this one ... they're both trying to cram into the same sonic box, and both want dominance.

It was frustrating trying to make them "get along" and play nice.

I also had to perform some mixing trickery on the snare part ...

The drummer had done this really excellent snare ... but he was so subtle with the shadow hits (the slight stutters before and/or after the main beat hit), that they were disappearing under everything else.

So I cloned the track and REALLY SQUASHED the mirror image of the original. When one compresses so hard, there's hardly any volume distinction between the subtle hits and the snap of the main beat -- compression "flattens" the dynamic.

I then tucked the flattened track up underneath the original snare part.

What this results in is that suddenly those subtle parts are right there sonically, and can be heard clearly. Yet, when the snap of the main beat comes, it doesn't overwhelm because the cloned track's beat is so squashed.

... just passing the trick along fwiw ...

When mixing, it's absolutely fine to overcompress ... when you want to use it as a tool to pop an individual track forward.

What's LESS okay is strapping a brick limiter across the main bus and flattening the whole mix out. That'll kill the life out of a mix quicker than anything.

That was probably too much information ... and you probably knew all this -- but I got headed in that direction and felt I should complete the thought.

:D

Best,

Kev-
 
Thanks Kev.

From you, there can't be too much information!!!!

Supercreep and I really like your recordings. There's quite a lot for us to learn yet--I don't know how to get drums to sound as good as yours. You've got a very good ear. That's a good trick for bringing in those snare grace notes--something that appears on lots of our recordings. We're coming along (at least I like to think so!). We'll have a new one done pretty soon, should be the best one to date. . .

Take care
 
Not my kind of music, but I love this to bits!

Great mix, lovely and crisp and the vocal performance is absolutely bosting :)

Only comment is that the snare could use a smidge of extra punch to it, it's a little boxy at the minute but other than that it's excellent.
 
Thanks P-J!

The snare, unfortunately, contains that ever so slight boxy sound in the tracking ... and eq though I might ... it's in the bleed to the other drum mics to. I think it's just a ever slightly boxy sounding snare -- but I asked the drummer to try and get a retro sound, and this is what he sent me. I've attempted to doctor it as best I can ... mostly by adding reverb to mask, but ... well, you've got great ears. It's not going to get by folks like you. :D

Thanks for the kind words on my vox. I do all of them on this particular recording, and getting the main vocal to cut through was THE challenge of this mix.

Clay Gibson, of these boards, kindly lent his formidable talents to the bass playing on this piece, and he turned in a busy ... but KILLER job.

The trouble with a low part w/ a lot of notes, is that low parts mask adjoining areas -- particularly the frequency close middle range -- of which human vox fall into. So busy, low freq parts, will present a higher mixing challenge.

That's why, as I outlined above, I had to work backwards on this one ... by placing the vocal part up first and then protect it by carving out everything that tried to intrude on it --

So the direction became "protect the vocal while allowing the bass to still shine through".

That was the balance I was going for, and it wasn't easy to get. I had to boost the low end of the bass, carve out the kick where I boosted the bass ... AND cut a wide section of range EVER so slightly in the kick and bass middle freq ranges to fit the vocal into the pocket.

The sticky wicket was ... as I said above, getting the kick and bass to play together nicely, while making room for the vocal, AND not overly sacrificing the sound of either.

I know you didn't ask any of this ... :D ... but I tend to discuss what I did to get the results ... because venues like the MP3 clinic -- where someone can actually hear what I'm discoursing about -- potentially could be invaluable to folks who are newly trying to pick their way through the recording process.

It's my hope that by having real examples to listen to, they'll get more of a "hands on" illustration of some of the techniques and approaches to mixing mentioned.

I'm by no means a professional, I'm a still learning home recordist -- but sharing what I do know is something I like to do, in the hope that it helps others learn -- and direct listening, I feel ... can be a good way to do it.

Thanks again!

Kev-
 
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