Ear Fatigue!!!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rokket
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Rokket

Rokket

Trailing Behind Again
Back when I was doing the collab "Done With You" with Scrubs, Purge, BentRabbit and Oncor, my friend (who had access to my soundclick page) was simultaneously writing a song for it while he was off the coast of Iraq. We have been working on it ever since he got back in April.

I used the same chord progression, but to give it some distance from the other song, I put a capo on the 2nd fret of my acoustic. A few other things are different.

He sang all the vocals, I did the rest. But I have been wrestling with this mix for the last 3 days, and I am at my wits end. I can no longer be partial because I've listened to it too much.

So tell me what stabs you in the eye when you listen so I can fix it!





Look for "The Devil Within"


apl: there is no guitar solo in this one, bud... That song is going to be posted later on!!! :D
 
The vocals havent been tracked right and they are out of tune at times. Im sure i can hear the room they were recorded in.
 
ecktronic said:
The vocals havent been tracked right and they are out of tune at times. Im sure i can hear the room they were recorded in.
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Can you get a bit more specific on "tracked right"? I really want to fix this, and that's a bit vague.
 
When you record the vocals make sure there is no room ambience. By this i mean no natural reverb or echoes produced by the vocals in the room. Try using a dead room (no reverb) or make the room so it has no reverb. Put up quilts and pillows and sorts and make a wee enclosure so that it is close to totally dead as possible. Then record in there and you should notice a huge difference once you add compresion and reverb and EQ. You could probably just sing under your bed sheets and that would work, but might not be too practical!
Hope this helps.
 
Vocals do seem to stand out a bit. I seem to always have this trouble, so sorry, no ideas on how to fix it. Maybe it is just the room as ecktronic says. It all sounds pretty good though. Cool tune, and nice playing, singing. Maybe compress them a bit more? They just seem to sit on top of everything else.
If you do get it to sit right, let me know what you did.
Ed
 
You're a pretty good guitar player for a bass player! :)
The acoustic don't sound half bad...

How did you sample "the matrix" thing at the end? Audio outs from the DVD player direct to the MR8?

I don't have a DVD player in my cellar, and my son was playing his playstation2, so I just played a DVD over my monitors and recorded with a SPB1. As you might imagine, it sounded like shit, but it's only a 14 second clip. I haven't tried Windoze sound recorder yet...
 
cellardweller said:
You're a pretty good guitar player for a bass player! :)
The acoustic don't sound half bad...

How did you sample "the matrix" thing at the end? Audio outs from the DVD player direct to the MR8?

I don't have a DVD player in my cellar, and my son was playing his playstation2, so I just played a DVD over my monitors and recorded with a SPB1. As you might imagine, it sounded like shit, but it's only a 14 second clip. I haven't tried Windoze sound recorder yet...
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Hey, thanks for the input! I will work on the vocals. I think I know what I need to fix it....


Believe it or not, the Neo in the phone booth thing is my friend. We found a clip on a free sounds site, but there was too much backround noise to use it in the song, so we just had him do it, and I copied the last word to another track and threw a "Grand Canyon" reverb setting on it.
 
ecktronic said:
When you record the vocals make sure there is no room ambience. By this i mean no natural reverb or echoes produced by the vocals in the room. Try using a dead room (no reverb) or make the room so it has no reverb. Put up quilts and pillows and sorts and make a wee enclosure so that it is close to totally dead as possible. Then record in there and you should notice a huge difference once you add compresion and reverb and EQ. You could probably just sing under your bed sheets and that would work, but might not be too practical!
Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that was helpful. I think I know how to fix it, so I will get on that.



The problem may be that I over-did the reverb and maybe something else on the track that I rarely ever use... I will also bring the volume down, and delete the doubled track (he wanted to record a "whipser" track along with the lead, so maybe that's what you are hearing?)
Thanks again. I will work on it and repost...
 
Rokket said:
Believe it or not, the Neo in the phone booth thing is my friend..
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I mean no offense, but in that case you need to tell him to sing more like he speaks.

Someone once told me that, and it just kinda clicked for me. What I took from it, was to put no more emphasis on things singing than you normally would speaking, maybe it was just a comfort thing for me, but it seemed to make a difference.

You can kinda tell that his voice isn't at all bad, but he needs to work at it a bit more.
















And don't forget mister, GT2 :D
 
cellardweller said:
I mean no offense, but in that case you need to tell him to sing more like he speaks.

Someone once told me that, and it just kinda clicked for me. What I took from it, was to put no more emphasis on things singing than you normally would speaking, maybe it was just a comfort thing for me, but it seemed to make a difference.

You can kinda tell that his voice isn't at all bad, but he needs to work at it a bit more.
















And don't forget mister, GT2 :D
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Hey, I'm not offended. He just sings for fun, so he probably won't be either. I was kind of amazed at how well that ending came out, really... I am tweaking as I go here. I should have it ready for ears again in a day or two!
 
OK, just for info - I think I have the vocal fixed. Can someone who listened already give me a quick listen and see if I got it to sit right?

Also, are there any other problems?
 
Rokket said:
OK, just for info - I think I have the vocal fixed. Can someone who listened already give me a quick listen and see if I got it to sit right?

Also, are there any other problems?
Click to expand...
Hey Rokket ....I really like the song....I would like to sing it myself...!!!!
I didn't know you played the Accoustic...you did really well...It has a catchy beat to it also...I read what dweller posted and I know what he is talking about ..your friend is straining in a few parts...And I think it more or less comes down to better voice control...I have that problem...but it is getting better..But I do like the dudes voice...He sings in my key......hahahahahahah...It is a great song..... :D Hey play some more on that Geetar........... :p
 
true-eurt said:
Hey Rokket ....I really like the song....I would like to sing it myself...!!!!
I didn't know you played the Accoustic...you did really well...It has a catchy beat to it also...I read what dweller posted and I know what he is talking about ..your friend is straining in a few parts...And I think it more or less comes down to better voice control...I have that problem...but it is getting better..But I do like the dudes voice...He sings in my key......hahahahahahah...It is a great song..... :D Hey play some more on that Geetar........... :p
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Thanks, True. I'm glad that you like it! Yeah, it's more of a performance problem on his part. I don't want to start making excuses, but it's allergy season and he suffers from it big. It may be that. I've heard him sing live, and he can do a really mean Bon Jovi...
 
Rokket said:
Thanks, True. I'm glad that you like it! Yeah, it's more of a performance problem on his part. I don't want to start making excuses, but it's allergy season and he suffers from it big. It may be that. I've heard him sing live, and he can do a really mean Bon Jovi...
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Yeah I know all about those allergy problems..a singers nightmare...If you take something ,it dries your throat out.If not ,then eeeeeek ..mucus....now there is a real pleasant subject...I did like his vocal tone...I think your song is overall very good ...okay ...enough ............. :D
 
true-eurt said:
Yeah I know all about those allergy problems..a singers nightmare...If you take something ,it dries your throat out.If not ,then eeeeeek ..mucus....now there is a real pleasant subject...I did like his vocal tone...I think your song is overall very good ...okay ...enough ............. :D
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Thanks again, I'll pass this along to him!






OK, anyone else?
 
I need some thoughts on the instruments, and if everything is sitting well in the mix, so I can put this to bed. Anyone?
 
Anyone? One last day, then I am going to take it down....
 
OK take this for what its worth (Listening on headphones).

There are more places that the vocals are flat than in key. This warrants a retrack IMHO. With something like this the vocals seem to be the focus and they just don't seem to be up to the task on this take. If he doesn't want to retrack maybe look into auto tune but that would be a last ditch effort.
The instrumentation sounded pretty good. The beat could have been a little more "loose" but you typically get that with drum machines or programmed beats.
So i guess the vocals get my only real complaint. Hope this helps.
 
Wireneck said:
OK take this for what its worth (Listening on headphones).

There are more places that the vocals are flat than in key. This warrants a retrack IMHO. With something like this the vocals seem to be the focus and they just don't seem to be up to the task on this take. If he doesn't want to retrack maybe look into auto tune but that would be a last ditch effort.
The instrumentation sounded pretty good. The beat could have been a little more "loose" but you typically get that with drum machines or programmed beats.
So i guess the vocals get my only real complaint. Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Coming from you, that means a lot! I was thinking about having him retrack anyway.
Thanks for the listen!
 
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