Factory Towns and A Tired Heart

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60's guy

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I recorded my nephew, Jameson, before he was deployed to Afghanistan.

Fortunately, Jameson served and returned home safely a couple of months ago.

I originally recorded his single acoustic guitar and vocal.

I was thinking about his song tonight and I did my best to add a simple bass guitar and harp to it.

Factory Towns and A Tired Heart

I'm not happy with the overal mix and vocal effect, but I thought I'd post it for advice and comments.
 
Thats a great song. I love the vocals and guitar, Pretty awkward to play and sing at the same time i imagine. Did you record him playing and singing this song live and then add the other instruments? Glad to hear that he found his way home from Afghanistan.
 
I like the song....maybe dry the vocals up a bit, as his voice is good, so let that shine.
 
Sounds really cool. Good that he made it back safe.


The playing itself is pretty interesting. Singing along it will truly be hard. :)
 
Nice tune and playing. The vocals are good and the harmonica is just a great mood setter. Sounds like there is some verb on the vocals. As D-man said maybe try lowering the verb a bit. Sounds like they could be a bit clearer to my ears. Anyway, glad he's doing well and nice tune here ;):)
 
Yeah I like the phrasing of the vocals and they're well sung. In fact everything is well played, some nice bass lines but my impression is that the overall sound is a bit 'thin'. I'm on headphones here though. Cool tune
 
gummblefish said:
Thats a great song. I love the vocals and guitar, Pretty awkward to play and sing at the same time i imagine. Did you record him playing and singing this song live and then add the other instruments? Glad to hear that he found his way home from Afghanistan.
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I think it's a pretty good tune too.

The recording is one acoustic guitar track and vocal played by Jameson simultaneous.

How he manages to finger pick and sing like that at the same time boggles my mind!

The setup was one mic on the guitar out front and a vocal mic.

The only additions were my amatuer bass and amatuer harp a couple years after the original recording.

Thanks for listening! :)
 
SnakeDog5050 said:
Nice tune and playing. The vocals are good and the harmonica is just a great mood setter. Sounds like there is some verb on the vocals. As D-man said maybe try lowering the verb a bit. Sounds like they could be a bit clearer to my ears. Anyway, glad he's doing well and nice tune here ;):)
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There is bit of verb on the main vocal that I added after the fact. There was also a bit of bleed from the guitar mic. I doubled up on one of the original tracks and may have offset it by a few ms, but I really don't remember for sure.

Thanks for listening. :)
 
Bulls Hit said:
Yeah I like the phrasing of the vocals and they're well sung. In fact everything is well played, some nice bass lines but my impression is that the overall sound is a bit 'thin'. I'm on headphones here though. Cool tune
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I think you're right. It does sound a bit thin.

Any advice on how I can fatten it?

EQ?
 
Great song, great guitar, great singing, and I dig the bass. Production was great, too. For some reason the harmonica wasn't working for me though. I'm not really sure why. I love harp on pretty much everything, so maybe it was just what you were playing. I like the tone you're getting out of the harp and I like its level in the mix. Actually, I like it when you're playing the lower notes on the verses, but I think it's just when you go back and forth between the F# and the E on the harmonica. Maybe it just doesn't seem to fit the song to me.

Anyway, I think it's an excellent song and I think you've done an excellent job here. Glad that your nephew made it back, too. Hope to hear some more.
 
HeyHeyMyMy said:
Great song, great guitar, great singing, and I dig the bass. Production was great, too. For some reason the harmonica wasn't working for me though. I'm not really sure why. I love harp on pretty much everything, so maybe it was just what you were playing. I like the tone you're getting out of the harp and I like its level in the mix. Actually, I like it when you're playing the lower notes on the verses, but I think it's just when you go back and forth between the F# and the E on the harmonica. Maybe it just doesn't seem to fit the song to me.

Anyway, I think it's an excellent song and I think you've done an excellent job here. Glad that your nephew made it back, too. Hope to hear some more.
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I wasn't too sure about the harp myself, and you've solidified my suspicion that I should rethink and redo it. I also think the harp is too dry sounding.

Thanks for the input!
 
60's guy said:
I think you're right. It does sound a bit thin.

Any advice on how I can fatten it?

EQ?
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Easy answer, R, is don't dial out too much of the meat ... forsaking it for clarity.

We monkey brains like vocal freq related goodness related to our speech range ... so the tendency for brain food is midrange and high freq mixes ... as the perception becomes "clarity" with such. Why? We hear the range clearer, so we identify it w/ the perception of clarity.

Trouble is, our brains relatively adjust and we begin to ask ourselves, like Clara, "Where's the beef?" We really don't crave a low fat diet ... we need fat.

We also like our proteins, not just lite salad ... and so one has to make allotment for the sounds that should have substinance, but also season the sounds that make the meal ... like adding salt.

It always should be an entree', not a mere appetizer.

Okay, that about kills the similes for this post ... but try to dial in the lows w/o muddying the waters ... and sorry for that last simile.

Best,

Kev-
 
K-dub said:
Easy answer, R, is don't dial out too much of the meat ... forsaking it for clarity.

....try to dial in the lows w/o muddying the waters.

Best,

Kev-
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Thanks Kevin!

Much appreciated. :)
 
I agree with much of what was said above - the harp is not doing it for me either and it could use some meat on the mid/bottom end of original guitar/vocal track. Bass is good, harp is too dry.

Some nice playing and singing here. Reminds me of that great old Gordon Lightfoot stuff....
 
Very good vocal/gtr performance! :)

I like the bass gtr. If it were me I'd take out the harp for the most part... just put it between the vocal phrases. Main thing though is to get a more natural EQ balance on the vocal/gtr. You might be getting some comb filtering between the two mikes on the original take, dunno.

Perhaps pick a reference recording or two that you like that have the same kind of singer/gtrist arrangement and tweak the EQ on this to sound similar in overall balance. The cover in the clinic right now by HeyHeyMyMy might be a good one to use for that.
 
Guys,

Thanks for all the advice. I did as best I could do to remix it after taking into consideration all the advice. There was quite a bit of mic bleed between the vocal mic and guitar mic that I had to contend with. I'm also convinced that the mic I used to record Jameson's vocal wasn't the best choice of mics.

Factory Towns and A Tired Heart (Remix)
 
The mix sounds really cool.

The bass sounds nice. The guitar sounds nice.

The harmonicy could afford slight volume boost and maybe fattening a little bit.
The only thing worth mentioning is that fret board scratches are a little too noticeable. Kind of distracting. Other than that it's fine.
 
Sounds great. Did you already make the adjustments that the others
have suggested? I really have nothing to fault except to me it seems the
eq on the vox sound close to being slightly abrasive. Maybe it's just these monitors I'm listening to which is not my normal set.
 
Very nice. This guy's delivery reminds me of James Blunt or Jack Johnson.

Except interesting.

I'm not sure the harp is playing in the right cross-key. /shrugs/

-Casey
 
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