"Falling"

[K-dub]

I think I'm being ignored now.

It's a clique I tell ya!!!!!!!!!!

So as I was replying last night, my wife's half of the downstairs closet just collapsed (I say, "too many clothes", she says "not enough").

We'd bought the wire setup from Home Cheapo and I guess we got what we paid for.

I was up until 2 fixing it.

The cymbals are slightly sizzly ... sort of washy ... it's a limiting artifact, but I can route around.

Thanks Rami!

Kev-

 

[K-dub]

Hey man,

Falling sounds great, I really don't have much feedback at all, except that the synth piano (organ?) that comes in at the intro is just a tad piercing. It could be my phones, it could be that I always listen to stuff really loudly. Either way, this is a VERY nice mix, and a great song. I especially love the acoustic guitar sound that you managed to capture. What mic setup did you use for that?

The opening note hit IS piercing, and I am going to correct that manually w/ a volume envelope. It makes me start when it strikes, and I've listened to this one 500 times ... and I know it's coming.

The guitar was an Alvarez 12 string recorded w/ a stereo pair of MXL 603s ... all of less than $200 for the pair.

As noted above, I buy on the cheap.

The mics were set equidistant about 2 ft away from the source, one pointed diagonally back towards the point where the neck meets the body of the guitar, the other diagonally towards about 6 inches behind the sound hole.

They went through a stereo PV VMP pre ... no eq or compression, right into Sonar through my Layla. In Sonar, I applied eq and light compression ... and auxed out to a VERY small amount of modulation to fatten and widen the sound.

Kev-

 

[K-dub]

Hey Kev... interesting comments, and I understand where you are coming from.


btw...nice tunes. A little "americana" for me, but I like your stuff. Final Daze I liked best of the two.
I really like the tempo change A LOT and the arrangement/production/harmonic content. BUt I think I commented back when. Maybe not.

Anyrate... If you look, I've got one of those silly 2000 join dates and my 4000+ posts probably can be traced back to the MP3 clinic for the most part. (and probably just from the first couple of years or less too) The last couple years, I've come and gone. I find I get more done recording, rather than reading internet forums.. hey novel, eh? BUt I really enjoy reading this online stuff. .. and you can learn a lot too... Never stop learning. I don't know anyone here hardly anymore and I can post something, and because of that get very little feedback. The number of contributors has increased TREMENDOUSLY since the earlier years, as you probably know and one of the reasons I think many have migrated to the "smaller" RP forums. I wouldn't say I have, but I can see how this clinic has had a "population explosion" making it more difficult to stay on top of unless you visit VERY often.

This clinic has been a GREAT place for me in the past, and some of the music from others, has been incredible, to say the least.

I still poke my head in every now and then...(as evidenced by this post), but I find my replies are more directly related to something that really strikes a chord in me, VS just replying anymore.

So... that's all I had to say.

I TOTALLY get it, C. It's part of the phenomenon I was discussing.

Kev-

 

[K-dub]

Actually one more item.

What's with the Session Drummer? You go out and get Superior 2.0 and then backslide to Session Drummer.. what's that all about? I think you just heard a drum set that was "different" after using Toontrack all this time, but I think sonic wize, it is a step backwards, unless you're doing industrial, thrash/trash, hip hopo or whatever... you know what I mean. IT's ok...but just ok. Average... you don't want average, you and I know that.

I was going to comment at RP, but all I had to say at the time was I didn't like the Session Drummer, but everyone else was so positive about it and loving your "new" drum sound. I was hearing distortion too... and the poor attempt at Sonar's room ambience on Session Drummer.
I think if you swapped out kits (back to Toontrack), you'd agree, but that's my $.02.

So... looking at the Toontrack videos of the guys messing around with 2.0, it seems kinda limitless. Have you found that to be the case? Especially the tuning. That't the ONLY reason I like Session Drummer is that you can tune the dang drums. Sometimes I mix an extra kick in, just for that, but blend it in.

So...when you going to do "Saturdays alright (for fightin')"

You know it would totally rock

lol ... someday perhaps.


The main thing that worked utilizing Session Drummer 2 (as you noted from my starting post) was how FAST I was able to build this drum track.

Did it sound like shit? You bet!


But I finished the whole damn thing in 10 minutes. For building a drum track, that's light speed for me.

What I found particularly user friendly, was the ability to utilize the "groove clip" function inherent in the midi tracks provided by the program. I opened up the first groove, found the exact right clip ... and then I could slide it as long as I wanted ... it was effortless.

The rest was just isolating where I wanted to change things up with fills, and voila' ... 10 minutes later it was done.

Then, although SD2 is fine for demo level, I switched over to Superior 2.0 once sound and mixing got serious. There is no "real" mixing in Session Drummer.

But: SD2 IS WORLDS better than SD1. That program sucked from top to bottom.

Kev-

 

[K-dub]

I meant the organ....I'm not a keyboard-player!

Totally forgiven. Heck, you were kind enough to not mention how much my guitar lead sucked.

I'm not a guitar player.

 

[K-dub]

Hey, Kevin,

I thought I'd lend my clique to the mix:

Falling is a very nice track. Sounds pretty pro, though I'm not a fan of so many BGV's.

I know it's hard to reign yourself in when Sonar affords you so many tracks. You can clone them and shift them a frame or two and pan them all over the place and what you end up with is a Greek chorus.

That's fine and there is a place for it, (like in Jesus Christ Superstar or some other major musical) but for a song trying to sound like a band it's a bit much.

Does that make any sense? It's a wonderful sound, very full, but can there be too much of a good thing?

I would think if you could just limit the BGV's to three voices it would sound more realistic for an America, Springsteen or Eagles type of sound.

Love the piano in the piece. We never hear enough of that in rock songs IMO.

I'll listen to the other one soon, but somehow I think I already have.

My mind is jelly most of the time. Time is always a restriction, too. That's the reason that I feel like I am on the outside looking in, rather than not being a part of a clique.

But like Groucho, I wouldn't be a part of any clique that would have me for a member.

Wig

lol ... heck, I RECORD to a clique track! Wait ...



I agree w/ you, but ... (there's always a but, isn't there?) when working solo, there's a trade off to be made for the sound.

If I did three normal harmonies in normal "Americana" style of the aforementioned artists, it'd sound too much like too much ... me.

The technique was employed so that I could take the chorus out of the "me" mode and trick the listener into hearing a full bodied chorus that didn't sound like me.

I did originally try to vary my vocal on the harmonies, employing falsetto (etc...) so that it could sound a bit more "natural", but natural means just me ... and the tonal quality of the work suffers accordingly.

So the trade off was employing pitch plugs to change tonality into something unrecognizable as me ... but in doing so, a natural blend needed to be created to mask the fact there was also so much "synthesizing" going on with the vocals.

The result of which is a huge sounding chorale.

If I ever get three good singers that aren't me in the same room together, I'm so going for your suggestion.

Thanks!

Kev-