B
b1j
New member
My first time trying this. Fair warning: Here's too much information about the process of creating my latest song. I'm curious to hear how you home recording experts would critique my work.
My brother Tom visited me about four years ago from Maryland. We eked out a version of this song, one of our favorites by Jackson Browne. It was pretty rough. His vocal (no insult intended) is an acquired taste, and he insisted on doubling the track and panning hard L and R, with reverb on only one track. OK.
Anyway, a few weeks ago I dredged it up and decided to see if I could sweeten it a bit.
Main vox
Melodyne, compression, and EQ dressed it up a lot.
BGV
My main focus at first was to try my hand at adding a chorus of background vocals. If you know the song, you know the BGVs are key. The BGV words are in three-part phrases, while the oohs at the end open up to five parts. I recorded three tracks for each part, so I had nine tracks for the words parts and fifteen for the oohs. I learned a lot mixing these snippets, particularly about maybe going too far in smoothing out pitch modulation.
Percussion
I decided to use Superior Drummer 3 to bring the drums up. In the original track, Tom had tapped a couple of keys on the keyboard to simulate kick and snare with a hint of hi-hat. I started there and added grace notes, toms, and cymbals. Also, I added compression to each track and brought in Ambience, as you can do between SD3 and Studio One. (Along the way, I finally “upgraded” to Fender Studio Pro 8 –– that’s another set of stories!)
Bass
Tom had played a very basic 1 - 4 - 5 bass track by plugging my bass directly into the AudioBox USB I had at the time, without a DI. To my dismay this year, there was a prominent buzz at the end of each note that did exactly what a mosquito does around your head. That had to go, so I re-recorded the entire track. This time I used a DI box into an XLR to the Motu M6 I’ve had for a couple of years now. Night and day. Then I hunted around for a fat signal chain in another plugin I acquired since we tracked it: Guitar Rig 7. There’s quite a bit more punch now, even with the pretty neutral chain I settled on.
Electric guitar
Happy with the new sound in the bass, I applied a couple of Guitar Rig 7 effects to Tom’s two electric guitar parts: the background obligato and the face-melting solo in the second Middle Eight. I wanted a chunky but unobtrusive main track, but I wanted the solo to blast out. I like where both ended up.
Piano
I left 90% of what was there, keeping Tom’s human touch dynamics instead of velocity-adjusted MIDI that I would have been able to “play.” I did add some flourishes here and there. No plugins at all.
Acoustic guitar (my main instrument)
The acoustic track is just full strummed chords to provide the harmonic structure. In 2022, I recorded in our large living/dining room space with spaced pair SDCs (sE Electronics sE8). This year, I was forced to admit that I could hear some phase-type ringing in the track. Out of curiosity, I put Melodyne studio on a duplicated track and there were TWO tracks very close together. This proved that the two mics received sound at different times. Also, the waveforms in the main screen were very jagged, not smooth at all like the bass waveforms. Unfixable. So I decided to replace the entire old track with an XY setup. I checked the new one in Melodyne with a duplicated track, and confirmed that there was just one signal. Most importantly, no phasing, no ringing. So, from an acoustic guitar standpoint, I'm sold on XY now. (I can still get L/R shifts if I move too much while I play.)
Effect of absorption panels
Last year, I hung my eight DIY absorption panels around the room: 3 on the front and right walls, one each on the right and rear walls. They are 3-1/2" thick and 2' x 4'. The room has a noticeable hush when you walk in, and when I aim my voice or guitar into them, I get the purest acoustic sound I've ever had in my little 12 x 13" spare bedroom. Eternal thanks to the folks over in Acoustic Guitar Forum who nudged me to go this route!
Mastering
On top of it all, I attempted some elementary mastering, also in Fender Studio Pro. This was little more than loudness setting to –12 LUFS, plus some gentle compression (–10 threshold, 2:1 ratio, 6 knee, 27 ms attack, 120 ms release, no makeup gain). I had already done so much gain staging that things were in pretty good shape in the mix.
There you have it. Let me have it. How does it sound to you?
My brother Tom visited me about four years ago from Maryland. We eked out a version of this song, one of our favorites by Jackson Browne. It was pretty rough. His vocal (no insult intended) is an acquired taste, and he insisted on doubling the track and panning hard L and R, with reverb on only one track. OK.
Anyway, a few weeks ago I dredged it up and decided to see if I could sweeten it a bit.
Main vox
Melodyne, compression, and EQ dressed it up a lot.
BGV
My main focus at first was to try my hand at adding a chorus of background vocals. If you know the song, you know the BGVs are key. The BGV words are in three-part phrases, while the oohs at the end open up to five parts. I recorded three tracks for each part, so I had nine tracks for the words parts and fifteen for the oohs. I learned a lot mixing these snippets, particularly about maybe going too far in smoothing out pitch modulation.
Percussion
I decided to use Superior Drummer 3 to bring the drums up. In the original track, Tom had tapped a couple of keys on the keyboard to simulate kick and snare with a hint of hi-hat. I started there and added grace notes, toms, and cymbals. Also, I added compression to each track and brought in Ambience, as you can do between SD3 and Studio One. (Along the way, I finally “upgraded” to Fender Studio Pro 8 –– that’s another set of stories!)
Bass
Tom had played a very basic 1 - 4 - 5 bass track by plugging my bass directly into the AudioBox USB I had at the time, without a DI. To my dismay this year, there was a prominent buzz at the end of each note that did exactly what a mosquito does around your head. That had to go, so I re-recorded the entire track. This time I used a DI box into an XLR to the Motu M6 I’ve had for a couple of years now. Night and day. Then I hunted around for a fat signal chain in another plugin I acquired since we tracked it: Guitar Rig 7. There’s quite a bit more punch now, even with the pretty neutral chain I settled on.
Electric guitar
Happy with the new sound in the bass, I applied a couple of Guitar Rig 7 effects to Tom’s two electric guitar parts: the background obligato and the face-melting solo in the second Middle Eight. I wanted a chunky but unobtrusive main track, but I wanted the solo to blast out. I like where both ended up.
Piano
I left 90% of what was there, keeping Tom’s human touch dynamics instead of velocity-adjusted MIDI that I would have been able to “play.” I did add some flourishes here and there. No plugins at all.
Acoustic guitar (my main instrument)
The acoustic track is just full strummed chords to provide the harmonic structure. In 2022, I recorded in our large living/dining room space with spaced pair SDCs (sE Electronics sE8). This year, I was forced to admit that I could hear some phase-type ringing in the track. Out of curiosity, I put Melodyne studio on a duplicated track and there were TWO tracks very close together. This proved that the two mics received sound at different times. Also, the waveforms in the main screen were very jagged, not smooth at all like the bass waveforms. Unfixable. So I decided to replace the entire old track with an XY setup. I checked the new one in Melodyne with a duplicated track, and confirmed that there was just one signal. Most importantly, no phasing, no ringing. So, from an acoustic guitar standpoint, I'm sold on XY now. (I can still get L/R shifts if I move too much while I play.)
Effect of absorption panels
Last year, I hung my eight DIY absorption panels around the room: 3 on the front and right walls, one each on the right and rear walls. They are 3-1/2" thick and 2' x 4'. The room has a noticeable hush when you walk in, and when I aim my voice or guitar into them, I get the purest acoustic sound I've ever had in my little 12 x 13" spare bedroom. Eternal thanks to the folks over in Acoustic Guitar Forum who nudged me to go this route!
Mastering
On top of it all, I attempted some elementary mastering, also in Fender Studio Pro. This was little more than loudness setting to –12 LUFS, plus some gentle compression (–10 threshold, 2:1 ratio, 6 knee, 27 ms attack, 120 ms release, no makeup gain). I had already done so much gain staging that things were in pretty good shape in the mix.
There you have it. Let me have it. How does it sound to you?
