HRC - Even the Rocks

  • Thread starter Thread starter dafduc
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Nice job Daf. Good song, good singer. I felt like she might be holding back a little though. Maybe shyness of her own voice kinda thing. I think I would give her a little less of her own voice in the headphones to see if she might open up a little more. There's really nothing wrong with it, I just wanted a little more uuummph! in the vocal performance.


Twist
 
Nice job Daf. Good song, good singer. I felt like she might be holding back a little though. Maybe shyness of her own voice kinda thing. I think I would give her a little less of her own voice in the headphones to see if she might open up a little more. There's really nothing wrong with it, I just wanted a little more uuummph! in the vocal performance.


Twist
 
I'm not going to be overly generous just because I'm late getting to this. :)

Firs thing I noticed was the warmth of the vocal. I read a little while back about that mic. It seems to do a good job of grabbing her voice. Shouldn't need much if any EQ come mix time.

I don't quite understand the doubled vocal section. I would just keep the single voice, or track a nice harmony. Either way, I wouldn't go with such a stereo spread.

Speaking of stereo spreads, I think the drums, especially the cymbals need to move in closer to the center. I swear they ship these drum samples out with everything panned 100% L and R. Mine were pretty much the same way. You gotta adjust it yourself. I should think getting those cymbals in around 50% L and R should work. Maybe even closer for this song.

But I'm talking about mixing here, aren't I.

The tracking seems pretty solid. The vocal was tracked very well IMO, especially without compression. Not that she's freaking out on the mic or anything anyway. :) I thought I heard some distortion out of the left during the doubled vocal part. Maybe got a bit too close or something.

Anyway, good stuff Daf. Sorry I was so late getting to it.

Tom
 
Thx Twist & Sluice!

Twist - anything worth saying is worth saying twice?:D

Seriously, Caroline and I have been around a few times about the whole "with feeling" thing - we have a running "lusty gusto" joke. Maybe you had to be there. Anyhow, choir directors have been pulling her back all her life, it's just part of her approach. Still, she WANTS to sing country. Man, she'll never make country work if she doesn't relax! Thanks for the listen.

Tom - man you're fast!

Yeh, the doubling was an accident, we thought it sounded cool, but we were going to pull them closer together. Lot of votes for just dropping the doubling, though... We'll see. It'll be either closer together or no doubling. Hadn't noticed the drum spread, but you're absolutely right. I'll pull the sides in. And yes, the Baby Bottle is the magic mic for Caroline. Warmth, detail, and just a little shimmer. Best $500 I ever spent! Thanks for the listen, sorry about the whine...

Daf
 
I'd say, bring the vox down a tiny bit... it sits just above the mix (at least for me). If I listen at higher volumes, it's just way too over-bearing.

Try to mic that acoustic git better... don't ever run acoustics direct... :p that just sucks the life right oat of 'em... some people run a combo of direct/mic but I have yet to find a redeeming quality of DI'ed acoustic tone. :p I'd suggest close mic'ing with a SD condensor and distance/room mic'ing with an LD condensor. You should get a much better tone. Anywhoo... once you get a better acoustic tone, I'd say bring the acoustic up more in the mix (maybe panned off to one side 50-60%) I mean... this genre typically calls for heavy (and prominent) "keys", but you don't have to go with the typical sound... get a sweet, moody acoustic tone (playin' that picked minor) and bring it up in the mix almost as much as the keys... that'll level things out, as well as take away a bit of the "cheesy-old-people-church-music" sound. :D Although, she does have a very "churchy" voice, so it'll always have that "flavor" to it.

Everything else has been covered... you really gotta get new drum samples, 'cause that alone takes the song down a few notches (as far as sonic quality/professional sound).


I'd be interested in hearing the choral arrangement of this.



(P.S. Try encoding at a higher bit-rate (maybe using VBR)... that'll help a bit too.)


WATYF
 
Thanls for the feedback, WATYF.

The guitar is a series of loops. Only thing I can think of doing (besides having Caroline learn the part and me learn how to mic her guitar) is applying one of my Acoustic Mirror mic models. Or a tube plugin or something (the wet version switches between normal and Leslie, using the B4 as a virtual amp).

Does any of those strike you as a good solution? The mic models are all Shures - I think I can do a SM-81 or SM-94, and I know I could do a KSM-44. There's a ribbon, but that would probably be weird.

As to the drums - I could try to do the midi keyboard drummer thing - I have a few VSTi drumkits at my disposal. Or do you hear a way to "fix" these?

Thanks again. Now go back to your honeymooning!!!:cool:

Daf
 
nah... don't sweat it. My input was mostly "best case" scenario... you know... like,.. if you had it to do all over again, you could do "this" or "that"... but if you can't retrack it, then just leave it. Mic modelers wouldn't really have much of an impact.

As for the drums... there's nothing to "fix" the current samples... they have an ingrained tinny and "unnatural" sound to them. (a la "Casio keyboard". :p) You'd just have to pick some different samples. I don't know what app you use to program your drums, but it shouldn't be that difficult to replace the snare hits with a different sounding snare and the ride hits with a different sounding ride, etc. etc.

But do the best with what you have to work with. My drum samples suck beans too... :p I just rather not put drums in my stuff at all until I can get some good ones. (that's just me, though) I keep hearing aboot these "Drumkit from Hell" samples, and what I've heard of them, they're good. You may wanna check those out.


WATYF
 
Thanks - actually, I just tried the mic model thing - I think I like the sound: An SM-81 @ 6" summed with a KSM-32 @ 24" - I delayed the KSM32 2.7 msec. I had to play with the mix, but I like the results. Of ccourse, this would be exactly the kind of processing we weren't supposed to do for the challenge.:D I saved the original track in case it doesn't hold up.

The drums are loops, not samples, so my issue would be matching the timing and keeping the velocity even, though I could always quantize.

I'll be playing bachelor this weekend - wife's helping out at a garage sale - so may have time to toy with it.

Thanks again. Now get outta here and go kiss your wife!!!:rolleyes:

Daf
 
Very nice tune!
She has a really good voice,even without reverb.

I'm listening on phones,but the pingponging piano is really distracting.
You have such a nice tone going,I don't think you need it.
JMHOP:)

I like the guitar riff,nice playing.

Great stuff for dry!

Pete
 
Doh! another HRC i didn't catch.. hope i didn't miss anyone else


DANG! My monitors are pushing so much air i feel like im in a convertible. That bass did a good job of getting in those ultra lows. Caroline has a very good voice, very nice job overall.
 
Thanks, guys.

muzeman: Yeh, that's a default setting on the piano (I was wrong - I didn't use the EVP-73, I used the mdaEPiano - a freebie) - I can pull the spread in. I know what you mean about distracting - the first time I listened to an old Jeff Back group LP on phones, Max's EP was driving me nuts, going left to right to left to... It's a lot more subtle on the monitors.
Guitar lick was a canned one, but I had to work it a lot to get the accents ehere I wanted them. Glad you liked the tune, and the singer!

Khompy: I've played with that bass a lot (the old effect-laden version had so much subbass it made the vocals distort) trying to get it to sound good to my ears - you're hearing it unprocessed, except by Acid. I finally hit on a good sound (IMO) after this exercise, where I locut the bass at 135, and compressed the hell out of it. I'm pleased with it, but need to listen a few more times...

Thanks again,

Daf
 
I don't really like those clicks between samples...I can't hear it in a good way.

The singer is really good in this, there are two or three spots where something overloads.
Interesting instrumentation but it sounds a bit too much like a loop program with the samples clicking off.
I'd like to hear her with a nice accoustic guitar.
 
Thanks Jake,

She plays acoustic - I could see about having her play something like that. Recording it would be a real learning experience for me - never recorded a miked instrument before. I've seen enough threads on how to, though, and I've got a couple of good mics for it. She's got a real sweet Ovation too, could be good.

I didn't hear the clicks - I'll listen again though. Are you listening on cans??? I haven't tried that yet.

Daf
 
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