I'll try one...

H2oskiphil

H2oskiphil

It needs more cowbell!
Tis is a REAL rough mix of a song I tracked today.

The vocals are scratch, and we're going to work on it again next weekend.

I'm not happy with the sound of the electronic drums, but I'm not sure what to do with them...I'm open to ideas.

Feel free to give advice, criticism, or kudos to the group of 16 year old kids that did the song.


Dennys
 
Not Chrisharris.

It's a 17 year old kid named Kevin who also played the keyboards.

Silly good pitch.

He wanted to keep tracking after about 8 hours today because he kept hearing little things that were out of pitch.

We did 3 songs today. This was probably the best of the 3....
 
the songwriting is very good imo. the slow intro was a bit long. i like the melody in the fast part. like the singer's voice a lot.

i don't like the drums at all. sorry. the mp3 is killing the cymbals so it's really hard to tell what the top end is doing in this mix with only 64 kbps.
 
I like the song

I'm not too clear on this particular mix but the songwriting is top shelf, with the vocal and instrumental parts coming in a close second.
This was recorded LIVE I assume?
It really has that feel.

Nice work gentlemen.
 
Hey, this was cool. Done live I assume, there are timing issues but forgivable considering the live aspect. Got to say though, I was really digging the opening, should be a separate song on it's own IMO. Good stuff, if you make a studio version please post it again.
 
I like the tune and the tracking man but, the levels are so low on the intro.....it gets a bit better at the tempo change but, still a little low...

Very cool tune man,
Joe
 
If it is true that all these players are only 16 or 17, I am very impressed with their talent levels for such a young age!

The singer's track needs to be better compressed as when he sings softly, his voice almost disappears from the mix. It sounds as well, as it was recorded with a cheap mic or at least very poor microphone technique by the singer. He sounds too close and very harsh in the mids. Some verb could probably be added to his part as well. It's a little dry in spots.

As for the rest of the mix, the drums do indeed sound retched and this might in part be due to the low data stream of the mp3 or that the levels are just off between the cymbals and the rest of the kit which I can barely hear.

I get the sense from listening to the mix that it was either mixed on headphones or on less then ideal speakers and at too low a level as the overall balance of the sound just doesn't sound right to my ears.

The song itself does have some appeal in its composition and performance and might turn into a little gem for these kids once this mix has been polished up and perhaps re-done in its entirety with tighter playing, particularly where the tempo slows down toward the end of the song. They kind of almost fell apart there.

Good stuff!

Cheers! :)
 
Thanks for the feedback!

As I mentioned in the original post, this is the scratch track of this-they played it through once, and we added vocals and the sax after the first take.

Since I uploaded the mp3, I've added compression to the vocals-I hadn't done that yet. I also added more verb to the vocals-I only had a touch of it on the original track. I'll upload the updated mix sometime tonight-I haven't played with it much at all.

Vocals were done with a Studio Projects C-1 into a Mackie 24.4 board, then through a Seasound Solo & Expander into Vegas.

Bass was DI into the board, drums are Alesis DM-5 direct into the board, and the sax was miced with an ADK A-51 type III into the Mackie.

All my effects are plug-ins.

I'm going to try to compress the bejeezus out of the drums to bring them out-the cymbals suck all day, but I may be able to at least get a decent sound out of the snare, toms, and kick.

Keep the feedback coming-this is my first crack at doing anything besides my own stuff, so I'm willing to try just about anything to make these kids sound better.
 
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Take another listen

The original link is the same song, after some tweaking, and a significantly larger mp3 copy.

Drums have not been re-tracked with a live kit-that happens tomorrow.

Significant changes to vocals, bass, and the sax. I've added plug-in compression, EQ, and reverb to the vocals, compression to the bass and sax, and compression and EQ to the drums.

What do you think?
 
One of the best songs I've heard on the board in a long time.The singer has the skillz to pay the bills if there really is no auto-tune on his voice.
 
I just cannot tell you ... how much I like this song.

It is REAL !

The singer's intro is awesome, this guy is good, good, good. He has tremendous control of his vocal, and insight into the mechanics of his body and his voice.

The beginning is a little tongue in cheek in reflection, and I've listened several times already.

There is some sibilance coming off his vocal and it's 'mids' you could lower the mids on his vocal by 1db ... but then you are going to lose him in the chorus.

And I'm noticing this now of course ... a long languid vocal melody is much easier to support and sustain.

The rapid fire challenging lyric in the chorus demands less volume, because those resources have to go elsewhere.

Take another look at all the instrument levels, give this guy the stage at all times ... no questions.

The drum brass is a bit loud and centered at some times. Brass going crazy in the right hand stereo field is ... distracting ... but then everything gets loose and crazy and I like that, just take that drum brass out of the scene when the piano comes in. IMHO it's not doing anything but making noise really ... then bring it back in on the 'roll' to outro the song strongly.

This is a way cool song ...

Thanks for sharing, welcome to the board offishkally. :D

Can't wait to hear the retrack and remix ... ya better post it :D
 
Kramer-thank you. This kid is the real deal-we retracked the vocals a couple of times until he was happy with them, but it's all him.

Studioviols-thanks for the comments. I agree 100% on the drums-we did them with a set of electronics I keep in the studio for convenience's sake-unfortunately, I can't pull just the brass down, because we recorded them to a single channel. I got the balances wrong, and the electronic cymbals suck anyhow. We're going to retrack REAL drums today, along with the bass part. If we can get the keys in, we'll do those, too. I'm not too worried about retracking vocals-Kevin can get them in a pass or two.

I will absolutely post the remix once we get the tracking done. I'm looking forward to tracking everything separately-I'll have a little more control over everything.

Thanks to both of you for your positive comments-the kids will appreciate them.
 
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very nice

i really like this song. the electronic drums are no good, but you are retracking those with a live kit, so that's good. at parts it sounds like the piano/vox are fighting around 1500-2kHz and the vox/brass at around 5kHz. that's the only part where it gets really muddied though. the rest of it is top notch. i am convinced that the singer has been put through autotune (notice the artifacts at 0:32 (skips through a bunch of notes rapidly) 1:38 (three kids a cat two dogs _later_) but autotune isn't necessarily a bad thing. i think one should do whatever they can to make the recording sound better, which autotune does when used correctly (it won't turn a tonedeaf person into some magical opera singer). anyway, all in all, i like this tune, just work on separating things in the mix a little more and give it more room to breathe. the vocals might need a little more compression too. great work.

edit: the bass tone is... not good. needs some eqing to get a fatter tone.

justin
 
Justin-

Thanks for the feedback.

I don't own autotune, so I'm not sure what it is you're hearing. Maybe something in the render to .mp3? I re-uploaded the song at a higher bit rate-maybe that will take care of it. I didn't hear anything in the .wav or the .veg file (this was recorded into Vegas, and edited in Sound Forge).

Do you have any suggestions on the bass EQ? My monitors could be hiding something...I'm also open to suggestions re: the keys/vox conflict. I heard that too, but wasn't real sure how I wanted to go about getting rid of it. Didn't hear the sax/vox muddiness, but that's why I posted it-different ears hear different things.
 
Ledmech said:
drums, drums, drums..............
Click to expand...

They're going away. I've tracked those electronic drums before, and they've done OK, but not for this tune.

Real drums are the next change to this one.
 
A bit quiet, but quiet isn't bad. Good performance. The only thing that really stuck out to me was the kick panned left (I'm listening on headphones).
 
Fatt-

Thanks for the comments.

The kick (along with all the other drums) will be replaced sometime this week with a live set. The drums he used on the first run through were electronic (and they sound like it).
 
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