irish singer-songwriter looking for feedback! :)

  • Thread starter Thread starter kanga
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I like the song alot. I like the acoustic sound, it's pretty nice. I like the breathy vocal peformance.

What I don't like:

The percussion. It's pretty badly out of time in places, and could be recorded better.

The vocal sound.

It sounds to me like there was just one mic set up to capture everything, which is fine, but I would have liked a much more intimate vocal sound on something like this. The vocals sound like they're recorded from the other side of the room. Too much verb ? Too much room/too far from the mic ?

The song is great, but I would try and retrack the vocals a bit closer to the mic and/or with less ambience. Compression is your friend on a vocal that dynamic too. Maybe try the old motown trick of creating two copies of the vocal, add the reverb to one, and add a good bit of compression and 5-8k boost on the second (watch sibliance tho), then mix to taste.

On third listen now, that percussion really is not doing the song any justice.

Nathan
 
First, I think you have talent and a very cool voice...the mix has problems, and Pap nailed them. I'd ditch the drums...the idea is ok, but as it is, it sounds like they were recorded or spliced in after the fact, and they're mostly off.

I'm not sure how you recorded, but in my opinion, the best way to do it is to start with a click (metronome) and record the vocal and guitar at the same time as a scratch track. Then your drummer should listen to that and the metronome while he tracks. He needs to be tight on the click. Then listen to the drums and scratch track while you record the acoustic (2x is best). Get those guitars tight with the metronome and with each other and with the drums. Then mute the scratch track and sing it with your mic a LOT closer to your mouth. It's either the most realistic "room" reverb I've ever heard, or it's your room that I'm hearing, lol. You want to get closer to the mic, turn your preamp down, and belt it out. That proximity to the mic will kill a lot of the room reflections that are giving this the "home recording" sound we all try to flee from.

Please don't take this as a negative post, by the way...if you sucked, I wouldn't have bothered typing this...I think you're a very good performer...you just need to work on the recording side, which is why we're here, lol.
 
hiya nathan,
thanks for the feedback,
you've got a sharp ear, yes there was only one microphone in the recording but it was done with multitracking, and it was about a foot away from me the whole time,

do you think the drumming is actually out of time or just lagging behind? if the drumming itself is the problem then i've got an awkward conversation awaiting me with the drummer! if it's just lag i can fix that by shifting the track, but i guess ye would have suggested that!

three listens? you're a champion! :)

i've tried copying vocal tracks, adding reverb to one, but what exactly would be achieved by a 5-8k boost on the compressed one?

thanks again,
seán.
 
Great song, I especially liked the vocal performance. The quiet, almost whispered parts were very nice.

Samre comment on the percussion, it's appropriate to the tune but needs to be tightened up. The acoustic guitar has some tempo problems as well, it surges it spots, mostly when your voice trails off at the end of each line of the verse.

The outro needs to be cleaned up, it seems to stutter and then the song stops. I hear what you're trying to do there, just tighten up the timing and it will work nicely.
 
hi chris,
i've heard of that technique before. and i think it's time i employed it, i'd just be worried of ending up with a recording that sounded too self conscious, but the discipline involved could only be a good thing... and yeah it was real room reverb! i'll try that technique this evening, really eat the mic, see how it goes... so many people have said to ditch the drums, so they'll have to go...
seán.
 
kanga said:
so many people have said to ditch the drums, so they'll have to go...
seán.
Click to expand...
nah...if you like them, they should stay, I think. That's THE ABSOLUTE BEST thing in the world about home recording (i.e., the ability to say "thanks for your comment" and do what you want anyway, lol). The part is totally appropriate, it just needs to be tighter. Expecially if you're adding piano, I think the percussion will help a ton. Is retracking to a click not possible for the drummer? If not, then I'd suggest sliding the whole track to the right (they're mostly behind), but it may be more trouble to edit them than they're worth if you can't retrack.

Give it a go with the close mic'ing thing, even if you don't use it...learning to play to a metronome is really important for multitracking, in my opinion, unless you plan on recording everything in a live band situation, and that really hasn't been done much in studios since the 60's. It's not natural at first, b/c we're not robots, but it gets a lot easier pretty quickly.
 
kanga said:
hiya nathan,
thanks for the feedback,
you've got a sharp ear, yes there was only one microphone in the recording but it was done with multitracking, and it was about a foot away from me the whole time,

do you think the drumming is actually out of time or just lagging behind? if the drumming itself is the problem then i've got an awkward conversation awaiting me with the drummer! if it's just lag i can fix that by shifting the track, but i guess ye would have suggested that!

three listens? you're a champion! :)

i've tried copying vocal tracks, adding reverb to one, but what exactly would be achieved by a 5-8k boost on the compressed one?

thanks again,
seán.
Click to expand...

It's the drummer I reckon, or rather the drumming. Maybe a click and keep doing takes until he nails it would work.

There are a couple of reasons behind having two copies of the vocal track, one compressed and one reverberated...

The fact that the uncompressed take feeds the reverb, means that when you sing louder, the vocal sinks back into the ambience a bit, and becomes wider. Then, in the quiet bits, the compresser will keep it close to the same volume, but the ambience is gone, giving an intimate sound appropriate for this kind of part.

The presence boost on the vocal compressed vocal track adds 'excitement' and some clarity without having to be too loud. Just watch for sibliance, and make sure your mic doesn't have a boost here already, as some cheaper condensers have.

I often only use the compressed version of the vocal, along with the reverb return of the uncompressed one (or the uncompressed track is reverberated 100% wet 0% dry).

How you set you set the compressor is the main crux of this. You sound like you have some dynamics going on there.... Try a ratio of 8:1 with a threshold that ensures the comp does nothing on the quiet parts. Medium attack, Medium release. What compressor are you using ?

If you are using a large diagraphm condenser, put the tip of your thumb on your lips, and strech your hand as much as you can towards the mic...you should be able to barely touch the mic with your little finger.

Use a pop-filter, and put the mic above your mouth, facing down. This avoids some nasal sounds, and causes you to tilt your head up slightly opening your vocal chords more.

Hope this helps.

Nathan
 
thanks again nathan

thanks nathan,
i think i get it now, i've got another song i've just recorded at the weekend, i think i've got the vocal recording down a bit better, but the tracks with reverb are compressed, i'm using the fmr rnc-1773, so i don't think i have any excuses for poor compression!

http://dw.com.com/redir?&destUrl=ht...pid=100649220&mfgId=100623959&merId=100623959

i'm not too thrilled about the performance, i'd just switched key's, but i like the kinda crappy quality to the sound, like the frank black francis sessions before the pixies went into the studio to record their first record.
 
Yeah that's more like it ! I like your voice and songwriting style actually, the following is just some nitpicking.

The choice of reverb isn't quite doing it. Do a search for a post thread about digital reverb by Sonusman here or on therecordingproject.com, I can't remember which. Think of panning as moving things left to right, volume moving things up and down, and reverb moving things front to back. You want to create a point in a 3d space for everything that is pleasing and suitable for the song.

Here it seems like the guitar (not as well recorded as the last track IMO) is placed far in front of the vocal...which hits me kind of weird. Also the reverb you used sounds like it could use some pre-delay and maybe a different patch, as sonusman suggests in his post, non high-end digital verb often benefits from a gentle-ish rolloff above 4-5k. Listen to the vocal reverb on some acoustic albums to get an idea of how to use ambience to establish a 'place' for something in space. Sometimes less is more.

Good song though, and nice voice.
 
sharp!

nathan,
once again you're bang on with the guitar, on the other track "magnolia" i'm playing a 000-15 martin through an lcd, on this one it's the takamin EAN-10C straight through the mixer, and i didn't hear the spatial problem with vox & guitar until ye pointed it out, i didn't put any reverb on the guitar for fear that it'd wash the song away... but it left the guitar upfront like a sore thumb serving to highlight the pro-tools reverb!! i could easily put a roll off filter above 5k...
thanks for the positive comments on vox and songs, i've only been playing music a year and a half, so it's all very new uncharted territory!
i checked out your site, reading 04! wow! really well recorded songs too, are you the dave odlum of the gang?
seán.
 
Reading '04 yes... and '03... good times... looks like the band is disbanding now though. Don't mind the live recordings, they were taken from the monitor desk, and they suck. We sounded good...honest :)

I was the bands FOH engineer until being drafted in as a guitar player, and I ended up doing the EP as well as we were (are) pretty broke, and have had no serious record company interest since being dropped from Warner Ireland.

I'm probably referred to on the site as 'nookie' which has been my unfortunate nickname since childhood :)
 
that's a shame...

that's a shame... your sound is really tight... we've a disgusting amount of talent on this little island, it can get very depressing at times! and getting dropped is usually too much for any band to bear...
 
is it just me or was there some light clicking going on in this tune? I like the tune and the voice.
 
I didn't notice any, listening on PC speakers here tho...

Seán: Just noticed you have a dissonant note on the last chord of 'Be the Dust'... sounds like you unintentionally left a low (A ?) open when playing the high final chord.

PM me if you might be interested in a collaboration in a project I'm working on with two (ex) members of the Real at the moment.

Nathan
 
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