It Ain't Easy Bein' Me

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Aren't you all supposed to be working? LOL. This is a fun thread for me, b/c it's not personal when it comes to the writing; I always kinda' cringe a bit when I post an original...like baring your soul, eh? Anyway, I'm gonna' go backwards here, because I'm all screwed up and weird.

Sluice - <----(haven't memorized which letters are capitalized yet :D): Okay, speaking as an incredibly lazy "engineer" when it comes to drums, is there any way to automate the dynamic thing you were talking about, or do I just have to kinda envelope the snare in places to break it up a bit? The "r's,"...hahahahaha... I'm glad you think it sounds somewhat authentic, b/c nothing sounds worse to me than somebody sounding like they're "faking" a country accent...which is what I'm doing in this song...or trying to, anyway. Crawdad does it perfectly, and he's from DETROIT?!?!. The original artist is from Kentucky, and I like his version so much, I didn't do much differently. Normally, I wouldn't tackle a cover tune just to reproduce the original, b/c mine's always gonna' sound worse, as in this case... (what's the point in PROVING how shitty an "engineer" I am, right?), but this is what the band wanted, and I do love the song. As far as the original, it doesn't have an organ in it; uses an accordian, but the panning is close to the original. Kramer posted a link to the tune, and even though it's not your bag, you might give it a listen...(plug for Knight).

Powderfinger - Hahahaha...I didn't think about this being confused with that other song, which I believe is the current gay nation theme song (not that there's anything wrong with that :D). The organ is from a keyboard that Mixmkr ordered me to buy several months ago (Alesis QS 6.1). The only decent sounds I can get out of it are "organ" based...LOL... probably b/c I don't know what a real organ sounds like. Thanks for checking it out.

Kramer - Thanks for posting the link...I love the guy. I have to tell you that I almost came unglued when I first read your post, b/c I thought you wrote "Autotunized." ROTFLMAO. I'm not sick of the Antares effect yet, but using it on this tune would have been sacrilege. :D. Yeah, I'll take the "AUSTIN" comment as a supreme compliment. Thanks again, man.

JR#97 - Kramer posted a link to the original artist, and you ESPECIALLY should check him out. I recorded this one, b/c we cover it live, but he has others that are just absolutely genius-ish. (I'd recommend "Summer of 75," "Send A Boat," and/or "The Band Is Playing Too Slow." Anyway, the outro was done by taking the accordian, a telecaster, a bass patch from the Alesis, the real bass, a mando, and the Martin and mashing them all together in a seperate mix, which I tried to fade in at the end; the tremelo was applied to the tele only, and I honestly don't know which Waves phase shifter thing I used...I just listened to about 20 until I hit the one that sounded most like the original. Ever notice that I type too much?

erichenryus - Wow, man. Your post sounded NOTHING like you (i.e., me). I laughed my ass off at your "I can't double any guitar" comment in another thread...THAT sounded like me. :D But I guess I asked for it with the drum experiment comment. I'm trying a new thing with the drums, and the base of them is from (*gulp*) www.loopology.com . LOL. I can't believe I even typed that. Anyhoo, the samples work directly with my recording software, so it makes the job a TON easier. And yeah, I tried a different ambient snare in a place to make it sound not quite so "the same," without really thinking about how that would be absolutely impossible in real life. BAHAHAhahaha. Drums baffle me. Funny you should mention monitors...I just got an early Christmas present (Event PS-5 nearfields), and they actually make mixing the bass harder. (Low end stops at 50Hz, so none of the "feel" bass comes through). One thing I've noticed about my mixes is that sometimes when I put one in my car, what sounded okay on the monitors turns to absolute mud and rumble...so I'm a bit gun-shy about the low end. I'm tending to err on the side of caution, and just rolling off everything below about 50Hz so my monitors don't have the chance to lie to me. I would be interested to see how it sounds on your other system, though. VERY interested.

W.I.S.C. - I hate country too...LOL. At least, what's passing for country these days. I won't rant about it here, but country radio has turned into the great american wasteland of absolute shit. If I were king, Chris Knight would get airplay over [insert name of current country superstar] every day. Thanks for listeneing.

MMM - First off...thanks for listening. Secondly, WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT STANZA SOUNDS CONTRIVED?!?!?!?!? Hahahaha...you picked on my favorite verse of all time, so I MUST assume that you couldn't understand my muttled vocal... So here are the words to the GREATEST verse ever:

There ought to be a side-show act for freaks like me,
I could be the star of the show with my name on the marquee,
In a room with a big read button that says "Danger, Do NOT Touch,"
Twice a day I'd mash it down and you could watch me self-destruct
I'm (sort of) kidding with you, but either way, I didn't write it. :D

toki987 - Yeah, that "thing" at the beginning is a bad edit where I took out an audible "beep" that dres pointed out... (noise from my 5 yr-old's latest toy). I should just redo the git part, but I'm gonna' run it by the band and see if anybody notices. (can you say LAZ-E?). Thanks.

G-MAN - I actually believe you when you say you'll listen later... b/c you usually do, and I appreciate it. Thanks for the comments on the vocal...If you listen to the original, you'll see that I don't have *Shi-Zat* on the original. Yeah, I'm a fan. :D

scottboyner - Thanks man...your current offering is very damned good, so I really appreciate it...(just crank that bass a bit :D). And don't make us wait for another one. The 99 Red Balloons thing totally kicked ass too, and I refuse to believe it was your first effort. :D

Thanks for listening guys - I'm gonna' screw with the drums a bit more, and I appreciate any and all comments along those lines.

Bye (for now) :D
Chris
 
Worst verse ever. :D:D:D

I didn't realize it was a cover either.
 
Oh Yeah!!!

I almost forgot; if anybody takes the time to listen to the original, and has any comments about how I can fix my:

(1) bass clarity (g-man? - erichenryus? - PARTICIPANT???); and/or
(2) Vocal

Let me know. The original mix is actually great in my opinion - not overcompressed ('cept for the gits, maybe)...and you can listen to it on ANYTHING and always make out the vocal and the bass pretty well. And the vocal on the original...could it BE any more "in your face?"...but it doesn't sound over-bearing to me at all. Tough thing to do. And believe me...the original was not a high dollar production either.

Anyway, this is a learning process for me always...SO THANKS.
 
i have no real skill in mixing any particular frequency so i'm really no help to you (or anyone) there. maybe crawdad will come along and drop a comment like "try boosting about x db's around yyy hz's" or something like that. those comments are invaluable when you get them......and completely invalid if they come from me :).

just a thought. if you don't have any way of producing anything below 50 hz on your monitors, i don't know how you're gonna do anything about that. sounds like a relatively safe approach to just roll it off but you're also rolling off quite a bit of energy imo. why not just limit it instead? so you just make sure that it's not jumping above 0db. do you have one of those fancy multiband compressors handy?

So were the monitors a christmas present from yourself to yourself, or like something you told your wife that she's getting you and you just ordered them yourself to save her the hassle and avert the potential danger of her ordering something completely different (like a ps-5 monitor lizard instead of a monitor speaker)? Are you gonna rewrap them and open them on christmas morning (Oh honey, how did you know)? I'm curious cause there is so much stuff I want to buy for my habit but my wife hates buying me stuff that I specifically ask for. Especially gear, cause she has no idea what it is half the time. And then there's just no surprise in it when I unwrap it, etc. Maybe I'll just order a whole bunch of shit and wrap it to myself from my kid! Or better yet, from Santa Claus!.....gotta go, i'm headed out to the mall. i heard he takes requests if you sit on his lap :o
 
SPEAKING OF CRAWDAD...

erichenryus said:
sounds like a relatively safe approach to just roll it off but you're also rolling off quite a bit of energy imo. why not just limit it instead? so you just make sure that it's not jumping above 0db. do you have one of those fancy multiband compressors handy?
Click to expand...
Actually, Crawdad's kind of the reason I started doing this. I took his advice (as I usually TRY to do :D), and I listened to some commercial CD tracks that I love, and I ran them through a frequency analyzer to see if there were any smoking guns...actually, there were a couple, and they surprised me. Every single commercial track that I've run through the thing has a pretty similar looking EQ Band...fairly flat between 500Hz and 12K, a little spikey around 100-125, and also at@63Hz. What surprised me is that all of the cuts drop off DRAMATICALLY below that spike at 63Hz, and also above 16K. I mean, the top end almost looks like an MP3 file with the drastic drop at 16K. Anyway, what this told me is that the low energy ain't in the original mixes that I love...but on all of them, I can just hit the "loudness" button, and it's there...which is kinda' what I'm shooting for anyway. On most of my "earlier" mixes, you hit the "loudness" button at your peril, b/c there was about a 50/50 chance that you were about to blow out a sub. Anyway, I relayed my findings to Crawdad, and he said he noticed a similar pattern in the mixes he'd looked at (with the caveat that I should ALWAYS let my ears be the final judge)... BTW - I learned this last weekend, and I bought the monitors about 6 weeks ago, but I just got them...so now it doesn't bug me too much that there's nothing below 50Hz in those monitors...funny how life (sometimes) works out that way. Anyway, my ears are telling me that I'd like this one to have more low end, so I'm gonna' jack with it for awhile. thanks for checking up on me.

-c
 
i'll go check this on my home stereo, which interestingly, has the loudness feature always turned on!

i forgot to mention. i think that loops are generally better than midi and if you're diligent with your cuttin and pastin you can get a very realistic sounding drum track very quickly. especially if you use a loop library that's recorded with a 'real' drummer playing a 'real' drumset. some of the stuff i heard 'fed' do with loops was amazing.
 
Damn Chris, your "I'm just a recording yokel" spiel isn't gonna hold water much longer - this sounds real good. Nicely balanced and the drums sound great to me. Okay, maybe a *tad* less compression would do me, but I can't really find much to complain about here. You've developed a nice organic recording style and (this being the important part) it's always fun to listen to.

Yessir, that was a good un',
Chris
 
well i'll be damned.....

played it on my home stereo, with the loudness 'on' (it's always on) and all the bass i'm used to hearing appeared out of nowhere!

that's really cool chris. thanks to both you and crawdad for the excellent info!
 
Nice tune Chris, very pop/country sounding. The mix does sound a bit squashed though. I was hoping the guitar at the end would go into some upper range leads, but since it didn't fade maybe that wouldnt be such a great idea anyway. Bass part could be a bit more melodic. Overall a nice flowing song. Good job.
 
"I've had to work to be the jerk I've come to be"




That's a great line for you! :eek:

:D


sounds a bit squashed.. A song like this seems like it should hit my ears a little softer if that makes any sense..

Great stuff for the style though, no doubt!
 
Now It's all screwed up

Does this ever happen to you? You go into a session to fix some little glitch...like maybe a "beep" that mysteriously ended up on a track, or a crash cymbal that (for some unknown reason) just stops 1/2 way through its decay, and the next thing you know, you're jacking with faders and reverbs and EQ, then you decide it all sucks, and you start re-recording parts...LOL.

Okay, maybe it's just me. Anyway, there's a revamped version up, but you'd have to be mighty bored to check it out.

erichenryus - I agree about the loop thing. I mean, they're real drums, right? And if I was more careful, I could jack with the volume to give them more dynamics, but we all know drums don't really matter anyway, right? Thanks for listening on the stereo speaks. I still find that my car is the truest test for "real world" listening.

Emeric - I think the "squashed" sound has a lot to do with the drums, which are compressed with some kind of "power drums" setting...it seems to effect the whole mix...It was kind of intentional on the acoustics, b/c the original version has a VERY compressed acoustic sound that I kinda' dig. I just used the original bass line, except at the beginning where I threw in some acoustic bass...there's none in the commercial cut. Thanks for listening.

B.SABBATH - Nothing's lost on you...LOL. Glad I could leave a punch-line open for you. :D :D :D New version's probably even more squashed...I don't know. I guess it doesn't matter...it's a cover tune for the band, and 2 of the other 3 guys gave it the okay, so I think my work here is done. Thanks for checking it out.

[edit] Groucho - I missed you in the original post. I meant to tell you that I think the whole 32Bit recording, premixing, and mixing thread in the CEP forum was an eye opener...it really makes a big difference, so thanks for the tip. This is the first mix I've ever done where I didn't feel compelled to add some highs to the final mix (thereby creating hiss)... To me, anyway, this one sounds less overworked. Of course, now I'm out of hard drive space, but they're pretty cheap these days.
 
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Hey Chris,
........Yeah man, my shitty comp speakers at work didnt lie about the vocs........ damn good. You have an excellent handle on how to handle your voice. ......very nice job!!

I was going to comment on the lead acoustic at the beginning being a touch middy and harsh, but i think I see why you did that............ so i'll shut-up.:)

You mentioned more clarity and def. on the bass. ......I dont see it man. The bass sounds strong and plenty clear for this style of music. .......big full suportive bottom .....like J-lo ......only not Puerto Rican........:confused: :D

Ear Candy: Are you using some kind of pitch setting on the elec. ryth. guits. Seems like i hear a pitched down guit in the back (more towards the end of the tune) ....might be keys though....... whatever it is.... dynamic and cool.


Very nice Cover man!!!!


G w/ an Austin, TX 5
 
Re: Oh Yeah!!!

chrisharris said:
(1) bass clarity (g-man? - erichenryus? - PARTICIPANT???);
Click to expand...

IMO this type of music needs that ghostly, kinda-there bass sound anyway. Bass string noise, in this song, would sound out-of-place (just MHO).

BTW, the intro guit has an out of tune... eh... note? The last note in the flourish... maybe fretted it too hard? (about 1/2 tone out... I do that, too... sometimes squeeze too hard & go sharp esp. on acoustics... which I got no bizness playin anyway :p You play those things daily)

Hey... nice mando you stuck in there... those electrics sit extremely well!! Listen to 'em! Bet those were easy to mix, eh? Sounds like you were thinking about how they would sit in the mix BEFORE they were tracked, eh? Nice crunch. Kinda peaky, right around 800-900Hz... sitting perfect.

Again... nice mando.

Sounds like she's done. And... she sounds like a record :)
 
i liked this-really cool intro-when everything gets going-the guitars sound a little muddy-I woulda pulled some lows from em-but thats just me.....great vocal performace as usual-you know any James Mcmurty(sp?)?........

edit: Forget what I said about the guitars-some foo here at work listens to stuff with this crazy 3d effect on-sounds much better now...
 
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info please!

i'll say something out of the ordinary.......i loved it!!!
(ignorance is bliss):D and it's easy being me!!! hehe
i don't know the original, but i'd say you have done it justice!!
everything occupies it's own.............wait for it.....wait for it.....
"sonic space" very well!! ( damn i love 10 dollar words!!)

now, those freakin great vox and harmonies.........is there a preset you use in cool edit for each???? i have ver. 1.2, GIVE IT UP!!
verb????...what??. the unwashed need to know!!!!!!!

thank's chris!!!!!!!

peace

rick
 
Guernica - Mike, what can I say. I post way too many tunes, and you listen to them all. I'm giving YOU the big 5! I'll say something else, too...If YOU can live with the bass *tone* on this, it's freakin' DONE, so that helps a ton. What you're hearing near the latter part of the tune (I think) is where I took one of the distorted guits and just inverted underneath the louder distorted rhythm...literally took a piece of the wave block and hit "invert."....God, that's totally cheating. I liked the way it didn't really match up perfectly, and I mixed it really REALLY low, and i'm stoked that you sort of heard it, but sort of didn't. Thanks, man.

party pants - If you ever leave this BBS, I'll be needing your email address, b/c I've almost gotten kinda' "dependent" on your ears...seriously...I don't feel like one's done until you've given it the once over...I think I fixed the sour note, btw. Seems there's a legitimate and non-controversial use for that autotune thingy after all. As for the electrics "sitting," I'd like to take credit for that, but all I did was listen to the original and do my best to replicate the "sound," without replicating the tone (I like more distortion :D). Doing these covers has been fun, really...it's like having a template to go by so you know what works and what doesn't before you start...then you can just sort of try out some of the stuff that you've been hearing in your head every time you listened to a certain tune that you love. Damned good practice. Anyway, thanks.

stratomaster - I'm actually VERY glad you took the time to edit your post, b/c I saw it right after I'd listened to your absolutely perfect acoustic tones on your latest tune. I was seriously getting ready to hack what little low end was left off of the mix. :D thanks

fenderlikingood - You sat through another one, and I appreciate it, as I always do...I gotta' cut back on the posts. But you also asked about the verb in CEP. I actually like the reverb that's like Kramer got on his tune, but I haven't been able to figure out which preset to tweak to get anywhere close to his. So I go the lazy route. For most of my vox, I use the regular "Small Concert Hall" preset as is for background vox. For the lead vocal, I use either the "Vocal - Nice Presence" preset or (like on this tune) I take the "Small Concert Hall" preset and change the "Wet" percentage from whatever it is (85%, I think) down to about 40%. I'm using 2.0 now, so I can kinda' jack with the amount of verb in real-time in the multi-track, but I almost always end up cutting that lead vocal "wet" percentage by about 1/2. So somewhere around 40%. These verb presets rarely draw criticism or praise, and that's kinda' how I think reverb should be. Anyway, on really slow tunes, I'll use that "concert hall light" preset as is on the lead vocal, but you can really hear it that way. Thanks again for listening, and please post another tune really quickly...screw working, man...mix.

bye,
-c
 
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Been meaning to listen to this for some time now(but it aint easy being me either). All I hear is a well balanced recording, with great singing and playing. I thought the drums sounded fine on this..as everything else. Enjoyed it man.
 
well now were even ...cause nothin says "xmas" like a cover version of a country star wanna be by a country star wishhewas.........ok really i like this alot ...i have actually heard the "real " version and this is damn close....plus i like a little less bumpkin in my country....




happy christmas

j b
 
Okay...well, since it's been exumed. I fixed the flatty, Participant...and I basically re-recorded everything else...and it probably sounds exactly the same.

Thanks for checking it out David.

Jamal ... I'm not even gonna' make fun of you...even tho it's SSOOOOO EASY.

bye,
-c
 
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