It Ain't Easy Bein' Me

  • Thread starter Thread starter chrisharris
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now I see (read:hear) what you were talking about with Vox. Yours are awesome here. I appreciate the fact that you're fakin' the accent. I'm especially impressed with the way you mixed the harmony vox. You create the distance but it doesn't sound unnatural. Care to give any tips? Was it reverb? Delay? just quieter than lead vox?


Anyway, funny how everyone keeps mentioning compression. I suppose I hear it too but I kind of expect it so it's certainly not disappointing. some of the drums lack punch but for a song like this, I would prefer to think of the drums as subtle or muted. They don't take over the mix and that's good for the genre.

You also prompted me to check out Knight's stuff. He's also pretty damn good.

Kick ass, chris.

Miles
 
Has a mastered feel to it .....

Chris - what's your magic? This is one of the first songs posted that had a professionally mastered feel to it. While I feel some of the instruments sound a little thin, they all sit nicely in the mix - especially the vocal.

Other than reverb, what else did you do to your vocal? Any multiband compression? De-esser? Other EQ? I tend to find the vocals on most home-recorded material to be a little harsh. Your's is very warm. It may simply be the quality of your voice.

In any case, I enjoyed it.

BPOCO
 
stonepiano said:
I'm especially impressed with the way you mixed the harmony vox. You create the distance but it doesn't sound unnatural. Care to give any tips? Was it reverb? Delay? just quieter than lead vox?
Click to expand...

Originally posted by bpoco
Other than reverb, what else did you do to your vocal? Any multiband compression? De-esser? Other EQ?
Click to expand...
Wow ... I gotta' admit, it's kinda' cool to have somebody ask what I'm doing, without tagging the question with "Because It's Not working!" LOL

fenderlikingood - No problem...read my first sentence...lmao.

Stonepiano - for backups, I usually throw about 2X as much reverb on them as the lead, and then, for levels, I try hard to listen to the lead vocal in the mix and make sure that the backups don't walk on the lead. Honestly, though...the thing that I think helps a backup vocal "sit" best is to solo the lead vocal and the bg vocal(s) with no music at all and listen to them together in the multi-track (and listen on speakers, not headphones). If they fit when they're dry, and with no music at all, they'll fit in the mix. It's a great way to check for intonation problems and alliteration problems. Sometimes, if the consonants are off a little, I might not even notice it in the full mix, but I'll notice that it just doesn't sound right later...if that makes any sense. Anyway, thanks for asking, and thanks a lot for listening. Oh yeah...I almost forgot that on this one, since there was only one harmony vocal, I take the track and double it (literally make a copy) and pan the two tracks opposite (-50 and +50) and push one ahead of the other by 30ms...adds a kind of stereo effect to the backup. If I have 2 or more harmony parts, I just split them left and right.

bpoco - that's a huge compliment on the "mastering" thing. There's another guy here (Crawdad) who cranks out really pro sounding stuff, and he gave me an EQ tip recently that I think helped this mix. I talked about it in response to erichenryus earlier in this thread, if you're interested. Anyway, as for the vocal, I've gotten into the habit of doing a couple of things to every vocal, b/c of particular problems with my own voice. First, I run a parametric EQ over it to kill the SSSssss's - right at 4,150Hz, I pull it down 9db right at that frequency. (i hate using compression to de-ess..much prefer EQ). Second, I compress the crap out of what's left of the vocal. I'll put the exact settings under this post, but I'll warn you that some people really don't like it. I don't do it so much for the "sound" as I do for ease of mixing. If I really smash a vocal track, it takes care of itself in the mix. Again, I really appreciate the comments - this is the only cover tune I've posted, so I was working hard on getting it to sound as pro as I can (yes, I have many miles to go...LOL).

Bye All -
-c

(compressor settings)
Compress 5.5:1 above -24db
Expand 1.3:1 below -24db
Gain Output = 12db
Attack of 1ms, release 250ms.
 
Hey Chris,

Just wanted to stop by and let you know I really enjoyed this tune. No nits from me. A very nice job indeed! GREAT acoustic tracks!
 
I finally got a chance to hear this,sweet!
I really dig the acoustic sound,nice and full.
The vocals are great as always!

Great cover Chris,I really enjoyed it,thanks!

Have a great holiday,
Pete
 
man chris, i leave this bbs board for about 5 months and come back and your mixs just sound awesome, i mean this sounds darn near as good as anything ive heard. you realy are a very talented and gifted musician chris who never ceases to amaze me.i to like chris knight and think that he is very underated and deserves much more recognition. i just finished listening and i realy like this, your guitar playing has rely come along great. im now listening to your daughter singing silent night, and all i can say is wow she has realy gott a great voice, awesome job on the music on this as well. as usual i am impressed with your stuff and hope to hear some more from you. thanks for sharing this great stuff chris. your friend tim pate.
 
Hey Chris--cool tune and recording! I dig those drums and the vocal sounds great too. If I have any criticism (as in constructive, helpful, etc) I'd say to try and dial out some of the boom in the acoustic and use that new space to expand your bass guitar into a bit.

The last few months I have been casually listening to mixes in the car from various styles of stations--everything from classic rock, current rock and pop, country, rap, R&b, and jazz. From what I've heard, there has been a lot of work done to tracks in terms of EQ--to find the frequencies needed to make each instrument stand out.

Guitars don't really need all that low end--even if its there in the recording--because the ear hears the signature personality of acoustics and electrics in higher registers. Vocals seem to get thinned out in the real low frequencies too. Not so much as to make them sound thin and edgy, but enough so that the superfulous low bands are taken down.

This opens up space for the bass and the kick to provide the punch and power. When all those low overlapping frequencies are cleaned out, its not hard to make the bass and kick sit in the mix without adding any low EQ. I think thats part of the reason why the low end on records sounds so good but don't have any huge jumps on the analyzer.

Of course, since I'm about the 60th person to respond to this thread, nobody will read this or care. :D I'm probably full of shit anyway....
 
crawdad said:


Of course, since I'm about the 60th person to respond to this thread, nobody will read this or care. :D I'm probably full of shit anyway....
Click to expand...
:D :D :D

Dude, I always care, and isn't that enough? Hahahahaha...you know...somewhere back there in this thread, your name actually came up (in a very positive way). Look around the "erichenryus" section of the thread.

Yes, it's indexed. :D

thanks man...seriously...this was a "mix" mix, and I'm actually caring about the nuts and bolts at this point. Thank you again.
 
I can tell! You just may get the "most improved" award if you keep this pace up! I'm always trying to learn too. The one thing I have definitely learned is that there are no magic fixes that work equally well on each song. If there is any secret its just to try out everything you learn and see what happens. As time goes by, it gets easier to apply the knowledge selectively to the things that need it.

Now, if you could somehow teach me how to not need so much sleep, I might give your output a run for the money! You and Lt. Bob must consider sleep an option or something!:D

I was thinking about one other thing. When I was lucky enough to watch the likes of Brent Rowan and Garth Brooks studio bass player in the studio, I got to see how much work they put into their racks and their sounds--way before they hit a session. Brent Rowan was in a B studio with a tech and a graphic equalizer just playing his guitar through some high end monitors and they were tweaking out all the harsh and unmusical frequencies. This went on for about three hours! The bass player (name is a blank--Mark Chapman?) had this real full and fat tone. All the high end was there, but when you put his bass into a track, all you heard was the lows and the "meat" of the instrument. Moral=get the best sound you can before you record.
 
thats awesome advice crawdad.
get the best sound you can before you hit the record button.
the less you gotta fix the better off you are, i to listen to you with open ears and willingness to try to implement anything you say. thanks for all your good advice people like you and chris have made this forumn a great place to learn. god bless you guys tim pate.
 
(compressor settings)
Compress 5.5:1 above -24db
Expand 1.3:1 below -24db
Gain Output = 12db
Attack of 1ms, release 250ms


chrisharris, regarding these settings, are you expanding with a second plug in or does your compressor have expansion too?

My compressor does not have expansion and I would have to use a 2nd plug to do this.

Great tune, great mix.
 
Thanks Tim--and happy holidays to you. I don't consider myself an expert on any of this, but at various times, I can focus on pieces of the whole and come up with some observations. If I could just gather all those pieces into a whole, I'd be somebody to recon with! Maybe someday before I wither away.

Anyway, this is my favorite part of the whole BBS because here we get to listen to others actually wrestling with the practical problems of recording and mixing. Its all well and good to talk preamp or mic philosophy, but this is where the proof is in the pudding. It really surprises me that the same people who always post in the mic and rack forums rarely ever post any of their work. Not only would it be beneficial, it would also back up their esoteric claims about how they use all that gear they talk about.

I guess in the end, the first thing that has to happen is that there has to be some music written before any recording takes place. In the other forums, we have the engineer types--God bless 'em--they care about sound and how to make it great. Here, we have artists who are learning both their art and their engineering. Its a tough task. My only purpose is to try and pass on anything that might help make better music and better recordings. And I am still learning from everyone on both points. So take me with a grain of salt, but give some of this stuff a try and see what works for you. As Chessrock LOVES to say--YMMV:D
 
Middleman said:
regarding these settings, are you expanding with a second plug in or does your compressor have expansion too?
Click to expand...
Here's a pic (God, I'm lame).
 

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Thanks for the pic Chris. This is a concept that had not occured to me before, compressing transients peaks and expanding transient dips to smooth out the vocal. This covers those quiet vocal spots where you want to create a little intimacy in the vocal but need to rein it in when things get loud.

In Sonar this would require two plug-ins, maybe, as I am not aware of any compressor plug-ins that do both.

Cool, I learned a new tip today. I love this place...
 
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