JoeyM / PoeticIntensity Collab - Out Of The Rain

[PoeticIntensity]

I can still hear the click. It's better, but I still think I'd hear it even if I weren't listening for it.

Yeah... I don't think we were hearing the same thing before. I think I'm hearing what you're hearing now. It's a click that comes like 15ms after a snare crack, right? (at 3:53) I believe that was me botching a rim-shot on my snare, and is pretty prominent. Ugh... I might have to fix that. Thanks for pointing it out (again).

 

[dewhitt]

Reading that post again, after posting it of course, made me realize it could sound very offensive and attack-ish to Dave. That was not my intention. I think Dave is an amazing musician, and I only wish I could sing and produce music as well as he can. My point was just about forcing perfection, and where the balance should be in putting acoustic music through electronic perfection mechanisms.

No harm intended, and I apologize if any harm was done.

No, of course not...not at all. It's an interesting topic to me, and I think there's no right or wrong answer. Music is art and it's open to interpretation for sure. I'm thinking through this and realizing that since I'm not a drummer it might sound cavalier for me to just say it doesn't matter to me if the drums are "enhanced", and maybe I'm being a hypocrite because I would never do that with my guitar or bass tracks and usually leave my vocals pretty much alone.

I think correcting timing on drums is a double edged sword...I think that a lot of home recordings have drums that are just a little "off", and the thing about drums is that they are so critical that if they are even slightly off, even if the listener can't necessarily point to the problem and put a finger on it, it still leaves a bad taste. But the other side of it is exactly what you said above...if you perfect every little thing, then you lose something - that human feel/groove is gone. BUT...that's assuming the human feel/groove is really, REALLY good to begin with Not taking anything at all away from the drummer I'm currently working with, but he's trying to lay down drum tracks to existing songs, and it's a bitch, just like Greg mentioned above, and honestly the results are pretty good, but usually when we're done there are enough little things that tweak my ear that I just can't leave it alone. I still think the drum tracks he's recording are better than the ones I bang out on my keyboard/software instrument though, and it's more than just timing...it's also what he plays and how he plays it, which is different than what I do, and the emphasis he puts on certain things, etc.

Of course, all of the above depends on the style of music too...I'm definitely going for a radio-ready sound (at least that's what I'm aiming for, how successful I'm being, well...?) and I think that calls for near-perfection, especially these days when everything you hear is beat corrected and autotuned and processed to the nth degree.

Anyway, no harm at all Jason, I totally respect where you are coming from. It's all good!

Best,

Dave

 

[kcearl]

i think these are great points and part of the clinics burden. Ive listened to a few tracks, some classic, some favourites of mine from decades past on my mp3 player when out and about and several times Ive thought "this would be murdered in the clinic"

I think Greg summed it up once, you just have to take what you want from the critiques, at the end of the day, its your song, your vision, and it is what it is..I think he is one of the critics for perfection but I still think he'd want anyone to ignore his advice as well (not speaking for him of course)

I dont envy you guys in the acoustic world of real instruments...I hear many of your songs and the Joey in me just wants to say..great work, great song...but then I think you expect something to be said, or you actually want something to change..

Funny..I hope it never changes as it helps us all improve and Ive got to the point when Im fairly sure what Im putting out is what I hear in my head, but like I said, I dont envy you guys..

 

[kcearl]

I hate to ramble like this, but another fantastic illustration is the thread Keith started, asking us to post all our "first post" stuff. Stuff we recorded when we didn't have a clue what we were doing. Listening to all of that stuff made me almost hate all the electronic crap we put our music through. Songs by all sorts of people here made me grin from ear to ear, and the recordings, in some cases, were done all live. Little, if any, mixing at all. This, of course, is an extreme. Nobody is gonna put stuff like that on the radio, but on the other hand, very few cases exist where radio music has made me enjoy listening to music as much as that thread did.

aint that funny...some of the songs in that thread are really good lol

I think the enthusiasm of people at the beginning of recording overcomes any technical ability...sometimes once finished tracking its like "and now Ill mix this" easy

I remember when after you'd tracked everything you looked at the screen and thought "now what the fuck do I do?" lol

Id high five myself when I finished a mix

 

[karumba]

i'm listening to the final mix. thats a good homerecording production! always like joe's voice!

some comments on the mix:
the vox is a bit sibilant & harsh - try to de-ess (vst: spitfish)! the room on the vox a bit "cold" (the overall sound too) so, saturation will help. try bootsy ferric (vst) for that:
FerricTDS – released today within the KVR DC’09 « Variety Of Sound

the drum sound could be a bit more compressed/pumping for my taste. saturating the overheads could also help to "de-sharp" the highs a bit. try maybe dynamic EQing and/or multiband compression.
but, this mix is very energetic, which is good. i think thats a good decision here!

 

[joeym]

I think the last mix sounds really good and the drums sound great!

Keith, if you had a Joey in you you'd just be hoppin' around, cobber.........

 

[kcearl]

lol @ keiths sore arse

 

[PoeticIntensity]

No, of course not...not at all. It's an interesting topic to me, and I think there's no right or wrong answer. Music is art and it's open to interpretation for sure. I'm thinking through this and realizing that since I'm not a drummer it might sound cavalier for me to just say it doesn't matter to me if the drums are "enhanced", and maybe I'm being a hypocrite because I would never do that with my guitar or bass tracks and usually leave my vocals pretty much alone.

I think correcting timing on drums is a double edged sword...I think that a lot of home recordings have drums that are just a little "off", and the thing about drums is that they are so critical that if they are even slightly off, even if the listener can't necessarily point to the problem and put a finger on it, it still leaves a bad taste. But the other side of it is exactly what you said above...if you perfect every little thing, then you lose something - that human feel/groove is gone. BUT...that's assuming the human feel/groove is really, REALLY good to begin with Not taking anything at all away from the drummer I'm currently working with, but he's trying to lay down drum tracks to existing songs, and it's a bitch, just like Greg mentioned above, and honestly the results are pretty good, but usually when we're done there are enough little things that tweak my ear that I just can't leave it alone. I still think the drum tracks he's recording are better than the ones I bang out on my keyboard/software instrument though, and it's more than just timing...it's also what he plays and how he plays it, which is different than what I do, and the emphasis he puts on certain things, etc.

Of course, all of the above depends on the style of music too...I'm definitely going for a radio-ready sound (at least that's what I'm aiming for, how successful I'm being, well...?) and I think that calls for near-perfection, especially these days when everything you hear is beat corrected and autotuned and processed to the nth degree.

Anyway, no harm at all Jason, I totally respect where you are coming from. It's all good!

Best,

Dave

Thanks for the reply, Dave. Totally understand your point of view. Good food for thought. Just gotta keep improving, pushing myself, and seeing what type of music I can crank out next. I love this stuff!

 

[PoeticIntensity]

i'm listening to the final mix. thats a good homerecording production! always like joe's voice!

some comments on the mix:
the vox is a bit sibilant & harsh - try to de-ess (vst: spitfish)! the room on the vox a bit "cold" (the overall sound too) so, saturation will help. try bootsy ferric (vst) for that:
FerricTDS – released today within the KVR DC’09 « Variety Of Sound

the drum sound could be a bit more compressed/pumping for my taste. saturating the overheads could also help to "de-sharp" the highs a bit. try maybe dynamic EQing and/or multiband compression.
but, this mix is very energetic, which is good. i think thats a good decision here!

Thanks, Jan! Good to hear you weight in on all this. Your saying this is "good", I consider to be a serious compliment. Thank you! I'll look into saturation concepts, and the plugins you mentioned. Thank you again for commenting.