Jumping on the Christmas Bandwagon...

[WATYF]

O.K... so.. I'm not much of a "holidays" person,... but I saw all the Christmas songs goin' up and I felt compelled to join the fray... so here's my submission...

Unfortunately, somebody posted this song already... but I had already spent a considerable amount of time comping the vocals, so I didn't feel like picking a new song... on top of that, this is probably the only Christmas song that doesn't nauseate me... Actually, I kinda like this one when it's done right (with a chior and all that stuff).

FYI,.. an update on my gear... I haven't been around in a while and that's because I've been pretty busy.. part of which is due to my new setup... I caved in (at my brothers behest) and bought Pro Tools... so yes.. I am now officially an Alsihah.. My bro totally equipped his basement with some major gear (Neumann mics, PT, new Mac G4, Hammond B3, etc.) and so he told me I should get PT too so I can do tracks at my house and then bring them to his house to add other tracks and what not... so anyway... after much ordeal, (man,.. PT is a headache-and-a-half), I finally got my Alsihad rig running and here's my first result...


By the by,... this is the "compressed like canned ham" version... (not to be confused with chris's "compressed like a grape" versions... ) I'll be working on alleviating some of the "compressed ham" sound, and also fixing some vocal places later, but for now, I need a break... so consider this a first draft.


Go to WATYF's NWR site... you'll know which one...

Mix comments are welcome as always... I'm still getting used to PT, so it may take a bit before things get back to "normal"... (not that "normal" was all that great... )


WATYF

 

[chrisharris]

link's not working for me...

EDIT - Now it is. Wow...sounds like machine gun fire. There must be some simultaneous "hits" to this song, although, for the life of me, I don't know why. Oh well, I was gonna' download it anyway.

Okay, first and foremost. It's beautiful, so keep that in mind on the nitpicks. Also, I noticed that you typed a long post, but I haven't read it, b/c I'm in "EDIT" mode, and it won't let me.

First, the nice:

nice #1 - You do some really cool subtle guitar work. I hear it on all of your tunes...little fills that you almost have to strain to hear, but that fill out the edges without cluttering up the stage (like I do). Some of it's just hammering, but it's really nice.

nice #2 - I like the verb on the vocal a lot. It's not "transparent," but I really like it. Yup, I wouldn't change that at all. I also like the lows coming out of that Taylor when it's soloed, but it seems to not like the verb that's on it...I'm talking about the tiniest of small "mud" just in a very narrow range on that guitar that happens ONLY when you're singing.

crit #1 - Somewhere around 2:10, I'm sure it's intentional, but that quick dropout sounds like an edit to me. I'd either make it longer (to more prominently convey the obviousness of it), or I'd crossfade it. It caught my attention each time.

crit #2 - @1:50-ish...when you're doing that really beautiful "divine"...something about that bothers me...You're not flat, but it sounds like you're crapping out right there. The last time you do it it sounds very good.

That's about all I can think of right now. Really nice.





















(a splash of overdone "Antares" would really put this over the top )

 

[WATYF]

it is now...

WATYF

 

[mixmkr]

ok.... trying to take my "reverb king" title...eh?

guitar sounds good, and a nice rendition.



argh.... you've "won" the title... you ARE the NEW official "reverb king"!!!....

congrats on all the new equipment... is congrats what ya say??


I'm hearing some cutouts too...like cassette tape kinda dropouts..

 

[chrisharris]

argh.... you've "won" the title... you ARE the NEW official "reverb king"!!!....

BAHAHahahahaha...What luck, WATYF...you drew the 2 biggest HUGE REVERB fans on the board right out of the box. LMAO.


Plus, it gave me a chance to bump this so you can see that my original post has expanded a tad.

 

[participant]

Can't miss one of yours... any man who can create a demon-spawn of a thread in the mic forum (a thread that will never die, btw ) has got my ears for a looooong time

You've got a real handle on the vocal reverb, IMO... since it's very clear, but definitely a huge reverb. Sounds like you've 1) set the pre-delay well 2) rolled off the highs on the reverb return... gives it a very nice sound...

A noticeable quality improvement, but not a "huge" one... more along the lines of "cleaner" and more "articulate". Is this a 001, 002 or the big-time (PT-HD) setup? Was this the VTB-1, DMP3... or something else? Digi001 pre's? (Have heard bad things... probably best to go from your VTB-1 direct to the soundcard)

A good addition to the HR.com Christmas pile.

Ok this is the part where we get obnoxious with the smileys all over the place, ala Emeric as a good-natured albeit sarcastic ribbing of our good friend Will Anyone Taste Your Fajitas


-C

 

[WATYF]

Chris... I took another listen and couldn't find the examples you were talking about... (the one at 1:50 and 2:10). Clarify if you will. By the by... this whole song is an edit.. the vocals were comped from three different takes and most of the guitar work is heavily edited.

Mix... thanks man.. I'll wear the title proudly.. Actually, I meant to do some really "thick" reverb on this one... it's so melodic and "big" and "choir-ish" that I had to make my little voice sound like more than just... well.. my little voice...

part... it's a digi001, and yes, I'm running my C-1 straight into the on-board pre's of the 001. They're actually not that bad (as you can hear). And as far as the reverb... well.. that's not all reverb... What I did (during the chorus, when the vox get really thick) is take the primary vocal channel and bus it to two separate channels.. then I took each channel and put a delay on it and hard panned each one in the opposite direction... then I set the delay on the right channel to be exactly twice the ms of the left channel...

I'm gonna do some more tweaking and hopefully post a new version tonight... thanks for the comments.


WATYF

 

[chrisharris]

Chris... I took another listen and couldn't find the examples you were talking about... (the one at 1:50 and 2:10). Clarify if you will.

No problem.

The tune starts at :04 seconds on my player. at exactly 1:48, in the middle of the word divine.

At exactly 2:12, there is a complete cessation of all sound for an instant. Again, probably intentional, but it sounds like an edit.


BTW - The comment you made about comp'ing vocals in Jaimee's first thread helped me a lot recently. I sang a tune 5 times in a row, then just picked the best of the worst. WAY better than trying to punch in vocal fixes.

Merry X-Mas and stuff.

 

[participant]

At exactly 2:12, there is a complete cessation of all sound for an instant. Again, probably intentional, but it sounds like an edit.

Seems to happen at exactly 2:14 on my player.

 

[chrisharris]

Seems to happen at exactly 2:14 on my player.

LOL...Let's try this. IT'S THE PLACE SOMEWHERE BETWEEN 2 MINUTES AND 3 MINUTES WHERE THERE'S ABSOLUTELY NO SOUND WHATSOEVER FOR AN INSTANT, THEN THERE'S "OH HOLY NIGHT" AGAIN RIGHT AFTER IT.


hehehehe... I'm actually laughing now. Chad, you are my hero.

 

[WATYF]

Ah... well... actually.. that's the one place that isn't an edit... I just palm muted the guitar(s) before the upstroke...

And yes,... vocal comping is the bomb... Ever since I started doing it, vocal tracks in my stuff have been much more "acceptable". It takes a bit more time, but the results are worth it. And anyway... there's no way I could get a good single take of this song,... it's just too "breathy". I don't have the lungs for it.


WATYF

 

[Lt. Bob]

Very cool man!
Ya' know......for some reason I've always thought you were a drummer. That's obviously only part of what you do.
Nice guitar work and the vox is good. That's not an easy song to sing; i don't think I'd want to try it.
Geez, this is gonna be the best Christmas cd ever.

 

[dres]

Wow - your a classy performer ! Like you I'm not a big fan of christmas music... but being familiar with your previous stuff I thought your tune would be worth 40mins download time... and I was right.

Yea the Reverb is pritty sweet... I'm gonna have to try this panning trick myself. Guitars very delicate as usual... what kind of Jeckel and Hyde character are you ?? one minute your breaking drumsticks like their going out of fashion... next thing your playing delicate christmas songs !! Well your very versatile either way !

I'm looking forward to the less compressed version... the compression artifacts kinda spoiled an otherwise great recording.

Hey can you do us a favour and post a really bad song to make me feel better about my production skills ? This quality bar just get higher and higher !

Thanks for a classy christmas song.
dres

 

[WATYF]

Lt... actually.. I'm turning into more of a guitarist every day.. I just spent 4 hours in the studio layin' down acoustic tracks for some chick's CD (and gettin' paid for it... whoo hooo!) and then I spent the rest of the day working on this song... But speaking of drums, since my bro' got butt-loads of recording equipment in his basement, now I might be able to start recording drums soon... that should be a new mixing experience...

Dres... thanks man... if you want more details on that panning thing, just PM me... it would work even better if used in a song that was more rhythmic (then you could make the panned delays match the drum beat.) I'm sure they have a plug-in that does all that for you... but the worst part aboot Pro Tools is that it was made for Macs... and everybody knows that there's no such thing as cheap anything for a Mac... you gotta pay oat the nose for every little thing you want, since they only use proprietary software for pretty much every aspect of their stuff.. (Both Macs and PT, that is) So, if someone oat there has some nice PC based plug-ins for PT, then I hope you feel the urging of the "Christmas Spirit" and send em my way...


FYI... the new version is up and it's MUCH better (as far as the compression issue and some other minor tweaks) so check it oat... (sorry dres aboot yet another 40min download)

I'm pretty much done with this one... I don't really know of anything else I wanna change, since this was just a little "whim" recording,... But if you're gonna keep one of the versions for a Christmas compilation, then keep this newest one... the old one sucked beans...

WATYF

 

[erichenryus]

sounds very good. i love the guitar. very good performance and interesting as well. i can see why you're getting paid for playing guitar now. can't wait to hear you mic up a drumset with that rig!

this is a very good example of the c1 on your voice as well. i keep going back and forth on buying that mic and this recording puts me back to the 'forth' of that decision.

the vocals sound very smooth, not the typical hyped ultrahigh presence that i've heard outta that mic so far.

i don't like reverb, but for some reason, this doesn't bother me. maybe it's the subject of the song or something.

now go mic up that drumset!


just noticed that you posted a second version. i'll be back with comments on that one.

 

[chrisharris]

The hiss is a lot less noticeable in this one. Compression is GREAT for pumping up the volume of hiss, eh? Yeah, this is a lot cleaner.

It sounds like you didn't change that one vocal part that was buggin' me, but that's you're call.

Yeah, quieter and less "pumpy" is better. Really nice job, man. Now I have to post an ENORMOUS pic for my buddy Jamal...I'm hitting all the "high profile" threads.

 

[chrisharris]

hehehe...that last pic was so huge, it was slowing the download for this page. Here's another try

 

[Guernica]

Hey Watyf...
......I was just listening to "Better" the other day...... nice tune!
I really like the voc performance in this man. You have a timid, folky quality to your voice that is nice in something like this. Nice guits. ......very nice tune man.


A.W.I.N.O.T.R.O.J.B.

 

[SLuiCe]

Big but gentle...nice...decay on the verb is like 3 sec's but there's anice healthy pre-delay there, so it's not too over-bearing. Man you've captured a strong feeling here...The stereo effect of the voice is nice too. Two mics or software or something else?
I like the pick-up of the second half. Here the verb gets to be too much me thinks....I would back it off some, maybe cut the decay, but keep a pre-delay of about 40ms. It's just too upbeat a section for that much reflection IMO.

Nice track W...Lots of feeling!

Thanks

 

[powderfinger]

nice job..........well performed........the reverb was a touch excessive, but i kinda liked it that way.........good singing, and good playing