Mama Told Me Not To Come.....

[RAMI]

An oldie but a moldie.......

Just finished this, which means there are probably a million things I'm going to want to change, especially after you guys get a hold of it.

Thanx

MAMA TOLD ME NOT TO COME (3 Dog Night cover)

 

[miroslav]

I know the song well enough.

The opening electric piano lick has a bit too much "warble" in it....maybe take some of the depth of the trem/vib effect you have going and pull it back a bit so you have more dry piano, less effect.
Also the volume of that is too high relative the to vox in the opening.

The rest is pretty solid.

Not sure how close you're trying to get it to the origianal...?...but it's a good cover for sure.

 

[RAMI]

I'll say right off the bat...and I hope I don't influence anyone....My snare, once again, is not the right snare for this kind of tune, I don't think. But I realized after playing with it for a few hours, that tuned up high is the only way this snare works at all. I'm pretty sure it thinks it's a piccolo. I've tuned it down and it just doesn't work. I actually have 2 other snares, but each one is missing some parts. Might be time to be a nice Ludwig Supraphonic and solve all my snare problems.

 

[RAMI]

I know the song well enough.

The opening electric piano lick has a bit too much "warble" in it....maybe take some of the depth of the trem/vib effect you have going and pull it back a bit so you have more dry piano, less effect.
Also the volume of that is to high relative the to vox in the opening.

The rest is pretty solid.

Not sure how close you're trying to get it to the origianal...?...but it a good cover for sure.

Thanx Miro. Yeah, I put the Wurlitzer through some distortion and a tremolo. At one point, I gave up trying to get that to sound just like the original, but the original does have quite a bit of warble on it. I'll bring it down in the verses like you mentioned.

Thanx a lot, man.

 

[gecko zzed]

I agree with Miro about the piano at the start and during the verses. I only have a vague recollection of the original, so I can't remember what they do, nor do I really care. From my perspective, that piano sound is too overwhelming throughout.

However, the rest of the recording is awesome. The harmonies are superb, and the whole thing sits nicely together.

Your worries about the snare are unfounded. I think it sounds good and snappy.

 

[ido1957]

I listened to this about 1000 times (on 45/AM Radio) when I was a kid so I know this like the back of my hand. One of my all time favorites.
The only nit I have is your phrasing on the chorus - it sounds stiff too talky too pronounced. I prefer it a little sloppier? Not sure if you get what I mean.
But the package on the whole is just fabulous. I could never pull off this kind of musical quality and arrangement.
I've no issues on the mix - just tweak it as you see fit as your ears are pretty great too.
And yes - buy yourself a new snare - you deserve it. I believe you need to spoil yourself on occasion to justify all the damn hard work you/we all do.

 

[RAMI]

I agree with Miro about the piano at the start and during the verses. I only have a vague recollection of the original, so I can't remember what they do, nor do I really care. From my perspective, that piano sound is too overwhelming throughout.

However, the rest of the recording is awesome. The harmonies are superb, and the whole thing sits nicely together.

Your worries about the snare are unfounded. I think it sounds good and snappy.

Thanx Gekko. On the original, the keys are panned almost toally to one side, so they get out of the way of the vocals. I'll turn mine down. Thanx for your opinion on the snare. Maybe I'm worrying about it too much.

I listened to this about 1000 times (on 45/AM Radio) when I was a kid so I know this like the back of my hand. One of my all time favorites.
The only nit I have is your phrasing on the chorus - it sounds stiff too talky too pronounced. I prefer it a little sloppier? Not sure if you get what I mean.
But the package on the whole is just fabulous. I could never pull off this kind of musical quality and arrangement.
I've no issues on the mix - just tweak it as you see fit as your ears are pretty great too.
And yes - buy yourself a new snare - you deserve it. I believe you need to spoil yourself on occasion to justify all the damn hard work you/we all do.

Yeah this was one of my faves as kid, too. I totally agree with you about the over-pronouncing of the chorus. I noticed it after doing all the tracks, unfortunately. It's 4 tracks doubled, so I wasn't going to go back and re-do all 8 tracks. But it's definitely a little stiff compared to the original.

You're right about spoiling ourselves. Funny thing is that I went on a bit of a binge a few months ago with new mics, monitors, guitar amp, guitar, keyboard, computer, etc....and didn't even think of getting a snare. I always think of my drums last when it comes to my studio. But I think I'm on the hunt for a Ludwig now. Fuck! When does it end???

 

[ido1957]

It ends when you can't afford to. Go shopping. Tomorrow.

 

[Tadpui]

The original is only vaguely familiar to me, so I've got a bit of an outsider's opinion. That organ sound is definitely too inter-dimensional space rift kinds of weird for the tone of the song. And I made the mistake of reading the thread before listening to the song, so now the snare sounds too high tuned to me. If I'd listened to it cold, it wouldn't have mattered to me one bit, but you had to go and mention it

This is very well mixed and performed. I mean VERY well performed and mixed. That bass sound...what do you use for a bass signal chain? I keep polling people because I'm very unsatisfied with the bass tone I've been getting. I want to steal yours

 

[RAMI]

The original is only vaguely familiar to me, so I've got a bit of an outsider's opinion. That organ sound is definitely too inter-dimensional space rift kinds of weird for the tone of the song. And I made the mistake of reading the thread before listening to the song, so now the snare sounds too high tuned to me. If I'd listened to it cold, it wouldn't have mattered to me one bit, but you had to go and mention it

This is very well mixed and performed. I mean VERY well performed and mixed. That bass sound...what do you use for a bass signal chain? I keep polling people because I'm very unsatisfied with the bass tone I've been getting. I want to steal yours

Thanx, man.

I use an Ibanez active bass, straight into my interface. For the longest time, I was using Ampeg amp and cabinet impulses. But I just got Waves Guitar and put my bass through an amp sim. Besides that, I compress and that's it. To be honest, my sound is really in my bass itself. I've put it through different things, and I've also put it through nothing, and it has always sounded good. The sims and all that probably help abut 10%. A good bass should sound good plugged straight in. It's not like a guitar, in my opinion, which needs volume and air to sound good.

 

[dobro]

I know the song well enough.

I know it better than you, I bet.

The opening electric piano lick has a bit too much "warble" in it....maybe take some of the depth of the trem/vib effect you have going and pull it back a bit so you have more dry piano, less effect.

Yeah, exactly right.

Also the volume of that is too high relative the to vox in the opening.

Also true.

The rest is pretty solid.

Now we part company. The rest isn't pretty solid. This one fucking rocks. Where are your ears? Pretty solid? You goof. This is way better than 'pretty solid'.

Not sure how close you're trying to get it to the origianal...?...but it's a good cover for sure.

See, that's where I have this huge advantage over you. I don't care how close he's trying to get to the original, cuz I just listen to the song on its own merits. That's why I didn't like his recent Stones cover so much - as a copy, it was really impressive, but it didn't actually sound all that good as a song.

But this one's electric. Way, way up in my esteem. I simply do not get why people like RAMI and Greg do these covers. I'm like 'So many songs of one's own to do and so little time' and they're going out of their way to cover somebody else's stuff. I just don't get it. But I'm willing to listen, and this one is very, very impressive.

Good good party music, RAMI. You done good, son.

 

[RAMI]

I know it better than you, I bet.
Yeah, exactly right.
Also true.

Now we part company. The rest isn't pretty solid. This one fucking rocks. Where are your ears? Pretty solid? You goof. This is way better than 'pretty solid'.



See, that's where I have this huge advantage over you. I don't care how close he's trying to get to the original, cuz I just listen to the song on its own merits. That's why I didn't like his recent Stones cover so much - as a copy, it was really impressive, but it didn't actually sound all that good as a song.

But this one's electric. Way, way up in my esteem. I simply do not get why people like RAMI and Greg do these covers. I'm like 'So many songs of one's own to do and so little time' and they're going out of their way to cover somebody else's stuff. I just don't get it. But I'm willing to listen, and this one is very, very impressive.

Good good party music, RAMI. You done good, son.

I really appreicate that, Dobrother.

I ain't going to argue with you guys about the opening keyboard. There seems to be a consensus forming. I'll agree that the sound isn't quite the same. Mine is definitely more distorted. I put a guitar over-drive plug-in on it, but turned the Drive as low as it goes, so I can't distort it less with what I used. I'll have to try other, more subtle ways of getting a little bit of distortion on there. I'm not 100% in agreement about that keyboard being too loud. But I bet if I tame the sound, I won't have to touch the volume.

As far as why I do covers, I have to say that I love taking a break from creating stuff to just copy songs that I've always loved. I get a different kind of high from it. Hey, I'm not trying to "make it", and I'm also not paying for studio time. So I really like to indulge myself with whatever tickles my scrotum. In this particular case, I decided to do this on a whim a few days ago because all I'm doing lately is re-mixing and re-recording a bunch of older songs from my old hard drive that I just recovered recently.

 

[Tadpui]

Thanx, man.

I use an Ibanez active bass, straight into my interface. For the longest time, I was using Ampeg amp and cabinet impulses. But I just got Waves Guitar and put my bass through an amp sim. Besides that, I compress and that's it. To be honest, my sound is really in my bass itself. I've put it through different things, and I've also put it through nothing, and it has always sounded good. The sims and all that probably help abut 10%. A good bass should sound good plugged straight in. It's not like a guitar, in my opinion, which needs volume and air to sound good.

Thanks for the advice. I have a Squier active bass. I've put it through different things, and I've also put it through nothing, and it has always sounded bad :/

Out of curiosity, which of the GTR sims do you have it running through? I have that same suite, and I just started fiddling with it for bass. I'm actually impressed with it on guitar, although I still prefer an amp and a mic.

 

[Bruthish]

Besides what was already said about the "Warble"...wow the rest is awesome. Great job man.

 

[Schwarzenyaeger]

I don't mind the amount of warble but it's just too loud. I couldn't hear the vocal since the warble was demanding my attention.

Nothing much to say about the rest.

 

[DM60]

Warble sounded fine, there was some noise that seemed to be a part of it that sounded off, but the original had a funky keyboard sound.

Mix was great, performance was great. Could have used a looser feel on the spoken part, but I will be honest, that is just a dumb nit.

Really first class.

 

[RAMI]

Thanks for the advice. I have a Squier active bass. I've put it through different things, and I've also put it through nothing, and it has always sounded bad :/

Out of curiosity, which of the GTR sims do you have it running through? I have that same suite, and I just started fiddling with it for bass. I'm actually impressed with it on guitar, although I still prefer an amp and a mic.

Thanx buddy. I have the smallest GTR Bundle. The one with 10 cabs as opposed to the bigger one with about 30 cabs, I think. I can't find a link for it now for some reason.

Here's what I'm using on bass for this tune. I actually thought I was using the "Rock Bass" setting since that's the one I've used on other tunes. But it turns out that for this tune, I used the "Super Tube Hot2" setting and then tweaked the knobs a bit.

EDIT: I put a screenshot at the bottom of this post, but it obviously didn't work. I've never done the screenshot thing before. Let me try again.

Besides what was already said about the "Warble"...wow the rest is awesome. Great job man.

I don't mind the amount of warble but it's just too loud. I couldn't hear the vocal since the warble was demanding my attention.

Nothing much to say about the rest.

Warble sounded fine, there was some noise that seemed to be a part of it that sounded off, but the original had a funky keyboard sound.

Mix was great, performance was great. Could have used a looser feel on the spoken part, but I will be honest, that is just a dumb nit.

Really first class.

Thanx a lot, guys. I will keep working on that keyboard sound. I also am not crazy about the way I sang all the verses. I don't mind the third verse, but the first two sound a little phony to me, if that makes sense.

Thanx so much for all the comments and advice.

 

[RAMI]

Take 2 on the screenshot:

 

[RAMI]

One last try:

---------- Update ----------

AAAAAHHhhhhhh!!!1

I'm no good at this screenshot shit!

 

[RAMI]

I just realized that my first screen shot up above, the one that's really huge, actually worked. You just have to scroll to the right in the actual post to see the whole thing.