Man, this is all too much. I'm getting emotional now.
Chris - "a lead tone that could peel the lead paint off of a battle cruiser" - nice one
I'll experiment with EQ and level, and try and find something a bit less painful, but which still has enough "bite".
And I'm so grateful for your comments - it means a lot to me that you like the thing. Don't worry about making changes to the track - I'm just amazed that anyone would go to the trouble!
The Kinks - I wish I had a tenth the talent of Ray Davies.
I like the fade-in you've done at the start, although I also like the sudden start in my version. I'll have a think about whether I can do something different at the beginning.
You've certainly tamed the lead a wee bit - presumably mainly with EQ? Can I ask what exactly you did? What frequencies did you tone down, and by how much? Thanks again for making the effort.
wes480 - thanks very much for your comments. I can post the patch settings for the lead and "jangly" guitar parts if you like - I think the Flextone and the Pod are pretty similar internally. But if you want to use the sounds, remember to turn down the harshness!
One of the reasons I really like the lead patch I'm using is that the combination of distortion and chorus means you get some really nice "extra" harmonics/notes appearing when you play certain combinations of strings/notes. The song is in B, and there's a nice G# appears from nowhere during the intro riff. I didn't play it - it just happens with the combination of the C# (on the top E string) and the open B string.
The electric guitars are all recorded in mono with the Left output of the Pod straight into a line-in on my mixer. With the exception of the main riff and the distorted chords in the chorus, all the other parts are doubled and hard-panned left and right. I recorded about 5 or 6 takes of each and used the best 2.
There 's a bit of "taming" EQ on the distorted guitars (mainly rolling off the low end) and the next mix will also have some of the highs/hi-mids toned down a bit too
The acoustic is again double-tracked and hard-panned. It's just recorded via the condenser mic into the mixer, and again a lot of low-end has been rolled off. I removed the pop-shield and pointed the mic roughly half-way between the soundhole and the point where the neck joins the body. The guitar was about 6-8 inches away from the mic. I think I put a bit of compression on the acoustic, too.
The bass, I'm ashamed to say, is plugged straight into a mic channel on the mixer. No DI, no pre-amp, no nothing. Because it's such a low-level signal, the gain on the mixer is way up, so there's far too much hiss on the bass track. But a bit of EQ helped with that. I've also rolled off the very low frequencies on the bass, and compressed it to within an inch of its life.
I'm thinking about getting a Bass Pod, but it's a lot of money for a non-bass player!
The drums are Sonic Implants Blue Jay 1 soundfont, played via Livesynth Pro. I wouldn't know where to start with micing real drums
If you haven't tried them, you should give the Sonic Implants stuff a listen. They're pretty cheap (I think about $20 for a 4-kick and 4-snare kit) and the sound quality is *way* better than anything I could ever hope to produce myself. Mind you, I'm looking forward to hearing what erichenryus comes up with...
Chad - Sonic Youth! No way! Another of my favourites. I think the Youth would mangle this one a lot more before letting it free though...
Mamas & Papas - I wish! I can hear all these really cool harmonies in my head, but strangely the noises that come out of my mouth don't sound *quite* the same
I'd be really interested to hear what the mix is like on decent monitors. I rolled off the very low end, but because I'm monitoring on headphones I can't really tell if I've done it properly.
Gold stars - I'm going to cut them out and put them on my wall
Thanks to everyone for responding - I can't tell you how much it means to me.
Cheers
Alastair
