my very first recording

  • Thread starter Thread starter julien
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julien

New member
ok, apologies in advance, but this is my first recording!



I'm very new to this stuff and thought I'd put my first song on this board, I must be very brave!

I would be very pleased if anyone could listen to this and tell us what you think. It is recorded on a 4track and converted to mp3 with little equipment (i'm a engineering student - very poor!)

I've a lot of songs in my head so this summer I've set myself a target of spending a lot of time trying to record them properly. I'm going to find this site very useful indeed for the many problems I'm encounter!

Thanks,
Julien
 
Hey Julien

I tried to listen to your tune but I'm getting a 'page not available message' I'll try again later

Ray J
 
Julien,

I didn't notice any Scottish accent on the song! Too bad, that would have been great. You've got a pleasant voice, nice. It's a nice song, pleasant is the word that comes to mind. The recording was very good considering it was a 4 track and a good mix from my side of the fence. The song didn't jump out at me and say "buy me, I'm original and great" but it did say "i'm warm and fuzzy, give me another shot". Not sure if you were looking for mixing comments or song comments or even performance comments.

Nice to meet ya, I too am a Design Engineer from Manchester but moved to the USA 4 years ago.
 
On a 4-track cassette? Sounds really good. Loud, too. I dug it. Kind of reminds me of Ben Lee. I suppose there's things you could do to make it sound more "slick", but I'm not sure why you would want to . It's cool the way it is.

Macle
 
thanks

Thanks very much for listening! I'm thinking of recording a few more songs on the 4 track and transferring it to Cool Edit Pro (My soundcard is not very good! sob!). I dont notice much of a sound quality loss doing it this way but I'm sure the experts can tell straight away!

I'm not sure about compression/EQ/effects etc, if that can be done on Cool Edit.. Can anyone recommend what basic effects/compression/EQ I should use for recording? There seems to be many to choose from. I want to try and get rid of the "hey, thats me in a room" rough vocal sound to something more smoother, maybe I'm just being too ambitious!!

Thanks again
Julien
 
Good song. My only suggestion is maybe backing off the db's on one of the vocal tracks when they are in unison, but bringing it back up a bit, not all the way, for the harmony parts.
Bubba
 
I agree with Royston, the song is pleasant, as is your voice, which sits pretty well with the music. It's a nice relaxed feel. My comments are not so much about mixing and sound as they are just my opinions. The first thing I noticed was the unison singing. I think just a single voice might be better (except for the harmonies, of course). I don't think the unison thing works well unless you can repeat your performance very closely. Otherwise it is just a distraction. Actually, the last verse wasn't bad, but I thought the first was not together enough. Maybe it's the kind of thing your ear just filters out after you've listened to it many times. It's just my preference and you might like the unison effect. As an alternative way to thicken up the vocal, I was going to suggest making a copy of the vocal track in Cool Edit and then moving the copy ahead a few milliseconds. But then I realized that you're probably transferring the whole mix into the computer and won't be able to do that. Anyway, a slight bit of reverb might be good, too.
One other thing was, at about 1:48 some single acoustic guitar notes come in during the instrumental that are a bit out of tune. I really like the electric guitar stuff though. Maybe just focus on that for the instrumental.
All in all a really nice song. Hope I didn't sound too critical.

Jim
 
thanks jim

thanks jim, your comments are greatly appreciated!

Your ideas are what I had in mind, I think I'll re-record it with a little reverb. I might transfer each track seperately to the pc and then fiddle about with them in Cool Edit Pro.

Yeah the acoustic is really out of tune! I find when you spend a while recording something you get lazy, next time I'll spend lots of time, promise.

I've got a demo of fruity loops so I might try some drum tracks if I'm adventurous, although my loops always sound too electronic.

Just need to get this CDRW drive installed, having lots of problems with it!

Cheers
Julien
 
julien...

I couldn't get your song to load, so I can't listen to it... I get a page not available.

But I did want to comment on using Fruity Loops... AWESOME program. I've actually used it to sequence some fairly believable drum parts. I'd be glad to let you hear some if you're interested.

V.E.
 
This sounds like a nice song...

I also like the electric guitar things...lovely.

In this kind of song the fact that guitar is not in tune can be a nice special effect. It makes the song sound like homemade in a special way (low-fi effect). As I have been talking to many guys here (hi-fi corner) I have noticed that in lot of cases the one of the most important things in music the emotions that it brings to a listener is often underestimated.

sometimes no tune and homemade sound really fits.

Keep it loud and low
 
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