Hi friends... Sheesh, I'm so freakin' wired on coffee right now.. it's 4 am in the moring and I'm in the middle of answering hundreds of emails.... I'm feeling good, damn good...
King Nothing, thanks for listening. Ah, man, I tweeked the vocals on the last mix I did... I made sure that it was updated on mp3.com before I came to say anything about it... but yeah, I messed with the vox mix so I think I took care of that part you were mentioning. Man, I had my kick drum sound... I've got an instrumental that I'm going to do in the next few days and I'm going to mess around with my drum unit settings... All the levels on the samples are maxxed, so what I'm thinking is, drop the levels (within the unit) of the other items so the kick drum is able to come up, or rather... well you know what I mean... I'm going to try and find a thumpier kick sound though... this one is kind of clicky... I've always used it, but I've become tired of it... I can't remember who mentioned the clickiness of it a while back.. I think it was Lipp... (side note, I fried the left channel of my sound card somehow... I'm thinking of getting the SB
Live 5.1 tomorrow... that's another story... rambling on caffiene.) Man, so does this actually beat "Which Way" for you? My wife actually digs this better than her last fav, which was "I Drank Alot Today"... interesting.
Buck, my man Buck! What's up, bro... thanks for lending an ear. I'm glad you like the imagery of this one... I like it too. As for the suggestions you gave... I did the +1db at around 12k on the acoustic parts... yup. The flang on the Bass was a good idea -- I tried flang, and then I tested chorus... I decided not to keep it that way though... although, I think I might implement an effected bass line on another tune, I'm sure... Thanks much for listening, as usual... I made other changes to this track that I'll mention later in this post... (by the way, I received the remix that you'all send me of "Doin' Nothin" - I think since I'm so wired, I'll actually be able to update it tonight/this morning)...
Gidge, hello my friend! Secret? Sheesh, I wish I still had a secret, hehe... I've been having problems "hearing" things in my music and mixing, etc... I've even been having problems singing... what the hell is going on? Getting old? Me? Sheesh... I'm actually concerned about this, although, I'm joking a little bit about it... I'm glad you like the guit solo... I'll be talking more about it farther down in the post... Thanks for listening...
Nutdotnet, ah, you're too kind... I have no secrets my friend... in fact, I suck lately. If you're serious about wanting to know about how I'm recording... I'm recording everything direct into my soundcard... I multitrack using PowerTracks 6 (48-tracks). Here's my equipment list: Gibson SG electric guitar, Fender 12-string and 6-string acoustic guitars, Fender Squire bass guitar (
P-Bass Special Model), Line-6 POD guitar direct box, Line-6
BassPod, Morley "
Bad Horsie" Wah-Wah, ART Tube MP (mic preamp), Shure SM-57 mics, Roland Drums -- Thanks for the kind words
Mesh, hey hey, how are you man! Gidge says you're drunk, are you? I'm the opposite of drunk right now... I'm so freakin' wired on coffee... The acoustic guits I recorded direct using the piece of crap built in mic in the guitar... The acoustic guitar I used for this one wasn't the 12-stringer that I used for "All I Live Is You"... the 12-stringer that I used for "All I Live Is You" has a brighter tone... pretty nice tone... the 6-string that I used for "Faded" is bad... very bad... An old guitar that someone gave me over 12 years ago... I think her grandmother built it or something like that... I tried to just "mic" this guitar because in "open-air" it sounds pretty good... but when I tried that, I basically confirmed to myself that I have no idea how to mic shit... except my voice... (duh, hold the mic to my mouth)... But I can't mic a guitar... I suck. Anyway, so to compensate for the muddy tone of my 6string/condenser mic, I used a funky preset on my Pod... The bass, I recorded as I've done with my other songs... Okay, I'm going to talk more about what I did to the latest mix to try and remedy the weirdness of the acoustic and bass crap... The guitar solo, I'd have to agree with you 50% on that... After I played it back, it did seem rushed after the first part... The reason I didn't change it is because, man, I was really feeling it while I was playing it as I was playing it... My body and hands would not let me play it any other way... it's weird... But I left the solo like it is... Although, in this latest mix, I did try to set it down in the mix a little... a very gradual settling of the solo down in the mix (louder for the first part and a miniscule amount down for the latter part of the solo... I think it sounds less jarring... let me know... I know you'll still hate the hurriedness of the last part of the solo, but you might notice a difference the way I mixed it this time. I'm glad you liked the songwriting and I thank you for listening.
LI Slim, YAY! Hey, thanks for the advice on scooping 250-500hz... I was listening to the acoustic tracks all by them selves and they had a very bad harmonic boom thing... I scooped out around the 250hz area a few db's down... SHWEET.... took the boom out... I had already upped the 12k area from what Bucky said... (please define high-shelf for me, I dunno what that means)... I actually scooped out a touch of that same frequency on the bass track, and I honestly think this song has more punch and less mud now... good advice thanks... I always associate boom with the lowest of freqs (I don't know much about tone when dealing with the hz and k's) Anyway, I actually didn't compress the acoustics... I think it's just the bad condensor mic built into the guitar... it's very bad... Additionally, this is stupid, but I wish I had cut my nails before I played the acoustic parts... Anyone who's tried to play guitar when your nails are kinda gettin' hairy knows what I mean... About that solo, see what I said to Mesh up there... I was feelin' it... I couldn't help it
Thanks alot for the kind words... I don't mind critical thinking at all... Man, I wouldn't have it any other way... I learn so much from you folks (I've said this a million times, but I like to make sure people know how much this helps me)...
Okay, anyway, if you'all've got the mp3 of "Faded" saved on your drive, rename it and please have a listen to the remixed version... it's here:
http://mp3.com/smartapple
... and see the comparison... I'm still open for more critique... but I might not actually mess with this one for a little while... I'm actually thinking of fixing "Procrastination" if anything...
Thanks again! ~Teddie