New upload, please listen...

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Ray J

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The song's called "Crystal Clear". Maybe not the deepest or most complicated of my work, it's kind of a kinder, gentler, M.F.Y.B.S. From the same batch of mixes as my other stuff so it's maybe a little bright and heavy on effects but thanks to you guys, I'm noticing what's wrong with my mixes. Also, I never formally posted my delta blues song "Where Will I Be?" here, although dobro and myself had a discussion on this board about it. Feel free to check that one out too if you haven't. Input is appreciated as always...Ray J

Crystal Clear

Where Will I Be

http://www.mp3.com/RJohnson
 
on Crystal Clear

Excellent mix, great drum-sound, good work! Space for improvement mainly on the sound of the rythm guitar and voices, which sound slightly "canned".

I'm no expert in getting rid of this, but It sounds a bit like its recorded in a room that is small with a lot of echo. If it is, try deadening it, or recording the vocals in another room. If it's not, try using a reverb with a longer fade out but mixing it lower, or maybe just use a delay instead.
 
downloaded both....and liked 'em both..."Crystal Clear" could have a fuller bass sound for me, I guess because the drums were so up front...."Where Will I Be" had a real "live" sound, 'cept for too much 'verb on the vocals...but you knew I'd say that, lol...nice work, great playing as usual...gibs
 
Crystal Clear: two things - it's there, nothing worth taking issue with, simply a good song well-played and well-recorded and mixed. That's what I hear - in other words, you're gonna need an engineer to improve on this, but the guy on the street's gonna love it.

Which brings me to my second point. I notice you've got over $60 in pay for play earnings on mp3.com. My observation here's a double one - first, you *deserve* money for this music, it's that well-done and accessible. Second, ONLY $60? Damn, if music like this isn't making more money than $60 on the internet, what does that say? It's gonna take more than an engineer and posting on the internet to improve on this part of the situation, right?
 
Regebro, thanks for taking the time to listen. I do hear "the room" in my recordings even when I don't use a lot of effects on the voice, but on this one, I think I overdid it with the chorus,I believe it was. I have a solution to the room problem though. I drape this thick quilt on a few tall objects in my room and sing while I'm in there. It's hot as hell in there but it works, I've recorded vocal tracks like this before but none of them actually made the final mixdown because I re recorded them because of some vocal mistakes, and never used the quilt the 2nd time around. Too damn hot. I think I'll have to suck it up and do it that way from now on. Thanks for the advice.


gibs - In "Crystal Clear" I actually wanted the drums loud, but not abnormally loud. Your right, I think if the bass were fuller the drums would sound about right, and the rythmn section would really kick in this song.
"Where Will I Be?" - Well, I wanted it to sound like it was recorded in Tupelo, Miss 45 years ago or whatever, which shouldn't have been hard to do on my equipment, but I really missed on the vox. I didn't get the results I wanted. There is some intrigue with this song among the artist community at mp3.com. I think part of it is because I'm from like, the heart of what people call "coon ass" country, and a lot of people are wondering what swamp/bayou I crawled out of. I don't want to ruin that for them but I'm just a regular guy, maybe a pretty thick accent, but I don't eat Alligator or nutra.... OK, hardly ever eat alligator, nothing over 5 ft. Too hard to pen 'em down....On a serious note, I have some other stuff I'm gonna drop on ya'll sooner or later, the likes of which have probably never been heard in this forum. I'll keep it a surprise for now, this is still down the road a ways.

dobro-Glad you liked the tune and thanks for the compliments. About the payback, well yeah, I have made almost enough for a trip to the grocery store. Actually, my page has been up for only 5 weeks, so by mp3.com standards, 60 bucks isn't that bad. You said Will it take more than a sound engineer and posting on the internet to improve this situation. Yeah, playing live would help. Doesn't quite fit in with the rest of my life right now however. I did played music for a living while I was in school and actually was making a little more money than I'm making now, but other than that it looks like its gonna be 60 bucks a month for a while. I'm just glad to get rid of that "this artist has no payback earnings" scar that decorates the artist pages over there.....Thanks again.

Ray J
 
Ray...listened to "crystal clear"....nice tune. It would be nice to have another chord progression in there if possible, rather than repeating the set pattern. Excellent lead guitar, and the duelies at the end where nice too. Nice to hear some guitar work on MP3 that just doesn't suck like 98% of it does there. Maybe a tad much chorus on the rhy gtr. but probably a matter of personal taste. I like the *room* sound as it give is some "live" feel to it...like it is not just all canned. The drums (programmed, right?) sound good. The one flashy roll was neat the first time (around the 1 min mark). The second was a bit to soon again, and the third was not needed. Maybe just the one hairly roll would work, and not latter...maybe? Your stuff would be a pleasure to walk into a gig and hear live.
 
"I like the *room* sound as it
give is some "live" feel to it...like it is not just all canned."

Yeah, mixmkr, me too. This is a really interesting issue. You want your mix to sound close enough to commercial sound to get respect and listened to, but if it sounds a bit 'different' because you don't have all the oils, cosmetics and perfumes that the big studios play with, then that really adds to the appeal for a person (like me) who's tired of that same old slick commercial sound. An analogy (why do so many of my analogies involve alcohol, I wonder?): I like commercial beer, and I drink a lot of it. But when I get a crack at microbrewery stuff, I often prefer it - "Hey this is different and good!" - and I rank it higher in my books than the commercial stuff, which as we all know, is full of additives and not as good for you anyway. :D
 
mixmkr - Actually, I have an Alesis drum machine, but I don't program it. Never took the time to. I just play it manually and record it that way. Your 100% correct about the rolls. The first one is ok and the others sound sick. I've noticed this also. Thanks for listening and the compliments on the song itself.

dobro - the beer analogy was..well..very interesting. But I hear ya. I agree with you guys about 'canned' and all that. Actually, I know what I want my stuff to sound like, and it's good to get away from that certain canned sound, but just don't have enough recording experience (or in some cases, equipment) to get what exactly I'm shooting for. I'm learning all the time. I still have about 3 more tunes to upload from this mix, then it's on to new stuff and I think the production will be at the least, a little better next time around. But this is one of the cleaner tracks from this group.
 
Good tune

Good tune! I'm a ham for a sweet, consonant melody.:)

I also liked the rhythm guitar sound in the thick chorus and reverb. In the intro when the lead guitar comes in, I thought that you could raise the rhythym level so that it doesn't get drowned out by the lead. Then when the vocals come in, you can lower the level to the level that it now is.

I would have liked to hear the lead vocal with a little less reverb for a more "up front" sound. It placed the vocal a bit too far back for my tastes. I think that it would contrast against the guitar a bit better.

Rev E
 
Ray-

I listened to both-

The blues tune is real authentic. I saw R Johnson and thought maybe it was the ghost of Robert Johnson at first. Great sound on the guitar. Good vocals - I vote for deadening the room - you want the sound to be as immediate as possible, like Muddy Waters sitting next to you rather than Jimmy Reed in a cheap dive.

I loved the lead guitar on Crystal Clear; you play notes, not patterns. I think it could use a bridge (or chorus), and you've acknowledged that the drums are a tad off.
 
Hey thanks Slim,

About the name, funny you should mention that now. There was already a Ray Johnson on mp3.com,(Which is my name) so I decided to call myself RJohnson. When I heard how this song came out,and since my artist name is RJohnson, it crossed my mind to name the song something like, "#30". Or "Song #30" or something of that nature. The shock value and clickability would have probably been high, but I thought it would have been sort of irrevrent(sp) and also feared backlash from this.

Thanks for taking a listen, glad you liked the song and thanks for the compliments on the string slinging in "Crystal Clear"

Ray J
 
You are welcome, Ray.

I was especially interested in the blues song since I play some acoustic blues myself. I'm also setting up for home recording right now. Tell me, what kind of guitar, mic, etc. did you use? Did you lay down the guitar first and then the vocals?
 
Slim(classic blues name BTW), I don't do a lot of accoustic stuff so I bought a $99 MONTANA accoustic guitar.(shudder, shudder, shudder) It's really poorly made and hard to play but if you stay off of the bad frets and use new strings ........well it still doesn't sound good, but it suffices. I mic'ed it with a Rode NT1. Which for the price seems to be a good mic and faily versatile. I also use this mic for vocals.

And yes, I do record the guitar first but only after I metronome the track. I don't want to be condescending if you already know what I'm talking about but a metronome is a beat with a drum machine or keyboard that somewhat resembles the beat of the song and keeps you from speeding up and slowing down, and is later erased. So, I metronomed it, laid down the guitar, added the vocals, then put the slide in as kind of an afterthought but I can't imagine the song without it now.

Thanks again for listening
Ray J
 
Rev E, sorry, I totally missed your post, and that's why I didn't reply. This is good advise about bringing the rythmn up on the opening solo and back down when the vox come in. I may remix this one, if I do, I'll keep it in mind.

Thanks

Ray J
 
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