Newbie needs yall to listen please!

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laser

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Okie Dokie. I have recorded a song and I need some critique please. This is a Folk/Bluegrass type song. I know I'm not the best singer but I enjoy it and I have some songs I want to record and put on some Cd's for my Mom, Some friends and family.
I'm still pretty new at this and I'm having problems with the mixing. I think. I posted another song on here for some advise and didn't get response. I know you guys will give me your honest opinion and some tips. Please I need tips. Just tell me you would do to make this sound a little more Pro. Below is what I'm using for equipment. Thanks for any input... The newest song Im talking about is called "One More Dollar" If I have to I will record it all over again until I get it right and then Ill do some more for the Cd. But I need to get this one right before I go any further. Heres the link. http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=1037024

Tascam US 428 for interface/mixer
Adobe Audition 3.0 software
Antares auto tuner
Shure SM58 on voice, guitars and mandolin
Digitech Vocal 300 for vocals
 
That's a real good tune [dollar] ...pretty well-sung. I'm a bluegrass junky...bill Emerson, Yonder Mt String Band, stuff like that.

Here's where I hear improvement could be made, comparing with Emerson...which I was just listening to a while back...marveling at the record:

1- the attack is flaccid on the guitars...real limp. And guitar-left is often lagging well behind the beat. There are, like, four or five instruments hitting beats two and four...and the playing is kinda ragged, and the time is ragged....so it won't sound crisp and likkedy-split like the guys who make the big bucks doing this. A big improvement would be to shed parts a lot more, maybe use a click track, and get the performances accurate in themselves...and ticking along with each other. Don't settle for slop. You'll have to listen to it for a long time...while kicking your own butt for having been in such a hurry! Or, until you inevitably re-record it in a year or two...cuz by then it makes you nuts...and your ears and perception are better.

2- you need a mandolin to drive the swing on 2 and 4. The decay and middie tone of a 2/4 chop on an acoustic guitar isn't kicking the time like a chinking mando can. It's heresy to not have one on a blugrass record, ain't it? Seriously...a mando will kick things way up...and make use of the major space available in the high frequencies...ear pleasing. Mando rocks. It is the timekeeper.

3-Panning....a lot kinda wide for the genre. The image I 'see' in most grass records is the band within 50 or 60% CTR. Like five guys across...making a line a dozen feet wide; and the listener is about a dozen feet in front of the band. You have center and wings...but not a lot going on in the 30% areas, IIRC.

I like the banjo player...I think he or she has the best time in the group. I'd say everybody should lock to that instrument.....until someone starts to bang a mando.

I think it's real important to use a click or MIDI brush track to play to and/or train with. The tempo changes on the record...when the velocity slows....is a real pump killer. If the group isn't sharp and swinging......coffee!!!


I think these things will get you up a level of quality or two. I think the recorded sounds are not as bright and shiney as the pro records.....but pretty darn good. Good enough until you get the performances kicking. Gotta be tight. The best studio in the world can't gloss up time-slop in a group or individual, right?. Awareness, and practice. First priority.

It's a real good tune....I like some of the extra beats in the measures...interesting....good use of harmonies for dynamics and swell. Sweet!

Hope that helps some!
 
Good song...liked it...forget the click track...ragged is good...mess it up even more...have crickets or bugs in the track somewhere. Is the acoustic with a built in mic? That's the only thing I wouldn't have in a song like this...or any acoustic guitar song...keep on truckin
 
ragged is good...mess it up even more

LOL. This ain't the Grateful Dead! It's bluegrass. You must be joking.

And I guess there is a mando in it.....is that the 'banjo' I'm hearing? A twisted function for the mando.
 
Thank you so much jeffmaher. I am surely having problems with the panning. I just cant get it right yet. I have the ear and I am hearing everything you are talking about. I'm just not getting it figured out yet in the mix. I think maybe another thing is the room I am doing it in. Well, its my living room and the acoustics suck.. Plus I am using the Shure Sm57 and maybe need a better mic. Also the guitar is a very el cheapo. Not trying to rationalize it though your right. It is a bit raggedy. The mandolin should be played more too. I was actually going to but I started to try and mix it and master it to see if I can get it sounding better b4 putting more time into it.. Yeah I did get in a hurry. Did it in one day...LOL... Im very glad a fellow bluegrasser jumped in here and I can tell you know your grass and the sound I'm talking about. I'm 41 and been playing grass since I was 12. Been to a lot of festivals here in Texas and Oklahoma. Met and played with some fine folks and artists. But I have not played any Grass for about 15 years. I have been doing Rock and Roll and country. But I am going back to my roots and my heart is in Bluegrass. Thanks so much dude...
Thanks Monkey. The guitar don't have a mic built in it. I am currently using Shure SM57 in a crappy room with bad acoustics. And if anyone noticed you can hear my silly bird in the background during the Mandolin break..LOL
 
Funny, I thought the real room ambience was one of the pleasing things...it gave the recording a nice ...uh...realism...comfort for the brain....strictly defined the space..as opposed to digital reverb...which has sound flying in space without reference to boundaries.....vertigo. I don't think you should toss your room sound just yet. Your particular ambience is unique..and can't be bought on a disc, or taken from a rack device! And I think it fit the genre real well...and augmented the really effective parts, like the vocal harmonies....a real compliment to the sound.

I think that if the performances are tightened; you chunk 2/4 on the mando...instead of doing banjo-type picking*; get the pans held within 60% of CTR, and maybe automate the pans on the feature parts to center as they occur [mimic the real-life 'mic-dance' that's done in actul BG performance] and array the backing instruments evenly across that field, your gonna have a great product. The mixing, otherwise, is cogent.

The composing and lyric are good...the arranging is creative; and I can hear you got the gift ....the recorded sounds and ambience are good....

* I know some will 'poop' on my advice to use classic approach to bluegrass...like 2/4 mando chunk; but I figure there's a reason that a couple hundred years' of development of the craft...using these instruments, in the mountains of the original 13 states, has arrived at these kinds of conventions: they work optimally! The purpose of the grass was to inspire dance, or worship, happiness. I'm reluctant to dismiss the trad values. Why re-invent the wheel?

btw...there was one other minor point I forgot to tough on: the bass.
I think if the bass occasionally played two notes on the "4-and's" of measures, it would lend forward momentum. Another convention.
The bass is very set on the 1234; a little rythmic and harmonic invention ...not too much...is another opportunity to bump up the quality.

ps...I really love Bela Fleck, too. I'm a garage rock/ jazz trained/ blugrass wannabee. Fleck is right in the middle of his own universe...re-defining 'grass-fusion'. Like Grissman/Rice meets Weather Report meets Bach. I think that's some of the most kickin' great stuff to come out of a speaker in 50 years. I think if you wanted to investigate cutting-edge advances in the craft, studio and performance, that's where you could listen for some significant, artfully crafted ideas...the real advant-guarde. MHO
 
It sounds real good dude. I hear a little too harsh high ends on the acoustics I think. Sometimes it bothers my ears a little, nothing too serious. I've heard a ton of worse recordings.
 
Thank you everyone for the compliment and critique. I will take all your advice and make good of it. I still got my work cut out for me....
 
Ohhhhh, and before this goes any further I must say this is not my song... I heard a very lovely artist by the name of Gillian Welch do it. I think she also wrote it. I will find out and post if she wrote it.
 
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