Problems Reviving A 10 Year Old Song

  • Thread starter Thread starter BroKen_H
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BroKen_H

BroKen_H

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Recorded this 10 years ago. The piano, bass and the guitar have been scrubbed with acetone trying to clean them up. They sound good individually.
The brass is re-done and sounds flat and lifeless. I've tried adding voices and that helps some (should I maybe add more)?
The drums are programmed, and not even trying to sound natural. I wish I could get the drummer back that originally gave me the pattern. He could play this live.
Those big drums at the beginning and the end need to sound boomier, but all I get is muddier.
If I tweak on it for an hour, it starts to sound flat and I'm done. I've tried killing all the mid in the mix with Parametric, but can't seem to get it tuned right.

View attachment Suddenly He Turned .mp3

Anyone got any options?
 
The best advice I can give you is start your mix with the drums and bass. Get them right first and fit the rest around that. Low Pass on the other instruments to clear up that bottom end. Then sit your vocals on top.

This doesn't sound too bad. The drums lack dynamics to them though. Have you fiddle with the velocity and humanizer to try and make them sound more natural?

The rest of the instruments sound really good to me. Powerful vocal.

:thumbs up:
 
Thanks, MC! Appreciate the feedback. I've been singing it since 2003. I ought to have the vocal pretty down. Only problem is my voice is 10 years older and I'm having to "settle" on some of the high notes. :laughings:

I'll keep working on it. Wish Steve was still around, but that's not going to happen, so I guess I'll have to "humanize" his pattern.
 
If you're using reaper throw a reapEQ on the master buss, select Mud Free & listen. Then look at & fiddle with the EQ settings. Get an idea of what & where, remove the EQ from the master bus and then try some of those settings on the individual instruments - but don't just dump that preset on everything.
Lyrically "and slew him with a sword" isn't strong.
The outro is awful.
 
I'm a Reason type of guy. Got an entire digital SSL 9000 series at my disposal. I pumped up the intro horns, but forgot to do so on the end. Also the outro horns start to sound like a sine wave toward the end. Have to find a better sample.
Thanks for the input. Do you have a suggestion to replace the line? I'll have to run it past the person who wrote the lyrics (a poet that allowed me to use pieces of some of his poetry for some of my songs), but I'm sure he'll approve of whatever sounds good! Or do you mean I need to sing it stronger? Historically, it's accurate... :D
Again, thanks for all the input.
 
What I'd like for that intro/ending is some actual shofar samples, but I can't find any of quality.
 
Your voice sounds a bit like Stevie Winwood on this.

Whenever using fake horns, the less notes the better, for example lets say your playing over a major chord. Rather than play the root, 3rd and 5th play the root with a hint of the 5th (much lower volume) and can the 3rd altogether. Maybe alternate from there. Bunched up notes with vibrato, yuck.

This type of tune is not easy. Todd Rundgren has a few tunes like this that were very difficult for me to figure out, what he's doing. You really need to be skilled in complex orchestration.

I think what you've got is a cool idea but I think its overcooked. I'd clean it up a lot and hard pan to make room in the mix. Do you have any Timpany samples you could try for the drums?
 
I need a lot of BETTER samples. The drums in the intro/outro are big taiko drums (the big Japanese war drums). Trying to get the going into battle feel. Just not getting where I need to go. Funny you should say to use less, because the more I added the better it sounded. I added the vibrato with a vocoder, but I'm rethinking that option cause I think it's why they sound so zzzzzz at the end. I don't mean like they're going to sleep, but the synthy zzzzzzzzz you get when you've got too many synths running together.
I'll try using I V in several octaves and hooking the vibrato with trem.
Thanks for all the encourage! I'd never put myself in Traffic :eek: what a punny guy I am...
 
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