Questions

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BroKen_H

BroKen_H

Re-member
No, not a bunch, but the name of the song is Questions...:D
Still, I have a few questions.
View attachment Questions.mp3
Okay, when I got it on the reference speakers (Bose Companion 3) I notice the guitar is too loud at the end.
I can't seem to get the guitar and piano closer together in the pan. Does this sound alright the way it is? When I move them together, I lose definition. How can I handle that?
I'm playing with parallel processing on the 9000. Vocals are panned 80 left and right with 20 ms delay left and 10 ms right and different eq settings to brighten things up at certain notches for that warm feel. Up the center is a distortion device called Pulverizer. It's like a tube pre on steroids. Then the sub bus is run through a vintage tape echo plug and dumped into a vocoder running minimally for a nice warm chorus effect...
The guitars are also l/c/r, but I need some more time on the practice part...:)
Anyway, as always, critiques are welcome. Be blunt, be brutal, pass a tissue. ;)
 
What is that 'clacking' sound? Totally distracting. Is that some kind of intentional wood block or an artifact of one of the effects. It at times sounds like a total digital clip.

IMO you are overdoing effects before addressing compression of tracks correctly. I hear a comp sucking some things and others that are not sitting right. Maybe you are over driving one of your effects to the point of digital clip. This seems obvious at the very last guitar line before the vocal outro. Figure out what is going on there and fix that first.

Also, the drums are not where they need to be IMO before adding anything else. There is no drive to the song. That is job number one the way I approach things.

I would start from scratch on this tune and look to build the base before adding the shiny stuff. :)
 
The clacking is my poor guitar playing through an acoustic/electric DI'd into the computer. I haven't got the technique to play without getting that noise. Thought I edited most of it out.
Anyway, I'm practicing the guitar now and I'll try to get it in a little less hot. I'm not clipping my interface, but it still clips in the DAW.
Sorry, I like to play with gizmos, so I always ramp stuff up, even before it should be....:)
Thanks for the honesty. Maybe I should stop "playing" so much and get serious about playing...:D
I've always got a problem with my drums. I don't play the type of music that drum loops are made for, but it's all I've got to work with. Wish I had access to a better facility and Mr. Stephen P Nuxoll! Miss that guy.
Anyway, right you are, back to the ol' drawing board.
 
So, do you have a MIDI file for the drums, or are they just a loop? Either way, I could set you on a better direction with a better drum track.

More than that, there are a bunch of anomalies that are detracting from the focus of the song. The vocals are actually the one thing that did not sound too bad. Over processed, but not bad. The other instruments are not giving the basis for them to shine tho. I suggest working on that first. Especially drums. You get them and bass guitar sounding good and the others seem to just fit themselves. Seems to me you are trying to hard to get something working before the base is there.

Just my opinion tho.
 
Also a few glitches I thought I could edit out on the bass, too. I used to be a lot better bassist :facepalm: It's tough when your practice time for a week is about 4-5 hours and you play a lot of instruments...The one I get the most practice on is drums, and I can't record them at home! :mad:
This is the new "Dr. Octorex" thing in Reason, and I was playing with it. It basically sets up a drum kit with up to 512 samples and then you can put in up to 8 patterns (per device). I'm not as good with this one just yet, but it was easy to put this together in an afternoon that way. I'll sit down and write something, or tap it out on my MPD18 with samples, and just kick the Rex out of it. :D
 
BroKen_H said:
Also a few glitches I thought I could edit out on the bass, too. I used to be a lot better bassist :facepalm: It's tough when your practice time for a week is about 4-5 hours and you play a lot of instruments...The one I get the most practice on is drums, and I can't record them at home! :mad:
This is the new "Dr. Octorex" thing in Reason, and I was playing with it. It basically sets up a drum kit with up to 512 samples and then you can put in up to 8 patterns (per device). I'm not as good with this one just yet, but it was easy to put this together in an afternoon that way. I'll sit down and write something, or tap it out on my MPD18 with samples, and just kick the Rex out of it. :D
Click to expand...

So program the drums. :)
 
Seriously Broken H... that's a straight straight beat.... every drum software package I've seen has a zillion loops that would fit in perfectly. Drag and drop and do some editing. Drums via MIDI ain't rocket science, it's just that people lack patience, usually.

The DI guitar sounds crap. Sorry, it just does.

The voice works better at the end than it does at the beginning... think you're more warmed up and there's less pitch shift between takes.

You're playing a full piano piece there and its sitting in the same frequency area as the guitar and it just swallows up the guitar. So firstly I'd work on getting a much better guitar sound that has a bit of definition, then once I'd done that I'd carve a bit of the low out of piano, put a bit of mid (probably) into your theoretically better guitar bits and see where that takes you. Let the bass, do what the bass does. It too needs definition.

You know what my favourite effect is? A damn HPF...

And above all, listen to Jimmy, he is your god... (as far as recording goes, anyway..) :)
 
So my notes:
Replay the bass line (I like that part, bass is fun!)
Fix my guitar technique on the song. (lots of practice on the licks)
Reduce the vocal FX to keep the warmth, but make it sound less fake.
Program the drums (Use my USB surface and play it in)
Figure out the subtractive eq that will allow the guitar part and the piano to coexist. (I think my better technique helped there).
Use the damn HPF!
And here's the result...
View attachment Questions.mp3
What else do I need to do?
I'm still learning. All my experience was watching other people run mixers and the one shot on the SSL desk that some dude named Joe had in studio there in Denver in the 80s.
Now I'm trying to learn this stuff and it's not as easy as those guys made it look! :D
Anyway, I'm needing a course in Compressor-Limiter-Gate-Expander stuff apparently. Off to class!
 
Kick and snare need balls. Don't mind the toms as they are sparse anyway. What are you using for drum program? I can send you some better options if you like. Just send me the kick and snare wav files.

Mix sounding much better man. Though, on second listen, those crashes/ride sound really bad to me. I have some free time next week. If you want, send me the MIDI file for the drum tracks and I can send better samples of all the drums.

:D
 
Bear in mind the first recording was a throw together to get the idea out of my head and took all of 3 hours, start to finish. The drums on that were just to keep a beat and get a general idea of what I was working with.
On the second I used my normal meathod: My drum program. Reason. I have two Redrums with 10 samples each. I'm trying to get a consistent drum kit, but a lot of my samples are from the Reason sound bank and some are from old soundfonts that I've got laying around. Don't know where to look for better, but if you can assist, I'd love it.
First rack = Kick-Snare-Tambourine hit-Tambourine shake-Crash 1-Crash 2-Ride-HiHat-HiHat Open-Ride Bell (8 and 9 are exclusive so the hats are loaded there)
Second rack = six toms and specialty cymbals China-Reverse-Splash and stick clicks.
Then, I just hook up the Akai MPD18 and tap the pads to make the beat. Since midi is non-destructive, I can lay down just the hi-hat, then just the kick and snare, etc.
If I can just get some better samples, would that help? I'll ship you the first midi set (kick/snare/cymbals)
Waiting on some money to get the hyper-sampled drums and piano from Reason. These are not multi sample, but hyper sample. Actual kits in an actual studio miked with actual multiple mikes at lots of different levels. Had to build bass traps, buy a couple mics, and funds are very limited right now.
 
Okay, I flat can't figure out how. All I get is an error message that says my midi file is invalid. Guess I'm on my own.

Thanks for the offer!
 
I listened to mix #2. Just an opinion, but I didn't care for the vocal processing. To me, a more natural sounding vocal would better fit the song. I'd keep the doubled tracks down the center and keep the delay/reverb stuff to a minimum (or out entirely).

Mix in general is lacking a strong low end. A nice, powerful low end would, IMO, support a song like this very well.
 
Okay, Jimmy (well, everybody), here's my upgraded "kit".

View attachment Drums.mp3

Found some free drum kits and listened for what I liked. Placed them and mixed them to sound fairly balanced.
 
Trip, I pulled a bunch of mud out of the original mix, and it left me with a weak bottom. Thanks for pointing that out! :D
 
Drums3 - woah - awful.
Mix 2 is an improvement.
The guitar still needs work.
Vocals - be brave - dry & clean would be better and try to show some emotion. Currently it sounds almost robotic, (probably the processing).
Tempo drags a little so could use a change if not a total wind up.
Sorry but for me the lyrics let the song down - they are bland and lack any imagery to grab the imagination. The subject matter should bring more with its back story, multitude of academic & theological writing as well as the passion that comes with belief.
 
rayc said:
Drums3 - woah - awful.
Mix 2 is an improvement.
The guitar still needs work.
Vocals - be brave - dry & clean would be better and try to show some emotion. Currently it sounds almost robotic, (probably the processing).
Tempo drags a little so could use a change if not a total wind up.
Sorry but for me the lyrics let the song down - they are bland and lack any imagery to grab the imagination. The subject matter should bring more with its back story, multitude of academic & theological writing as well as the passion that comes with belief.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Ray! I'm certainly not a guitar player. I noticed you edited your comment on the bass. I already redid that (again).
I appreciate all the help I can get on this one. It was the first song I wrote as a Christian almost 25 years ago. I guess I've sung it so long, I don't catch some of the stuff I'm doing.
It is so much easier to sing live. Sitting in front of the screen, running the transport and singing into a mike while I watch levels is not easy for me. Maybe I can teach my wife how to run the controls and just concentrate on the performance. :D
 
BroKen_H said:
It is so much easier to sing live. Sitting in front of the screen, running the transport and singing into a mike while I watch levels is not easy for me. Maybe I can teach my wife how to run the controls and just concentrate on the performance. :D
Click to expand...

You shouldn't have to watch levels. You do a run through to make sure there is no clipping and then do it. Worry about the levels on the mix. Good clean signal is all you need. Maybe you're over thinking it and that is causing you not to do it well.

I'm not an expert and not pretending I am one, but I do a quick run through on the vocals, playing, give myself plenty of room and go. This is digital man, we have a lot more leeway than in the old days. Just turn away from the computer ;)
 
Yep,
Relax, set the controls after a test (many of us are focused on getting as strong a signal as possible do then watch for clipping. In reality a low level signal - with no background noise, is perfectly fine.) and relax into a PERFORMANCE.
If you wrote it 2 1/2 decades ago you might find tweaking the lyrics a little to match your more mature perspective gives you something to get excited about.
 
And then, welcome to home recording. There are certain concessions I have to make. I'm in the third bedroom of the house that I share with my wife as an office. Computer fans from three systems (I usually cut off the other two to record) and A/C and all the other ambients add up to about -40 to -36 any time I record, so getting the signal as hot as possible gives me a differential between the noise floor and the low points in my dynamics. When I record at lower levels and up my volumes, I get much more noise. But maybe, now that I can hear (and see) where the low parts and high parts are in the mix, I can use a little better technique and practice till I get the voice less dynamic.
There is a point you have to draw between "good enough" which rarely is, and "perfection" that you'll never achieve. Somewhere in the middle is a good song that you can actually be proud of. :D
I'll just keep working on it. Maybe in another 2 1/2 decades it will be right! :laughings:
 
There is an odd but constant click that is distracting me. I think it's on one of the guitars.

Everything needs to be dryer. You are trying to make me feel some kind of personal connection, but you have the reverb on the "glory giant church" setting.
 
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