Every generation has its idols and its representatives; to me, THESE are the classics, lol. Especially the EMI/IRS years. The thing I love the most about the early REM recordings, I think, is that Peter Buck was literally LEARNING how to play the guitar, but he made the most out of very little, in my opinion.
Okay, enough of the waxing/waning sentimental.
Texarkana - First, I'm getting some nasty digital distortion in some places. It's that sound that happens when I accidentally load a 24bit file into Winamp and try to play it...curls your toenails. This isn't that bad, but I think something's clipping, and not clipping just into distortion...but clipping into that digital domain that goes "ZAP" every once in awhile and makes you jump a bit and check your connections. Sometimes Winamp just does that when something's been limited a little too hot. I dunno'...I stick with -.3 db as a ceiling, b/c that's what mastering houses require, and I think my software has some fudge room in there to boot (hot meters).
As far as the production/performance stuff goes, you've got a cool voice. Nice job there. You've toned down the "washiness" from the original (no synths, no electrics), but that's cool...I like covers that aren't carbon copies of the original...I mean, what's the point, right? The Low E on the acoustic's a tad out of tune, but so were most of the early REM recordings. So I like the more organic feel, but I think 90% of the track is all happening in the same frequency band, and it's coming across kinda' dull. I like the acoustic sound, but cut some of the lows out of it. The bass tone is pretty God Awful; I can say this because it sounds EXACTLY like my bass tracks. Just doesn't have any definition at all...it's "fuzzy" bass, and it's walking all over the guitar and vice-versa. Other than that, I think you might benefit from cutting some lows in your vocal, b/c it's pretty fuzzy too.
Man, there's a guy around here that goes by "TripleM" whose vocal tracks sound VERY similar to the early REM recordings, and I know he rolls off a lot of lows from his vocal tracks (or I think he does anyway)...
Hey, are those other tracks available for download? I wanna' shut up and just take a shot at mixing this, lol. Not b/c I know anything, but b/c I record similar material.
It would be cool to get the vocal track too, as c.h. suggests...
