Recovery from near disaster

  • Thread starter Thread starter K-dub
  • Start date Start date
K

K-dub

Well-known member
Recently, I revisited this tune to retrack the vocal on it only to discover that the file had somehow corrupted in Sonar.

What went weird was that the drums and bass audio were fine, but everything else ... the vocal, the strings, the piano etc ... were all drums ... meaning that Sonar was directing them to the drum clips. They were all labelled correctly and the original edits were all in place ... but instead of the original audio, it was all drum audio.

FORTUNATELY ... I work a lot w/ midi as I build, and those tracks were safe. I was able to retrieve most of the parts back, but had to rebuild the work pretty much from the ground up again.

Then I did the new vocal that I'd set out to accomplish before near disaster struck.

This is the rebuild:

A Song for Holly


My wife is Holly.

Tjarko Busink on bass guitar
Frank Basile on drums.

Thanks in advance for any/all comments.

Best,

Kev-
 
Great overall sound. I thought the drums sounded particularly nice. Lots of detail and pleasant attacks on the the cymbals and toms.

Not many nits on the mix...

I think the bass level might be a little too loud. Either that or there's a peak somewhere around 100-140hz that's booming through.

The low tom is a little boomy too.

What effects do you have on the vocals? Every once in a while I hear a little phasey thing going on. Check it out around 1:02 beginning on the line "And now you know it's true 'cause the dreams I have..." It's gone by about 1:07. Might be a few more instances of that. Barely noticeable.

Didn't care for the vibes solo.

Mix gets noticeably louder during that short instrumental section at 1:36.

Everything mentioned here is minor and could be ignored.
 
Good job. I like the xylophone interlude, I'd keep it. The cymbal roll coming out of the left channel at around 0:15 and again at around 0:24 is a bit loud and kind of distracting. No other nits.
 
I liked the song. I don't have many problems with this song. Everything sounds balanced. Good job.
 
I think overall the mix is pretty good. Some of the edits and changes are abrupt and unnatural. Like a tom will just abruptly stop ringing. That's not natural. Work on the gates, or clean up the edits. Speaking of toms, I like boomy toms, but these are pretty over the top for this song. They sound like casio tom samples. It may be too late, but flatten em out with some EQ.
 
TripleM said:
Great overall sound. I thought the drums sounded particularly nice. Lots of detail and pleasant attacks on the the cymbals and toms.

Not many nits on the mix...

I think the bass level might be a little too loud. Either that or there's a peak somewhere around 100-140hz that's booming through.

The low tom is a little boomy too.

What effects do you have on the vocals? Every once in a while I hear a little phasey thing going on. Check it out around 1:02 beginning on the line "And now you know it's true 'cause the dreams I have..." It's gone by about 1:07. Might be a few more instances of that. Barely noticeable.

Didn't care for the vibes solo.

Mix gets noticeably louder during that short instrumental section at 1:36.

Everything mentioned here is minor and could be ignored.
Click to expand...

I heard and was wondering about that mild fog, Trip ... thanks for isolating the potential freq region. I'll look into it. I kicked the bass back a db just prior to printing the file just because the fog was there.

I like the vibes. :)

The swell during the short intrumental was intentional ... a cresting of sorts. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet.

I never ignore what you say.

Kev-
 
Greg_L said:
I think overall the mix is pretty good. Some of the edits and changes are abrupt and unnatural. Like a tom will just abruptly stop ringing. That's not natural. Work on the gates, or clean up the edits. Speaking of toms, I like boomy toms, but these are pretty over the top for this song. They sound like casio tom samples. It may be too late, but flatten em out with some EQ.
Click to expand...

I will, G. I agree w/ you about the edits too. Although I like the tom ring to be out by the time the kick snaps, some of the edits are too abrupt and unnatural ... like when it comes out of the middle section w/ the floor toms and suddenly cuts out. I caught that after I printed this ... but excellent points, and thanks!

K
 
guitar zero said:
Good job. I like the xylophone interlude, I'd keep it. The cymbal roll coming out of the left channel at around 0:15 and again at around 0:24 is a bit loud and kind of distracting. No other nits.
Click to expand...

I'll address. Thanks for the note, GZ!

Kev-
 
I think I remember this one from before. Your vocal stylings over that piano sound really made me think of steely dan this time around...I have trouble keeping track of all the artists you remind me of at times...billy joel, steely dan, uh, a bunch of others...:)

Anyway, this sounds good as is, but I too noticed what I think greg described as a gate effect on certain things cymbals/drums etc. making the residual sounds fade away too rapidly. Not an overwhelming issue or anything, but something I noticed periodically throughout the song...odd. Sorry I don't have the right terminolgy to describe it better.

Overall it sounds clean and polished and lively.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top