rhythm of the falling rain (oldies cover)

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wes480

wes480

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did this tonight...cover of that cascades song. (the noise at the beggining was intentional..supposed to sound like a record player...and..then rain..heh)

basically just trying to work on tightening up mixes/productions.

the thing about this is, compared to the 50s/60s one....mine still seems "thinner". Even though my individual parts are ok...their mix just...has more going on..or something. I can't figure it out. I don't really want any more "parts" in this, becuase I am a stripped down kinda guy. I just want it to sound like there is more.

I know the bass on this is really bad...and really whacks out near the beginning once...I think i am going to redo that tomorrow...it was fairly noisey...and then i tried to compress it and that was no good, so..on and on. But...as far as mixing the bass - what should I change here? I feel like...it is tubby...but, when I try to cut that out...then, it loses any presence in the song.

So, help me out - oh...also the lead vocal...when i added the reverb...it set it way to far back. But, without the reverb it sounded too "live" - having trouble mixing that as well.

 
umm...i think I only had enough space for about 2 minutes of it...but, that's basically the whole song. so, you'll get the idea.
 
this sounds pretty good to me.
don't know how to fix the bass but I think it's ok, just a little to loud..... may be not. The lead vocal doesn't sound far at all. maybe it's the harmonies that make it sound like its further away because the harmonies are very upfront.

I see what you saying about the bass but don't know how to fix it. it seems like you need to check your source and playing first and then go from there.

nice and clean recording and good mix

cheers
 
thanks fed - yeah I was trying to keep it as clean as possible.

I'm definately going to retrack the bass tomorrow. I just listened to it in the car, and it sounds like a mixture of bad tone, distortion and clipping - winning combination!

yeah i panned those harmonies off to the sides in hopes it would clear out the space for the lead...

but, the harmonies don't have any reverb on them, so..that could definately be an issue.
 
ye I'm listening on my akg240 (I realy like these phones) anyway,
the bass line is good and all but it does sounds like the player is hitting the notes unevenly or the bass is just a bad one. I have a bad bass guitar here and I try to avoid open strings on it because it sounds simular to what you have.

cheers
 
hehe. I will go ahead and blame player fault on that one ;)

I suck at bass...I'm gonna have my brother play it for me tomorrow or something.

it's an american deluxe jazz bass...in and of itself I think the bass sounds good. but, i play with my thumb and crap...no clue.
 
wes - this is not meant to be vicious, because I think you have all the makings of a good production here - but the mix is a mess (IMHO).

This is a vocal driven song, and the instruments are completely overpowering the vocals (particularly the bass, as you already indicated).

The background harmonies seem to sound real good - and I want to groove on them, but I can hardly hear them. My suggestion is to mix this with just the vocals first. Start with the lead vocal only (as loud as you can get it), and then bring in the background vocals so that they are the right volume relative to the lead.

Bring in the instruments last and use them just to support the vocals (which I suspect means they will be a lot lower in volume than they currently are). I'm guessing the biggest problem here is the bass. Get the volume down. Even if it sounds crappy at the lower volume, it will still make the song sound better.

Focus on the vocals and just use the instruments for a bed foir them and I think this could be very nice. Maybe some panning would help here as well. Move the instruments out to the left and right to clear some space for the vocals (although generally you would still leave the bass centered).

Hope this helps.
 
wes

another fellow peach farmer, i can't offer much mixing advice, but this song sound's real good to my ear's. you have a very good voice(im jealous):p very clean recording! easy on the ear's. all in all very nice job.

and on an off note, upper 70's in july!!!!!!!!! im lovin it!

thank's for sharing

peace

rick:D
 
dachay - that helps a lot...

Ok, i will remix the whole thing tomorrow evening according to that advice along with retracking the bass.

As far as the harmonies - I have them panned left and right, of the lead vocal - do you think this is a good idea or better off having them all mesh together? To me it seemed to "open it up" more, when they were panned...but maybe it makes it harder to hear them.

listening right now on headphones, the harmonies seem just right - never a good indicator.

thanks for the advice and hopefully you can check back in a couple days and let me know what you think of the new one.

-wes
 
fender - thanks a bunch.

yeah...I havn't recorded much vocal stuff lately...becuase I have been trying to get instrumentation to sound better.

So I decided I was gonna try something that focused more on vocals. Was kind of forgeting what my own voice sounded like - did several takes where I was like ewww...that is *not* me. hehe...but, eventually got it to sound ok.

I could definately tell I'm out of singing practice though on a few of those high notes at the end ;)

thanks a lot.
 
oh hey fender I didn't even notice you were in lawrenceville...

I read that the first time and I thought it said "perch farmer" i was like wtf...hehe.

Yes - the temp is nice but I noticed down in the basement recording this sucker I was bordering on 65% humidity. hehe...

I actually live in Duluth, not downtown...so you're probably like 10 miles from here.

-wes
 
wes--you have ressurected one of my favorite songs from that era! I liked the fat bass, but like fed says, its played uneven--some notes are louder than others. Might try some compression on the redo to get it real even.

I felt like the vocal and harmonies were placed right on the rat tat stuff but could come up on the oohs. If I was mixing this, here is what I would try. Don't know for sure if it will work, but here goes:

Get a reverb somewhere between 1.2 and 1.8 seconds. Put 30 or 40 ms of pre delay on that verb, so the voice isn't immediately washed out by the verb. It will keep things clearer. Adjust until the reverb sounds about right, then back it off a hair. For the backgrounds, give them a little more verb than the lead--keep the panning the same. You might try rolling some low end off the backgrounds to give them a different texture from the lead, which you want to remain full sounding--nice voice by the way!

The organ solo can come down a little. That kind of organ patch cuts through plenty.

One more thought. Its been a long time, but I was sure the chord change on the line "along with her she took my heart" went F-C-F--with the C on the word took. I could be wrong but thats what memory says.

Liked the bells and stuff too!
 
crawdad - that is some really good advice that will be employeed -

I will have to look more closely at the reverb tool - is "predelay" a standard feature? I was thinking when I did this - "you know, i wonder if anyone does a delay first....and then a reverb.." becuase I wanted it to sound "studio" with the reverb trail - but...i wanted to bring the voice more forward..not set it back.

I have a lot to learn about reverb...and even more about compression ;) I'm a preset man, at this point...

Great suggestion on giving the back vocals a little diff. texture too, I appreciate it.

As far as the chords - yeah, i goofed the bass part, and had to work around that. It works, but..not really the original, no. I think there is also an extra D minor chord in there where there shouldn't be - on "cry in vain"...but, oh well...I just worked with the bass track.

thanks a lot crawdad for the listen and on the vocal comment.
 
Pre delay is like this. Instead of the reverb kicking in immediately, it waits for however long you set the pre delay to be, then it starts. In the old days, you could use a delay line into a reverb, with the delay just set to one repeat--feeding the reverb. Today, most verbs, hardware and sorfware have a predelay function of some sort. What are you using for reverb?
 
"NuendoReveb"...

just the standard plugin set from Nuendo.

No money left over for waves..hehe.
 
OK. I'll see if I can check it out. You realize were bumping each others threads back and forth tonight? Being the kind and generous soul I am, I'm bumping Rain back to the top of the pile!
 
Open up the Nuendo reverb plug in and you will see in the top left hand corner a control for predelay.
 
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