Right Here Waiting For You (acoustic cover)

andrushkiwt

andrushkiwt

Well-known member
This was my second time using the new Laravee acoustic and also the second time with flatwounds on the jazz bass. Only other instruments are strings via Studio One's stock application Presence. I used a host of new plugins on this song, including Old Skool Verb as a send, Nova compressor on master bus, and BlueCat Chorus (very subtly) on the strings. Guitar and vocals both recorded with sm7b, guitar about 1 ft away at 12th fret and vocals between 6 in to 1 ft away depending on the vocal section. Vocals are doubled throughout and a third vocal track comes in on the second chorus, but about -20db from main track. I'm loving the flatwounds on these songs as they seem to give it that full thickness and it's sustained pretty well with the CLA76, I think. For this song, if the CLA76 didn't help hold the low end, I would've went with a synth/electronic bass, but I thought it did the trick just fine. Please let me know your thoughts on the mix, as I am always looking to improve aspects of the engineering.

note - the last track I posted had several remarks on maybe too much verb and/or high end in the verb. I adjusted it this time around and turned the reverb down altogether (new plugin too). Thank you for the advice!

 
andrushkiwt said:
This was my second time using the new Laravee acoustic and also the second time with flatwounds on the jazz bass. Only other instruments are strings via Studio One's stock application Presence. I used a host of new plugins on this song, including Old Skool Verb as a send, Nova compressor on master bus, and BlueCat Chorus (very subtly) on the strings. Guitar and vocals both recorded with sm7b, guitar about 1 ft away at 12th fret and vocals between 6 in to 1 ft away depending on the vocal section. Vocals are doubled throughout and a third vocal track comes in on the second chorus, but about -20db from main track. I'm loving the flatwounds on these songs as they seem to give it that full thickness and it's sustained pretty well with the CLA76, I think. For this song, if the CLA76 didn't help hold the low end, I would've went with a synth/electronic bass, but I thought it did the trick just fine. Please let me know your thoughts on the mix, as I am always looking to improve aspects of the engineering.
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It's a well done song - points I would of changed - and these aren't critiques just how I would of mixed it - the Vocals Versus the guitar - I think the guitar is mixed to loud and
peaks - and it is competing for the vocals sonically. Additional the Vocal Doubling - I would have done 3 or 4 doubling takes and mixed it further down to create more of a thickener than a ADT effect.

But honestly these are just choices - it's a well recorded song and the performance is really good.
 
Papanate said:
It's a well done song - points I would of changed - and these aren't critiques just how I would of mixed it - the Vocals Versus the guitar - I think the guitar is mixed to loud and
peaks - and it is competing for the vocals sonically. Additional the Vocal Doubling - I would have done 3 or 4 doubling takes and mixed it further down to create more of a thickener than a ADT effect.

But honestly these are just choices - it's a well recorded song and the performance is really good.
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Great review, thanks!

The guitar competing w the vocals - is this an overall volume issue? I thought in most places it sat well in comparison to the vocal, were you saying the peaks of the guitar were interfering w the vocal? I can certainly see that, as I had trouble finding the right attack and release on the compressor. Too fast of an attack and that intro strum would be dead and flat... Too slow of a release and the strumming would come off as far in the background without life to the song overall. So you mean a compression thing or volume thing?

Very interesting about the vocal tracks... I usually record 12 vocal takes when I do a project like this. I've never thought to use more than 2 or 3 tracks at once . I'll have to try that! In the past, id use one main vocal and another -10down with a chorus effect on that second channel. Great to have another option to test for vocals. Thank you for sharing!
 
Hi there,

Thanks for sharing. Great performance and arrangement! Nice job! Production wise, the vocals are well mixed and present but I feel the acoustic guitar is "stepping" with them - mostly because they are both mostly in mono up the center. I would suggest adding JST Sidewinder plugin if you have it. This is a stereoizer (if that is a word!) which is mono compatible and it can help push the guitars more in the sides. Another mixing technique to try in combination is mid/side EQ - if you have Pro-Q3, I would use a shelf EQ from say 800Hz cutting between say 2 and 5 dB in the center and at the same time boost say 1-3dB in the sides. Maybe also a bell curve cut in the center where the vocal is. Even better would be to use the Trackspacer plugin with a sidechain of the vocal to cut the guitar EQ according to the vocal to make the vocal more present.

But this is nit picky because the song production is top notch to me and the performance and arrangement is really good! Hope this helps.
 
jonlint said:
Hi there,

Thanks for sharing. Great performance and arrangement! Nice job! Production wise, the vocals are well mixed and present but I feel the acoustic guitar is "stepping" with them - mostly because they are both mostly in mono up the center. I would suggest adding JST Sidewinder plugin if you have it. This is a stereoizer (if that is a word!) which is mono compatible and it can help push the guitars more in the sides. Another mixing technique to try in combination is mid/side EQ - if you have Pro-Q3, I would use a shelf EQ from say 800Hz cutting between say 2 and 5 dB in the center and at the same time boost say 1-3dB in the sides. Maybe also a bell curve cut in the center where the vocal is. Even better would be to use the Trackspacer plugin with a sidechain of the vocal to cut the guitar EQ according to the vocal to make the vocal more present.

But this is nit picky because the song production is top notch to me and the performance and arrangement is really good! Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Yes, you're right... I put guitar, bass, vocals right down the middle. That's probably where the first comment also got the "stepping" impression from, regarding the guitar and vocal. Funny enough, I had 3 guitar tracks recorded and debated how to position them all, but ended up only using the one take, so I had no choice but to put it down the middle. In those types of cases, you're right, I'll need to make sure they're compatible EQ-wise - probably a lot of energy between 700-2500 there between both tracks.
 
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