Soulful rock ballad V.2

Hey thanks. Don't get me wrong. I don't dislike them. They're just not exactly where I want them yet. This 'Nectar' plug in has so much stuff in it, it's kind of like a multi- effects processer, that I'm still figuring out.
I'm not that far off, but not quite there yet.
Or maybe I'm just being anal. :D
 
My personal opinion at first listen would be that the vocal is much too on top. And by that I mean it doesn't sound in the same space as the snare. It just not meshing right. And that is obvious to me when the solo ends about a third of the way through and it seems like it had no meaning.

Not a fan of the right panned guitars but that may just be me.

What I would do with this personally would be to lower the vocal and use a room verb that bonds the tracks together.

I will say that the recording sounds really good. It just not quite there as a mix to make it flow and give the song what it deserves.
 
Hey Jimmy, thanks for listening. Thats actually the first time you listened and commented on one of my tunes. Ironic seeing how it was you who first talked me into posting stuff. :D

Hmmm.......Solos that have no meaning.....
Well, pointless solos are in my DNA. :D
Everyone has different tastes.

On the vocal, what you're talking about may be the thing that bugs me about it.


As far as the recording goes....Yeah, not bad. Especially how this was transfered to protools from 20 year old tape recordings. It just never got finished. When the hammond gets on there, that will tie a lot of it together.

Thanks for the input.
:thumbs up:
 
RFR said:
From what I've heard and read, the Nectar plugs are pretty good and very powerful.
I just gotta figure out how to best use it.
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Oh, I'm sure they are! I don't know anything about plugs. I just thought "nectar elements" was a funny and very ambiguous name. Could just as easily be, "ambrosia particles". Sounds like nectar is like the brand name though, and elements is the particular effect or package of effects.

RFR said:
When you say 'notools' does that mean you are doing analog?
I love working on a console rather than a mouse and screen. But the capabilites are so much more than I could ever do with tape.
Even though Im just learning, some of the editing I did on this track would be damn near impossible for me to do on tape, or take forever. Plus you can't fuck up. It's all reversable. Not like having tape on the floor and you going whoops. Lol.
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Again, just kidding around there. From what little I know of DAWs, protools sounds like one of the more complex, comprehensive packages. Heck, it's got the word "pro" in it! I took a brief look at reaper once, and that was way too much for me. lol

But no, I have nothing against digital recording. For most of my life I recorded to tape, but not like you're thinking...with a desk and nice R2R and outboard effects and stuff...I'm talking cassette. But, I did buy arguably the worlds biggest and baddest cassette portastudio ever made, the Tascam 688. I still have it here, but rarely use it. I use a standalone digital 24 track (roland vs 2400) for tracking, mixing and "mastering". It's a good compromise between hands-on, intuitive fader operation, and mousing through menus on a monitor.

Sounds like you did/do much more involved analog work that I ever did!
 
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Nectar is a stupid name, the plug in looks goofy too
But its pro level processing. It had better be with such a stupid name. :)
Yeah Nectar is the company. Elements is the name. It has all the basics, (basic elements) Some of the higher end versions get real deep!

So you have a standalone unit. Gotcha. Cool.
I was considering one of the same units you have. But that even seemed too complex for me at the time. :)

I'm not as advanced as you may think. Started out with cassette 4 tracks and moved on to a rackmout cassette 8 track. (Tascam 238)
I chose the 238 and an Alesis 16 channel mixer simply because the 688 was too damn complicated. For me anyway.

Then had an actual recording space and graduated to a 16 track, just because I wanted to record my band live as much as possible, and I was sick and tired of programming drum machines.

The same gear I had 20 years ago is the stuff I use today.

The only reason I have protools is because a friend gave it to me. He worked for a major TV station and they were 'modernizing' and getting rid of old shit.
Well, two pickup truck loads of gear, and I'm in the modern world. Before anyone gets too envious, it took truckloads because of the industrial racks. But I did get some cool gear. :)

Back to protools, yeah. It's fucking tough to learn. But it's cool.

Whenever I get frustrated, my buddy says; "Hey, if a fucking rapper can figure it out, so can you!"
 
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Listening to the mix in post #13...

I can't decide if I like the roominess on the guitar or not. Excellent playing and clean tone, no doubt about that. The overdrive before it doubles is a little lifeless, but sounds great once the double comes in.

Love the vocals. I might shop around for some mics for the vocalist though. That one has a little bit of a feel like a dynamic mic into a PA system. The vocal performance trumps mic choice for this one though. Drums sound great to me, they're just roomy enough.

The mix has a good, live feel to it. Hats off to the band, good song and great performance of it.
 
I thought this sounded pretty good. Good tone on the bass, clean guitars, and vocal. Very good vocal performance. I like the clean guitar part.

The distorted guitar on the right side is a little fizzy. The mix gets right-heavy through that section.

The drums are kind of buried. Especially the snare.
 
TripleM said:
I thought this sounded pretty good. Good tone on the bass, clean guitars, and vocal. Very good vocal performance. I like the clean guitar part.

The distorted guitar on the right side is a little fizzy. The mix gets right-heavy through that section.

The drums are kind of buried. Especially the snare.
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Thanks for the listen. ;) Yeah, it could still use a bit of work.

Tadpui said:
Listening to the mix in post #13...

I can't decide if I like the roominess on the guitar or not. Excellent playing and clean tone, no doubt about that. The overdrive before it doubles is a little lifeless, but sounds great once the double comes in.

Love the vocals. I might shop around for some mics for the vocalist though. That one has a little bit of a feel like a dynamic mic into a PA system. The vocal performance trumps mic choice for this one though. Drums sound great to me, they're just roomy enough.

The mix has a good, live feel to it. Hats off to the band, good song and great performance of it.
Click to expand...


Thanks Man. :)

Its was a fun song to do. Glad you like the band, considering I'm half of the band, and all of the engineering crew :D

On the vocals: Damn! I WISH I would have done them with a dynamic mic! Would have made life easier. Instead I used an AKG C414. It gave a very clean, airy, vocal tone but without any grit. Too smooth

To me, the song being about an older man telling the young buck about the pitfalls of women, it needed some rasp and maturity in the vocal.
The 414 was way too clean and had a lot of top end sparkle. The voice sounded like that of a young man, but the performance was good so I decided to work with it.

Used lots of 1176 style compression and some delay to thicken it up. The compression in a few stages beefed up the vocal quite a bit without getting too much pumping going on.


In General, thanks to ALL for your comments and listening. I'm going to bow out and stop participating in this thread. W'ell let it drop off the front page and let it die out.

I'll be back when keyboards get recorded and I do a final mix.

See you then! Cheers.
:D
 
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The vocals sound nice on their own, but too loud and overpowering the mix. Also, they should be eq'ed to sit better in the mix and some reverb on them would help.
 
RFR said:
Thanks for the listen. ;) Yeah, it could still use a bit of work.




Thanks Man. :)

Its was a fun song to do. Glad you like the band, considering I'm half of the band, and all of the engineering crew :D

On the vocals: Damn! I WISH I would have done them with a dynamic mic! Would have made life easier. Instead I used an AKG C414. It gave a very clean, airy, vocal tone but without any grit. Too smooth

To me, the song being about an older man telling the young buck about the pitfalls of women, it needed some rasp and maturity in the vocal.
The 414 was way too clean and had a lot of top end sparkle. The voice sounded like that of a young man, but the performance was good so I decided to work with it.

Used lots of 1176 style compression and some delay to thicken it up. The compression in a few stages beefed up the vocal quite a bit without getting too much pumping going on.
Click to expand...

Somehow I totally missed this reply when it happened. I'm surprised to hear that was a C414. It really did sound like a dynamic mic to me, something about the low-mids sounding less compressed. I don't quite have the engineering vocabulary to express the quality that I heard. My suggestion would have been to compress it more, but you've got that covered!

That mic was on my shortlist when I thought that my main LDC had crapped out and I thought I needed to upgrade. I still eye them sometimes. But I have a feeling that buying one would lead to buying two so I could also use them as drum overheads. And I need $2K worth of mics like I need a hole in my head :D
 
Yup if you have one, you gotta have two.
But then I'm a big fan of them, and they have multiple uses.
Come to think ot it, I have pairs of a lot of stuff.
2 computers, 2 daws, 2 console, 2 sets of ns10s, etc, etc. Lol
 
I thought I had commented on this one. ?
Really like the last mix. Still think you could use a bit of B3/Leslie in the Pre/Chorus parts.
Song is sharp and clear and hitting on all 12 cylinders! Great tones, great vocal, great performances. All good. :)
 
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