The Waiting Room (or: Help!)

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groucho

groucho

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Well, I've been having all sorts of problems with this one. Starting with the fact that I got sick in the middle of it and recorded the vocals when my voice was even more thrashed than usual. Plus, mixing when your head is stuffed up is sort of an excercise in insanity.

Anyway, I need some fresh ears, so:

http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=1880&alid=-1


thanks folks,
Chris
 
First of all, Chris, you have a great first name. I feel that Mixmkr will agree with me on this.

Man, this is kinda' like wolfman Jack met up with Elvis Costello and Dwight Yokum, with splash of The Derailers thrown in for good measure.

RECORDING - I'm heavily medicated right now, so all I'll say is I love harmonicas and the mix sounds fine to me. Other people are gonna' bitch about the low end being heavy...but it sounds fucking GREAT to me. By the way, I'm deaf. Is that you on the harp???? Very cool stuff.

SONGWRITING - I like the changeups a ton. I'd have killed for a careening chorus in there somewhere. All I'm saying is that 5+ minutes is kinda' long for a song that doesn't have a chorus.

There are some killer lines in here. I chew on my solitude every chance I get, my friend. Take care.

[edit] I neglected to mention that I like this a ton. I do
 
chrisharris said:
First of all, Chris, you have a great first name. I feel that Mixmkr will agree with me on this.

Man, this is kinda' like wolfman Jack met up with Elvis Costello and Dwight Yokum, with splash of The Derailers thrown in for good measure.

RECORDING - I'm heavily medicated right now, so all I'll say is I love harmonicas and the mix sounds fine to me. Other people are gonna' bitch about the low end being heavy...but it sounds fucking GREAT to me. By the way, I'm deaf. Is that you on the harp???? Very cool stuff.

SONGWRITING - I like the changeups a ton. I'd have killed for a careening chorus in there somewhere. All I'm saying is that 5+ minutes is kinda' long for a song that doesn't have a chorus.

There are some killer lines in here. I chew on my solitude every chance I get, my friend. Take care.

[edit] I neglected to mention that I like this a ton. I do
Click to expand...

Hey Chris (right back atcha bout the name:)), thanks for the comments. Yep, me on all instruments as usual. I thought alot about the "chorus" issue. But in the end, the plain dirty fact was: I couldn't think of one.:) Solved that dilemma pretty quick...

I've finally accepted that I just like more low end than a lot of people - both in stuff I listen to and stuff I record. But I still like to hear from people about it. If a bunch of people agree that something seems too "low-endy" chances are they've got a point. And of course, with the head cold, EVERYTHING was low end. I'm mixing BLIND here, folks....:)

That's why I love this board.

thanks again,
Chris
 
Followup Question

How did you get those cool harmonica sounds. I'm actually looking for a pretty detailed response here, so none of this "I drank some NyQuil and just WENT for it." Even if that's what happened, this is a GREAT harp sound. Did you record it through an amp? I use a harmonica live some, but I've been able to get it to sound 1/10th as cool on tape as it does on your song or as cool as it does coming out of floor monitors.

Thanks,
-The Other Chris
 
Re: Followup Question

chrisharris said:
How did you get those cool harmonica sounds. I'm actually looking for a pretty detailed response here, so none of this "I drank some NyQuil and just WENT for it." Even if that's what happened, this is a GREAT harp sound. Did you record it through an amp? I use a harmonica live some, but I've been able to get it to sound 1/10th as cool on tape as it does on your song or as cool as it does coming out of floor monitors.

Thanks,
-The Other Chris
Click to expand...


Hey, I'm kind of stoked you liked the harp sound because I'm really improvising with very little gear here, especially with the harp. Anyway, the chain of events was this:

I do all my tracking on the Boss BR532. So I just plugged an old Green Bullet mic into the guitar jack and dialed up one of the distortion presets intended for the guitar. Then played around with it for awhile, drank the Nyquil & went for it.

In mixing, added a very short delay to it, but otherwise no processing after the fact.

I'd sure as hell prefer an Astatic mic & a big old Fender blackface for recording harp, but I pawned all that gear years ago (don't ask). But the thing with recording harp is, you can really do some whacky experimenting and get some very workable sounds. I played a gig through a megaphone once that was recorded, & people kept asking me "what's that amp?"

Chris
 
Hey Chris,

Your stuff is always worth a listen. Great vocal and very rhythmical instrumental performance. Parts of the music reminded me of the band The Woodentops, if anyone remember them.

I think the song needs some kind of break or change, though. Not necessarily a chorus, but maybe something unexpected to keep the tension. The melody itself is not strong enough by it's own in my opinion and without the break/change the song seems a bit to long.

As for the low end I'd suggest a very gentle cut. It sounds really great, it's just a tiny bit to booming - at least it is on my stereo.

But, overall, it's a very nice recording. Remarkably vivid.

Best regards
Erik
 
Nice vibe to the song. Very distinctive voice. What kind of effects are on it? A word here and there tends to get muffled. Harmonica is cool. The reverb is nice there (odd for me to say because I generally don't prefer heavy verb - but it works for me here).

Maybe bring up the bass a notch? Hard for me to tell for sure - I'm listening on headphones. I gotta say I'm not a big fan of changeups. At least not very often. They didn't do it for me here. Sorry.

Trip...
 
TripleM said:
Nice vibe to the song. Very distinctive voice. What kind of effects are on it? A word here and there tends to get muffled. Harmonica is cool. The reverb is nice there (odd for me to say because I generally don't prefer heavy verb - but it works for me here).

Maybe bring up the bass a notch? Hard for me to tell for sure - I'm listening on headphones. I gotta say I'm not a big fan of changeups. At least not very often. They didn't do it for me here. Sorry.

Trip...
Click to expand...

And we have a vote more *more* low end...:)

Thanks for taking the time to comment TripleM. Reverb-wise I was doing some experimenting here. Technically used very little straight reverb (it was mostly delay effects) and very little done to individual tracks. I did most of the processing to the mix as a whole (which is not always the way I do it) but I was trying to get a kind of murky, blended-together sound. Trouble is, you sacrifice clarity of individual instruments when you do that & I was having a hellofa time getting the right balance.

Yeah, SONG-wise this is far from onea my faves, but MIX-wise it's one I had a lot of trouble with so I thought it would be a good one to get feedback. 'Preciate it.

Chris
 
Cool voice you've got there man..................nice energy to the song...............seems like I hear some timing issues here and there.....especially at the change-ups.....very cool harp, both playing and the sound....................nice.....I don't find it to have too much low-end...................really don't care for those long drum interludes between verses and rides, it seems to lose the drive....breaks it up too much....I don't find a need for a chorus either....sounds finished as it is but it could use a little more lead instrument hear and there, either more harp or some guitar rides.
 
Lt. Bob said:
Cool voice you've got there man..................nice energy to the song...............seems like I hear some timing issues here and there.....especially at the change-ups.....very cool harp, both playing and the sound....................nice.....I don't find it to have too much low-end...................really don't care for those long drum interludes between verses and rides, it seems to lose the drive....breaks it up too much....I don't find a need for a chorus either....sounds finished as it is but it could use a little more lead instrument hear and there, either more harp or some guitar rides.
Click to expand...

Funny you should mention that - I just went through and did some tightening up on the timing during the breaks & I was just considering the merits of adding a lead guitar in places. Also did some clearing up of the vox in a couple spots & tightened the bass sound a bit.

In case anyone's interested, the most recent version is at:



Maybe I'll do it over as a polka, with all accordians....

Chris
 
Hey Chris, liked the voice man. Thought the bass could of came up a tad. The drums sounded very good imo. Loved the harp, was that you also? Really dug this man, makes me wanna go hit a few clubs! Thanks, really enjoyed it.
 
Interesting tune! Has some cool rhythmic things happening.

You have great vocals. It kind of sounded like the entire mix could come up a bit especially the bass and guitar...

I really liked the harp work on this!

Very nice job and interesting writing. :)
 
Thanks guys (assuming you're both guys...:)) And I agree with both your comments about levels.

I'm telling you, this song's mix has become something of an obsession with me. It rarely takes me more than 2 or 3 attempts before I feel like I've "nailed" a mix. I like to do one and move on. I've lost track of how many "final" mixes I've done of this one. I keep messing with the bass - just can't quite get it right.

I don't even like the damn song anymore! But I can't stop... !losing... my... mind...

"My name is Chris and I'm a mix-aholic..."

Chris
 
Originally posted by groucho I don't even like the damn song anymore! But I can't stop... !losing... my... mind...
[/B]
Click to expand...

Help! Starting to... talk like... William... Shatner!! :) :p

Interesting delay on the clean guitar sound... Louis Armstrong and what's his name.... Billy Gibbons? Sort of like ZZTop unplugged...

The stereo field is .....W---I---D---E.....

hmmm... a better vocal mic, or signal path for the vocal recording would help a bit...

Kick drum click sounds good, but needs more thump sound... no bass in the arrangement? Either that, or it's very subtle... Oh, there it is...

Good drumming... I like these type of blues songs... some more up front drums... (just a little bit) would help, but that could just be a preference...

Nice mouth harps...

Truthfully, this mix could work really well as-is... a true bass sound might be something worth trying (or just pull the nearly non-existent bass sound up)...


Chad
 
participant said:

The stereo field is .....W---I---D---E.....

hmmm... a better vocal mic, or signal path for the vocal recording would help a bit...
Truthfully, this mix could work really well as-is... a true bass sound might be something worth trying (or just pull the nearly non-existent bass sound up)...


Chad
Click to expand...

Interesting that you mentioned the stereo field. Aside from copying the guitar, offsetting the copy by a little and panning the two hard left and hard right, everything else here was panned dead center. But I did do some experimenting with offsetting the delay channels to give it a wider feel.

Well, thanks again for all your comments folks. I think I'm done with this one now - the bass has been raised, the vocals cleared a bit.... I'm ready to call it a day.
(hopefully...)

Chris
 
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