This is some good stuff.

  • Thread starter Thread starter chessrock
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chessrock

Banned
(Patting myself on the back)

This was thrown together a couple days ago. Total time: 1 hour. One person, a track at a time.

Yup. One hour. throw in an extra fifteen minutes worth of my tweaking (some compression and limiting on vocals and bass + reverb on voice and accoustic) and that's about 1 1/4 hours. Not to mention it was tracked with probably the same stuff a lot of you are probably using.

Yea, yea, okay, I know the drums are canned and they sound crappy. They're there as a click track. This is strictly pre-production work - I've been finding a nitch with that lately. Anyway, he was so pleased, he's tracking the "real" version here in a few weeks. I won the business. Yay. Anyway, I'm sure I can get a decent drum sound. I've gotten great ones in the past - as long as the drummer and kit were good. I'll post the finished version when we're done.

Name of the tune is "Walk like a Target."

http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=1298&alid=-1

One person. 6 tracks. 1 hour.
 
pretty nice sounding for preproduction.

Nice balance definitely. It kinda grew on me, but the first few seconds, I thought that the space was suspect.

THis is a nitpick, but listening to the stereo image, the guitar on the left seems VERY far away from the singer for some reason. Also, the harmony vox sounds like its right on top of the lead singer, in the stereo field that is. Maybe slight panning would be in order.

I like the high end sheen on the vox. Sweet.

funk on!

thats a nice song BTW
 
Thanks so much for the quick reply, Cyan.

I'm going to have to keep those suggestions in mind when we do the final mix. I think the hard panned guitar is growing on me, though. I like it on the monitors a lot better than with the headphones, though.

I don't think my client is going to like the sheen on the vocals. I noticed that, too. He's pretty much anti-sheen, and prefers dark-sounding everything. I happen to like it, though. I used to use an NT2, and it had a little too much sheen for my taste, but the Marshall v93's is much smoother by far, and the mic costs half as much.

I'm still floored by the fact that we got that guitar sound out of a V-amp. I might actually keep some of those tracks around and blend them in with the mic'ed amp . . . hell, I may just use them alone. :)

Anyone thinking Hammond B3 like I am ?
 
I like the pre-production concept. You get the essence of the song there and then you can get ideas for what you want to do with the finished tracks. The recording itself sounds good.

I would like to hear some extreme sonic contrast between sections. Part of that will be supplied by real drums. Using a Hammond in some sections would be cool too. I could also go for some acoustic as the dominant guitar sound in some spots, while using the electric in the rest. Those were the things that struck me on first listen. Post the final tune and then we can see where you took it.
 
Considering what you had to work with and how quickly you put it together it quite good.

Decent song, I wish it had a chorus with a little more kick. I was waiting for it to bust loose, but it never did.

I think the vocalist(s) are not exactly the best. I didn't think they always blended real well. Some EQ may help with that. But not a lot of power in the voices. Thought I heard some timing issues on the harmonies - but it's likely a result of putting it together so fast.

I'll bet the completed version is considerably better.
 
Chess,

Did you do any EQ on the vox with the V93? Singer may not have the best voice, but that mic seems to work well for him.
 
I've kind of been noticing that it works well on everybody. Adam's voice definitely souns the best on the sm7 though. He hates "sheeny" or polished-sounding mics. :) I just switched on the bass rolloff, did a small shelving cut below 200 hz, and that's that. No de-essing. At times, I hear something that sounds like siblance, but it's too smooth to really bother me.

I've been finding that pre-production suits me well. I've always been the brain-storming type. And it's fun. I just have people try everything, and later on we sift through what we like and don't like. The harmonies on that tune were my ideas, as are some of the little guitar bits . . . and that's also me on the harmonies on the last chorus. If he decides later he doesn't like them, we give them the axe, and no hard feelings. :) I really think pre-production is a function/nitch where a home recordist can thrive if he's creative and patient.

I can see someone attracting some big-name clients who might prefer something simpler and less-expensive for song development - without the pressure of being on the $60/hour studio clock.
 
Nice melody but I cant figure out which way the lyrics are going.For/against palestinian suicide bombings?It's vague.
 
Yea, neither can I. There is a lyric in it that says: "The plane lands . . . kiss the ground of the home land." Then he talks about hotels, grocery stores, etc. which could be a reference to the types of places these people are targeting. Also the lyric "gunned in a breadline."

Still, I don't really see it very well either. :) He is jewish, which pretty much takes care of whether he's for or against.

I see one of my fans gave me 1 star. :) Thanks, whoever that was. I guess I don't have to be too much of a detective to figure that out, though.
 
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I think for your time limits, things worked out fairly good. That's the positive on this number, and hopefully things will just get better and better with this.

things I didn't care for...

the snare got to me fairly quick, as did the repetitive, simple beat...no fills, nada...just a small variation on the boom/chick...

The vocals sound amaturish, and like a rough take, and needed some feeling.

things seemed panned kinda wide with the guitars.

the vocals all seemed on top of each other...and some panning could have help better here..imo.

the bass was 'down there' and kinda boomy and basically root/eight notes the entire time.

no solo?

no bridge section?

a tad bit on the long side for a pop style tune like this one.

Let me repeat...1hr = good, however.
:)
 
yeah...for one hour not bad at all (damn good)...esp. for preproduction.

V93 does sound nice...I didn't particularly like his voice - but hey...thats not the point is it??
 
He's actually pretty good when we're not just trying to bang out a McDemo in an hour.

I'm really excited about testing my drums theory. :) I've always believed that, besides the vocals, the single most important element that separates professional from home mixes is how good the drums sound . . . and how they interact with the bass guitar.

For whatever reason, they actually make all the other tracks sound better -- including the vocals (I get the feeling that you'll also start to understand why I have the tracks panned funny the way they are, and why the voice is eq-ed how it is, and it will make sense). What I want to do is record all the tracks over again, but have the drums play to the same beat. Then I want to mix a version where I combine the new drums with these old tracks I have posted now. My feeling is it will sound like a whole new mix and probably 10 X better, just because of the good drums. Right now, what you hear is a sampled click track, basically. Should be interesting.
 
Agree with alot of what has already been said:

Guit on left seems a bit too distant,

Harmony vocals are frigged up,

Drum track blow (though I know it's pretty much thrown together)

One thing, I think in general the left side of the mix overpowers the right, prolly just the left guit being so far out there, I dunno.


That said it's basically really tight for the amount of time it took, sounds pretty solid, am anxious to hear the finished product.



Laj
 
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