When Does the Sun Rise?

[Tadpui]

You all were so helpful on my last mix (which I'm still tweaking based on your feedback, and hope to have a revision within the week) that I wanted to post this work-in-progress and see where you all think it needs to go from here.

My listening environment isn't treated, so bass frequencies are particularly tough for me to gauge. I've gone back and forth between my monitors, my home theater, and my computer's 4.1 system and I still can't quite tell if the bass/kick are too much or too little.

This was a lot of fun to make and is outside of my usual downtempo fare. Any suggestions are welcome.

 

[dobro]

Vocal up a dB. (If you do that, bring up the bv likewise.) Like the tune a lot. Lightning Seeds coulda done this one and liked it. Me too.

 

[TripleM]

I liked the song.

The guitars and drums weren't totally locked on with each other during a couple of bars in the intro.

The vocals sounded a little "hollow", like they were sung through an empty paper towel roll. But it sounded cool.

I'm hearing some stray percussive sounds here and there in the first 30 seconds or so. Some are down the center, some are left and some are right. Hearing it again after 1:30 or so.

Lead guitar sounded very cool.

 

[Tadpui]

Vocal up a dB. (If you do that, bring up the bv likewise.) Like the tune a lot. Lightning Seeds coulda done this one and liked it. Me too.

Gotcha on the vocal levels. I've gone back and forth with them, up and down. I'll kick them up a notch or two and see how it goes. Thanks!

I liked the song.

The guitars and drums weren't totally locked on with each other during a couple of bars in the intro.

The vocals sounded a little "hollow", like they were sung through an empty paper towel roll. But it sounded cool.

I'm hearing some stray percussive sounds here and there in the first 30 seconds or so. Some are down the center, some are left and some are right. Hearing it again after 1:30 or so.

Lead guitar sounded very cool.

Thanks for the listen and comments. I think the stray percussive sounds are from the hard-panned doubled acoustic guitar parts, where I probably whacked the strings a few times while strumming. I think I'm going to retrack those and use my cheap SDC instead of my "new toy" LDC. Hopefully a retrack of those will help tighten things up a bit, timing-wise as well. They were the first things I recorded, and they were set to a badly-timed scratch track.

The hollow vocal sound is something I'm struggling with lately. Maybe my LDC isn't right for my voice. Or maybe I'm setting the HPF too high and shedding too much LF detail, or it could be the freebie compressors I'm using (Classic Compressor or Blockfish) adding too much color. But I totally agree with you. I'll play around this weekend and see if I can find something that agrees with my kind of nasaly midrangey voice.

Thanks!

 

[TripleM]

I can understand that you wouldn't want that vocal sound all the time. I wouldn't either. But on this song i thought it was cool. As a test I'd remove the HP filter entirely. I'd only use it on a vocal if there is some problem you're hearing - like a low end rumbling. I wouldn't use it to, for example, create space for other tracks.

and yeah I'd retrack the acoustic to get rid of those thwacks.

 

[dobro]

Gotcha on the vocal levels. I've gone back and forth with them, up and down. I'll kick them up a notch or two and see how it goes. Thanks!

Something I've taken on recently is to make variations of a mix, variations usually of level (but it might be something like verb or compression as well) on the mix's most important element (often the vocal or an instrumental solo). So for instance, get the mix the way I think it should be, and then do a 'vocal level up' variation and a 'vocal level down' variation. Pulling them out weeks later often reveals the one you like best.

 

[rayc]

I do like Lightning Seeds.
Yep, this has the potential for a lush, textured mix.
the song is really good.
I'm unconvinced by the bassline though - it's tone & arrangement left me a little underwhelmed.

 

[Tadpui]

I've been totally occupied with work and the monumental task of painting my living room so I haven't been back at the mixing desk in a few days. You know how it goes, real life and all...

I can understand that you wouldn't want that vocal sound all the time. I wouldn't either. But on this song i thought it was cool. As a test I'd remove the HP filter entirely. I'd only use it on a vocal if there is some problem you're hearing - like a low end rumbling. I wouldn't use it to, for example, create space for other tracks.

and yeah I'd retrack the acoustic to get rid of those thwacks.

Thanks for the advice, I'll see where I've got that HPF set and try getting rid of it. Maybe that'll help the hollow vocal sound.

Something I've taken on recently is to make variations of a mix, variations usually of level (but it might be something like verb or compression as well) on the mix's most important element (often the vocal or an instrumental solo). So for instance, get the mix the way I think it should be, and then do a 'vocal level up' variation and a 'vocal level down' variation. Pulling them out weeks later often reveals the one you like best.

I've just been doing incremental mixdowns, but I like your idea. Take a few of those things I'm not sure about and do specific mixdowns for comparison. Thanks!

I do like Lightning Seeds.
Yep, this has the potential for a lush, textured mix.
the song is really good.
I'm unconvinced by the bassline though - it's tone & arrangement left me a little underwhelmed.

Thanks for the listen and comments, ray. I'm definitely a guitarist first, and I just play around on the bass. I just got a new bass, my first with active pickups. I've tried every which way that I can think of to record this thing and nothing is really working out. It comes out boomy, or flubby, or too noisy, or any number of other troubles. This track was with it in active mode, direct into an RNP. That thing is compressed, then EQd, then limited, just to control the damn thing enough to make it audible in the mix without blowing everything up every few notes. Those giant-assed strings throw me for a loop.

I'll sit down and see what I can do to improve the bass arrangement, and add a little interest to it. I'm certainly open to any suggestions.

 

[rayc]

Have a look around and see if you can score a Behringer BDI21. The thing is VERY cheap and actually very good. With the blend dial max'd, (it's actually a tube emulation dial but they were afraid to label it that), and your own tweak on presence drive etc you'll get a solid tone that a little compression will make quite good.
Running a passive bass I personally I cut 4 Db at 100hz, boost 5Db at 200 and add a peak ot 3KHz until the top end shows through and gives some directional cues. All of that with a quite narrow Q - in Reaper about 0.39.
That gets me by most often but it varied a little from mix to mix obvioulsy.
The lines you have at present for the bass are a fine start & the variation you throw in just before the solo helps heaps but I think the occasional walk or skip to the next chord would break up the da da demness of the bass line and give some emphasis to the virtue of what you have started with. Similarly if you changed for the chorus or even a single verse & played the note then octave for the same pattern you're using that'd add interest as well. It doesn't require constant change juct a bit of variation.

 

[robgreen]

This is a really nice tune - I've listened a few times and your voice sounds perfect for the style and the guitar leads are cool.

I agree with ray that the bass could do with a little more presence. I think the line itself is fine, but it's lost too much character in the processing. I think ray's advice for it is really good - I tend to DI bass myself as it seems to keep some of the boomier frequencies under control than mic-ing, and then go through a similar EQ process. I find the really boomy frequency is usually around 110hz, but you can really hone in using a very high and narrow Q boost and sweeping the frequency band until you find the troublesome point. Then you turn the boost into a narrow cut at that point. Gets the boom under control without having to cut too broadly and losing the character.

Really like the song and performance though

 

[Tadpui]

Rayc, thanks for taking the time to explain, that was very helpful. I hi-passed the bass around 80-100 HZ to take out the super low frequency noise, and low-passed it up around 1K or so. I'll rethink that so I get a little bit of the character of the bass back instead of just the fundamentals.

That Behri unit has cropped up a few times as I've shopped for a bass DI, and it seems to get very good reviews for the price. I was shopping for a SansAmp when I first saw that unit. I'll definitely put that on the shopping list, although it may have to wait until xmas. I think that anything designed to shape a bass will be better than just running it direct, as my results thus far seem to support.

Thanks again, man.

 

[Tadpui]

This is a really nice tune - I've listened a few times and your voice sounds perfect for the style and the guitar leads are cool.

I agree with ray that the bass could do with a little more presence. I think the line itself is fine, but it's lost too much character in the processing. I think ray's advice for it is really good - I tend to DI bass myself as it seems to keep some of the boomier frequencies under control than mic-ing, and then go through a similar EQ process. I find the really boomy frequency is usually around 110hz, but you can really hone in using a very high and narrow Q boost and sweeping the frequency band until you find the troublesome point. Then you turn the boost into a narrow cut at that point. Gets the boom under control without having to cut too broadly and losing the character.

Really like the song and performance though

Hey rob, thanks for the listen. I got frustrated with this bass track and ended up squashing the crap out of it with a compressor, limiter, and a HPF. I was just happy to get it to a somewhat consistent level and attack that I overlooked the part about having it actually sound like a stringed instrument still

I'll revisit it and see what I can do. I have a feeling that simply practicing the bass line more, so that I can play it with more consistent attack, will allow me to back off on the compression squishing enough to let the instrument itself show through instead of the sine-wave-like sound I ended up with here. Thanks!

 

[dobro]

And I thought you were aiming for that sound. When people challenge a sound you come up with, just say 'It's pop' and all is forgiven. Maybe you can use the track you got, though. Try a 20 ms attack and a 70 ms release and then tweak from there. Add some distortion. Try a boost around 450 or maybe 1000.

And then record it again.

 

[fakas]

Hi, nice track.
I'm listening in my laptop with medium-cheap headphones so maybe i can be wrong in my opinions, i'll check it later in my monitors anyway.
For now i like the darkness of the overall sound.
The verse guitar on the right side seems decoupled from the rest of the instrumental and a little bit to harsh and seems it has a too much long reverb.
Maybe the snare could have less tail, maybe a little compression could make it better and a bit more dry and in your face (short plate reverb maybe).
Bass seems to hide the kick. i'd give it a bit more fingers on bass (boost maybe around 1000 to 2000Hz).
i'd lower the solo guitar 1 or 2dbs.
Anyway nive overall sound and mix and some of opinions are just personal taste!

 

[DavidK]

Very nice, very catchy. I would suggest working on the background vocals. They can be louder and a little more thought out. When they are parallel 5ths, it really isn't working. A combination of 3rds, 6ths, etc will probably work better than parallel 5ths. Nice tune.