Whisper - New DRY Vocal

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rayc

rayc

retroreprobate
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=8090878&q=hi
The above link will take you to a newer version of Whisper with vocals provided by our own Life Lyrics.
Recehelle provided the main & harmony vox for a mix that addresses the major concern of previous reviewers - the wet to tape original vocal.
I've used the Motown Octave Replacement process on the bass & cellos to provide more clarity & lew rumble.
12 string guitars are sweetened as per XLR's recommendation.
Any other ideas/comments?
There's a good chance I'll drop the 1st vocal verse & replace it with a guitar figure but that'll depend on Eric coming up with something.
Okey Dokey - have at it folk!
 
Ahhh, much nicer. Cheers to Rechelle. Nice harmonies. I'm glad you found an alternative to your 30 yr old cassette tape. It really makes a big difference. ;)

A couple of things stand out. I think the 12 string can come down a little. I'd like to see it balanced with the 6 string and be more symmetrical. If the 12 string is far to the left then the 6 string can go far to the right. Actually, I wouldn't hard pan either of the guitars, but I would hard pan the cello and violin.

And I know there's a bass in there somewhere, but I can only hear hints of it now and then.

peace.
 
I miss the rumble. The low end is kinda empty. And I don't hear anything using the +10,000hz zone...fret noise, string ping...nada: just everything packed into the mid mids.

Nits: the support is way thick, all the time. And the FX are garbling all the acoustic niceness. I think it would sound a lot better with about 1/2 the chordal blanket......and absolutely no phase/chorus FX, or whatever's causing the underwater effect on the strings/synth. It makes the song sound like what I hear when I have a bad cold and ear infection! Overwhelms the acoustics.

For reference, I'd suggest something like "Goin' to California" or the live version of "Landslide" ...delay and verb...clean woody parts, and lot's of space.

There's one other thing: the early departures on fretted changes is really noticeable...and hurts the time and tightness. There's no other punctuation for the time in the recording....all the other parts are stretchy largo-ish ...so the guit changes gotta be clean, on the beat, exact...un-erring 8ths. When the chords are lost early, the strum...which functions like HH's here...is dropped. An alternative would be to add some light drum kit...brushes-on-snare, fucci, or something. What is missing often, specifically, are the strums that occur on 'and' of 'four' in many measures: the anticipationary upbeat. It takes quick hands to hold for full duration, and find the next chord and hit the 'one' in the time of a 16th note...but it's essential, I think, it this partucular case...and generally, with strummed guitar parts. [and it's the #1 most irritating bad habit a guitar player can have....producers throw things when the guitar player does that. A couple of them hit me. I learned the hard way.]
 
Chilli,
thanks mate. the bass comes in about 1/2 way through then drops down a fair way through before resurrection towards the end. There are 2 x 12s hard panned but slightly differently EQ'd with a 6 classical up the middle. I agree that the 12s could come down a little. A drone cello is up the middle, it starts loud & then is pulled right back to just fill the bottom end until the last few bars. Another cello plays a string bass line up the middle & a final one plays little lines just off centre.
I'll do what I can about the imbalance - it doesn't show up in the wav - interesting artifact of MP3 compression I guess.
Jeff,
A freq analysis of the wav. is attached. The only constants in the track are the 12s. The drone goes up & down, the bass comes in & out & the cellos doon't play constantly either: one begins after the 1st change the other comes in every now & then. The apparent thickness must be the 12s dominating. I sliced out the most obvious few string pings because they were from the classical & were VERY loud - I didn't want to EQ them away so CHOPPED instead!
Re the chording - hmm, I know there's a little latency issue that I've not corrected but you're not referring to that. I've spent so many years with the basic guitar/bass/vocal arrangement of this song (33 years) that it all sounds right to me. Your fresh ears will make Eric & I listen anew. The only FX, other than a very, very light dusting of glaceverb, are on the drone 'cello - I had hoped it would make a difference in & out of the mix. Re the lack or brightness - I may add some mandolin to freshen this up if a bit of EQing doesn't do the trick. The bass end (drone, bass & cellos) has a -6 notch at 100 balanced by a 5db peak at 200 - so I'm surprise it's AWOL. I know the MP3 compression slices stuff off pretty fiercely at both ends esp at about 18khz so thats not the entire answer. I did try adding some sparkle to the wav (+2 @1k, +4 @2k, +5 @ 4k, +6 @ 8k & 3 @16 with a wide Q) & that helped some but also pushed things into clip territory.
I fiddle with the mix & main bus EQ. Thanks!
 

Attachments

  • whisper freq.webp
    whisper freq.webp
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My knowledge of recording is new and limited; but I note that between th peak @ 300 and 20K, there's a 12db drop. According to my surveys of pro work, the drop off is more like -3 to -6db. And cello and guitar have strong
representation down to 100, usually. The shot actually describes almost exactly what I heard....but I don't know if it's an average, or a momentary picture...so I might not be seeing that at all.

Did you compress the 12str rythm guit? I might try using the original unsullied track...the strum transients will be louder, the droning decay faster...maybe leave space for the other drones, and help moderate wave interference which might play a part in the bubbling effect, if not a product of conversion artifact????

The cello really doesn't sound like a cello with whatever effect it has....

Mando turns everything it touches to gold! IMHO. And this one leaves a lot of play-space for one...and it'd mask the holes on the '& of 4's,' I reckon.

Good luck. I bow to your superior knowledge.
 
Nice mix Ray - Recehelle good job on the vocals - The cello does a bit of masking of the vocals - but only at the beginning. As the song progresses it settles nicely. The dry vocals are working surprisingly well - I'm a reverb junkie but this one works. :cool::cool::cool::cool:
 
Hey Ray, I see that you have both channels of your wav file completely selected and the spectrum is showing us an average of the complete song. I think this misrepresents what is really happening. It's averaging parts of the song where the bass is and is not present. If you will, select only a portion of both tracks, like 10 seconds worth in an area where all your instruments are playing. I believe you'll see your new spectrum will still show you don't have enough bass freq coming through. But instead of numbers, trust your ears.

cheers,
 
I didn't hear the original, and I was too busy enjoying the tune to get nit-nutty, but in very general terms, I found the lows wanting, there was a sense of artificially augmented presence in the upper mids, and concerted efforts to place things in the soundfield... For some reason though, even though I tend to be one of those deconstruct guys; I just wanted to listen to the vocals and enjoy the trance it was weaving. So I did. :) There was an organic honesty to the music itself that caused me to suspend "analysis mode"
 
I didnt hear the original either, so I cant compare the two. I like the tune. I did here a few clicks in the beginning and middle. Can you hear them or is it me :) . As far as overal eq goes, Im listening on some cheap headphones, so I cant give an accurate opinion on that. But it does seem to need a little more low end.
 
This is much better Ray. The mix sounds a little crammed though. No bottom end and a lot of midrange fighting going on. Do some panning bro! :)
 
Hiya ray!

This does sound substantially different and overall much clearer than the soundclick version I'd heard previously (the one with 30 year cycle after the title). I'm listening on a laptop and it looks as though you've already gotten some pretty specific advice, so I will avoid trying to get too in depth at the risk of leading you astray.

Big improvement over the first mix of this I heard though...:)
 
Very cool collaboration! LiLy's vocals are great and Ray's work on the track shows. I dig it!:)
 
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