Your help requested on this new tune...

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mprediger

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Hey guys....this is my first post here. I recently recorded this new song and I'm trying to learn how to master my songs so they sound full and everything can be heard properly. This is a darker acoustic piece I recorded with Sonar 2.2XL with the following:

Mic - MXL V67 (vocals)
Presonus Blue Tube preamp - acoustic guitar and vocals
Ovation AE

There are 3 guitar tracks, 2 vocal tracks and a drum track here. Please take a listen and let me know where improvements are needed and what I can do. I'm relatively new to the whole recording process, so anything I can learn would be great. Thanks a lot in advance.

Also, if the attachment doesn't work, here's the link to get to it directly:



Thanks,
Michael
 
Downloaded last night & listening at work on headphones.

Hey…this sounds pretty damn good to me. I really don’t have any helpful mix comments. You have a good voice for this style and the playing sounds pretty darn good to me. Are you planning on putting some more instruments in here? Is there going to be some sort of breakdown or something between 3:10 and 3:14? That silence isn’t working for me and it sounds like you left some room in there for other solos & stuff. Actually, it wouldn’t hurt the song IMO just to end there at 3:10.

Nice work.
 
Thanks....

Hey Jagular,

Thanks for the compliments....I did intend to put a bridge section in there where the blank spot is now...sorry, I forgot to mention that! :-) I am kinda happy with the vocals, but there are sections that I'd like to re-record...I can't help it, I'm anal that way.

I did want to put some more guitar tracks in there as it sounds a bit empty to me right now. But it was originally written for a single acoustic guitar player to play and sing.
 
Well done! Sounds like you did a great job making the most of what you have.
 
more details please:)

Guitar direct? Mic?
Specific Effects used/compression?

Sounds good by the way.

Andre
 
Thank you Jake....I'm trying to learn all I can about the recording and mixing process so I can turn out my EP and have it be a good quality recording.

Bahris....my initial post shows the gear I used to make the recording. The Ovation acoustic/electric was run through a Presonus Blue Tube and not mic'd. The vocals were also run through that unit, with slightly more gain and less drive.

All the mixing was done in Sonar and the vocals use compression, of course, about 2:1. The verses just have a little reverb, the prechorus uses an effect from Cakewalk's Project 5 (Tempo Delay I believe...I'll have to double check), the chorus section uses FxDelay on the vocals with a damper reverb setting. Hope that is what you were looking for.

Michael
 
Too much reverb and toys.

Too much reverb on the drums in the beginning, they sound like they are in a big huge cardboard box ... a little. Snare and metal could be crisper, but they are OK if that's what you want, darkness.

There is not enough headroom for the vocals in the very beginning, although this beginning is filled with tension and can be exciting, we must hear the lead instrument and the lead instrument is .... you. Not the guitars, not the drums it's you.

Your voice is good, let us hear and understand the words please. Way to much reverb and delay on your voice.

Do not make the vocal track 'louder', the vocal track is an 'acoustic' instrument, you must 'create headroom' for the vocal. You must bring the other instruments down 'around' the vocal.

I'm expecting Clint Eastwood to walk out of the mists gnawing on a cigar at any moment here, and I like that affect, it's actually very 'Americana'. This is kind of a country tune, I could put a wicked country type fiddle in the background with some metal type presence effect on it.

At 0:45 you bring the Harmony Backup vocals in ??? Well, there's too much effects on these and they are mush. Harmony vocals are GOLD, treat them with the greatest respect and let them shine, these sound good too, don't cheat us of the most important element in the mix at that point, the human vocals done so nicely, don't hide them with effects.

Anyone can do a cheap tune with lots of effects, you can do better, you actually have good tracks, you are hiding them with the toys in SONAR.

Good, clean, well performed tracks in SONAR are what SONAR does best, so let SONAR do it's job here, don't use SONAR'S toys to hide what is there.

At 1:58 the levels are a little better on the backup vocals ... but to much effects.

When you use reverb on each individual track, it all builds up into mush if you are not really, really tasteful and use it sparingly.

Different reverbs on the different tracks is cool but sparingly only. If you use it very, very sparingly on individual tracks, then you can add one reverb to the whole mix at the end, in the mastering process.

Seems like the song ends at 3:10 ? with no fadeout ? just kerplunk it ends ?

When it picks back up after this, those harmony backup vocals are slathered in effects ... to much, you sound better than that, I know you do.

A fast fade at the end please, or hold the notes out for as long as you can and draw a slow fade with a volume envelope in SONAR.

This song has great potential and is nice as is, but to much effects.
 
Whoa... you got the "Creed" voice, eh? Not bad. A LOT... and I mean A LOT of reverb, here. Pre-delay settings... you familiar with how to adjust those? That's the amount of time the "dry" signal is allowed to pass through, before reverb is added.

You could adjust that to make it so the tracks don't step on each other, and blur together so much. Anywhere from 50ms to 150ms predelay could clear everything up... try that (check your documentation... on your reverb unit/FX plugin literature)...

A simple composition... with a simple drumbeat... and it works... but the reverb doesn't quite sound natural here, yet... adjust the predelay for starters... see if that doesn't tighten things up.



Chad
 
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