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My, "Hold On You" (is tenuous)
#1
OK,
Considering the limited number of tracks involved here, this popular gem was more complicated than it appeared.

I took my primary key on this from the compression of the slide guitar, which for me, held the most flavor in the song. Since it had a a lot of delay with either a gate or a heavy handed razor blade at the end of the envelope, I ended up compressing the hell out of almost every other instrument. To my surprise, it seemed to work making it easier to place everything against the slide. I added very limited EQ to things to either bring out tone or to make the ensemble parts work tighter together. I buss'd the acoustic and electric guitars together and compressed the buss, placed the drums and the bass together in a buss and compressed that, and Glued the vocals down. The slide needed no more compression so I placed it into a big room so it would lay behind the vocals. In the mastering stage I added even more compression and gain with broad swipes of EQ to make it listen better at various levels.

Like I said, more complicated than it appeared.

I hope you enjoy it and will add your comments.


.mp3    James May - Hold On You.mp3 --  (Download: 3.08 MB)


PreSonus Studio One DAW
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#2
(03-02-2016, 06:06 PM)Mixinthecloud Wrote: OK,
Considering the limited number of tracks involved here, this popular gem was more complicated than it appeared.

I took my primary key on this from the compression of the slide guitar, which for me, held the most flavor in the song. Since it had a a lot of delay with either a gate or a heavy handed razor blade at the end of the envelope, I ended up compressing the hell out of almost every other instrument. To my surprise, it seemed to work making it easier to place everything against the slide. I added very limited EQ to things to either bring out tone or to make the ensemble parts work tighter together. I buss'd the acoustic and electric guitars together and compressed the buss, placed the drums and the bass together in a buss and compressed that, and Glued the vocals down. The slide needed no more compression so I placed it into a big room so it would lay behind the vocals. In the mastering stage I added even more compression and gain with broad swipes of EQ to make it listen better at various levels.

Like I said, more complicated than it appeared.

I hope you enjoy it and will add your comments.

From your description, I was predisposed to thinking I wasn't going to like it due to all the compression. Instead, I feel that, for the most part, it works pretty well. The exception being the amount of compression on bass and drums, which seems to weaken their impact. I wonder how it would sound if you left everything else as is but made the bass and drums considerably more dynamic?
James May
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#3
<<<From your description, I was predisposed to thinking I wasn't going to like it due to all the compression. Instead, I feel that, for the most part, it works pretty well. The exception being the amount of compression on bass and drums, which seems to weaken <<<their impact. I wonder how it would sound if you left everything else as is but made the bass and drums considerably more dynamic?

I'll give it a good shot James. Keep an ear out for it.
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#4
Hello.. did you use reverb on the bass? At the beginning of the song I hear resonance in the background. I don't know what it is but is ambiance and it sounds like low freq. I could be wrong as I'm currently listening on new monitors. Only thing I can think of is a reverb either on the bass.. or on a guitar but the feedback on it is too much and it overwelms the background.

again. I could be wrong.

Saludos! Smile
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#5
(18-02-2016, 01:04 AM)Mixinthecloud Wrote: <<<From your description, I was predisposed to thinking I wasn't going to like it due to all the compression. Instead, I feel that, for the most part, it works pretty well. The exception being the amount of compression on bass and drums, which seems to weaken <<<their impact. I wonder how it would sound if you left everything else as is but made the bass and drums considerably more dynamic?

I'll give it a good shot James. Keep an ear out for it.

OK James,
I kept the same approach, basically but took the bass out of the room and rebalanced the kick within the drums and the character of the drums all together. let me know what you think.


.mp3    James May - Hold On You.mp3 --  (Download: 3.08 MB)


PreSonus Studio One DAW
[email protected]
Reply
#6
(18-02-2016, 02:13 AM)Shul Wrote: Hello.. did you use reverb on the bass? At the beginning of the song I hear resonance in the background. I don't know what it is but is ambiance and it sounds like low freq. I could be wrong as I'm currently listening on new monitors. Only thing I can think of is a reverb either on the bass.. or on a guitar but the feedback on it is too much and it overwelms the background.

again. I could be wrong.

Saludos! Smile

Then again, you could be right.
PreSonus Studio One DAW
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#7
I think this 2nd version works pretty well! Nicely done.
James May
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#8
(26-02-2016, 06:57 PM)James May Wrote: I think this 2nd version works pretty well! Nicely done.

Thanks, James. It is always nice to please the artist.
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