Hi -
So, I've taken producer-type liberties with the arrangement. It's vocal forward, a little more radio friendly imo. I moved the verses to the front, made up a bridge vocal part, shuffled the backing vocals, and the song ends up at about 3:24. Some notes:
I gated kick and snare and toms and split off and compressed 1 ch of the OH - couldn't pull a satisfactory non-flat sound out of the snare with any snap or tone (wish I had separate top/bottom tracks) so I added a MIDI snare trigger. The kick and snare hits were so exactly on the beats, and the fills very mechanical sixteenths, I do suspect the drums were beat corrected. The toms tracks were well recorded, the OHs are fine. The live band room mic I was happy to see but unusable for what I was doing with all the leakage.
The bass performance and tone is good, but his lines were (to my producer's ear) busy. The popping technique of the ascending bridge sections I actually hate - I didn't work too hard to try to tame it, but I did at least substitute the first 8 and just made him hold down the low C before he goes up an octave, just so the listener has a context. In a fit of egotism I actually spent a couple of hours tracking my own replacement bass line before I came to my senses.
One complaint I have about the tracks is that there are obvious artifacts from some tuning or time-stretching in the guitar tracks and here and there other places. The vocals are tuned but not too obnoxiously, but guitar burbles drive me insane. The DI tracks seemed not to have so much.
The amp sounds of the guitars are pretty itchy. Not the way they were mic'd ( this was actually tracked quite well for a live performance ), but just the distortion tones used. Guitar tone is still a challenge for me but I'd rather work with a mild overdrive than any kind of distortion/fuzz tone. I mostly jettisoned the live tracks and the non-DI overdubs with only a few exceptions, re-amped (plugins) the DIs tracks, split them up. I also eliminated the Clap track because the vocal solo-cut-out was gone so it doesn't serve its purpose anymore. I sub grouped the guitars and vocals and drum mix so if nec I can make a stems mix. Oh, I ditched the 2nd synth line because it's distracting and useless.
I didn't ride faders as I don't have my board at the moment (working in a home office environment) so I just mouse mixed in box. Yes, it's headphones, it's the setup I have access to right now. I haven't car-stereo or speakerphone auditioned the mix yet. There is only a slight compression and limiting - I'm trying not to play loudness war. I don't know enough about this "replay gain" issue yet so I don't know if further compression will hurt it nor how to check against that.
I know the band might hate what I did to the arrangement. Like I said, I approached it with production in mind. Let me know what you think - scathing criticism welcome !
- boomaga (Drew Perkins)
So, I've taken producer-type liberties with the arrangement. It's vocal forward, a little more radio friendly imo. I moved the verses to the front, made up a bridge vocal part, shuffled the backing vocals, and the song ends up at about 3:24. Some notes:
I gated kick and snare and toms and split off and compressed 1 ch of the OH - couldn't pull a satisfactory non-flat sound out of the snare with any snap or tone (wish I had separate top/bottom tracks) so I added a MIDI snare trigger. The kick and snare hits were so exactly on the beats, and the fills very mechanical sixteenths, I do suspect the drums were beat corrected. The toms tracks were well recorded, the OHs are fine. The live band room mic I was happy to see but unusable for what I was doing with all the leakage.
The bass performance and tone is good, but his lines were (to my producer's ear) busy. The popping technique of the ascending bridge sections I actually hate - I didn't work too hard to try to tame it, but I did at least substitute the first 8 and just made him hold down the low C before he goes up an octave, just so the listener has a context. In a fit of egotism I actually spent a couple of hours tracking my own replacement bass line before I came to my senses.
One complaint I have about the tracks is that there are obvious artifacts from some tuning or time-stretching in the guitar tracks and here and there other places. The vocals are tuned but not too obnoxiously, but guitar burbles drive me insane. The DI tracks seemed not to have so much.
The amp sounds of the guitars are pretty itchy. Not the way they were mic'd ( this was actually tracked quite well for a live performance ), but just the distortion tones used. Guitar tone is still a challenge for me but I'd rather work with a mild overdrive than any kind of distortion/fuzz tone. I mostly jettisoned the live tracks and the non-DI overdubs with only a few exceptions, re-amped (plugins) the DIs tracks, split them up. I also eliminated the Clap track because the vocal solo-cut-out was gone so it doesn't serve its purpose anymore. I sub grouped the guitars and vocals and drum mix so if nec I can make a stems mix. Oh, I ditched the 2nd synth line because it's distracting and useless.
I didn't ride faders as I don't have my board at the moment (working in a home office environment) so I just mouse mixed in box. Yes, it's headphones, it's the setup I have access to right now. I haven't car-stereo or speakerphone auditioned the mix yet. There is only a slight compression and limiting - I'm trying not to play loudness war. I don't know enough about this "replay gain" issue yet so I don't know if further compression will hurt it nor how to check against that.
I know the band might hate what I did to the arrangement. Like I said, I approached it with production in mind. Let me know what you think - scathing criticism welcome !
- boomaga (Drew Perkins)
boomaga (Drew Perkins)
MTSU Mass Comm Recording Industry, BS in Audio Recording Production & Tech, 2004
using Cubase 10
Gear List
MTSU Mass Comm Recording Industry, BS in Audio Recording Production & Tech, 2004
using Cubase 10
Gear List