View Full Version : An odd pair
sammydix
03-04-2010, 10:26 PM
The first song, East of China, was to see how far i could go with Reaper coupled with what i've learned so far.
alt mix
http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8851225
The second, well, don't record songs when you leave the club on Friday night.
http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8844121
-----------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE:
ScalerWave took his personal time to give me a sample of how he would alternately mix CHina. To be fair, i sent him just the raw unaltered tracks. that meant no compression, eq, amp sims (he got the direct line-in tracks of my bass and guitars), etc. so he didn't have much to work with. Still sounds good, tho. link below:
http://www.box.net/shared/6cbc1kq2mq
carbon
03-05-2010, 01:45 AM
Good tracks, both of them :)
The first had a cool chriscornelly vibe to the vocals.
shemp
03-05-2010, 07:46 AM
The first song, East of China, was to see how far i could go with Reaper coupled with what i've learned so far.
http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8844147
AWESOME! This is the sammydix stuff I've been waiting for!
The second, well, don't record songs when you leave the club on Friday night.
http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8844121
err, what kind of club were you in? lol
Mix could be better on this one. there's some level balancing needed.
but....Good job man!
sammydix
03-05-2010, 08:13 AM
thnx fellas. with every session i'm aiming to try something new and/or fix something old. I'm still not all that good at mixing, but i think i'm a better than my earlier posts.
Shemp>
"err, what kind of club were you in? lol"
You *do* know i'm a Georgia Southerner. A new bar was advertised in our local little "Village Voice" called "Creative Loafing." The bar was like 3 blocks from my apt so a friend and i figured we'd break it in...
The crowd was a bunch of neo-yuppies listening to country music. I didn't get it. But we stayed about an hour and actually enjoyed it! (not enuf to *ever* hang out there again, tho).
"Mix could be better on this one. there's some level balancing needed."
anything specific come to mind? Bass and/or drums too loud?
shemp
03-05-2010, 08:59 AM
"Mix could be better on this one. there's some level balancing needed."
anything specific come to mind? Bass and/or drums too loud?
I thought the accent guitar was a little loud at times, and sometimes good, and the toms and snare fills come in too strong. Also the vox level is low/loud/low/loud. You can use volume automation to even it out.
"East Of China" has a killer groove. I like it very much.
plgrmsprgrs
03-05-2010, 10:47 AM
sammy - here's the thing (at least imo). Your mixing is gonna improve the more you work at it. But, you also have a great ear for tune-smithing/composing very listenable, interesting songs. And this comes through loud and clear in spite of the mixes (which are getting better and better). That's the kind of combination that makes fans interested in following the development of an artist, and inspires other artists to improve themselves.
sammydix
03-05-2010, 11:20 AM
Oerk-thnx for the listen!
Thank you, Shemp. I'll see if i can even that out this eve. Think i just heard it too many time w/o a break, so it all sorta gelled as falsely even.
Heartfelt thanx, plgrmsprgrs. I do indeed pride myself as a songwriter above anything else (musician 2nd and vocs are 'getting there'), so if the songwriting comes through, then that's pretty much the best.
I've heard some pretty damned good music and musicians in this forum, so that keeps the motivation/inspiration up. If you can pass it on, all the better.
kindafishy
03-05-2010, 11:45 AM
Damn Sammy!
You are the only person I know who can just say "I'm going to write and record an old school country tune tonight", "I think I will try flamenco" or "I'm gonna do something that feels Beatles inspired" and pull it off!
No suggestions. Just chiming in like I do on all your other threads to let you know that I appreciate the talent you bring to these boards. You are such a killer songwriter, musician and vocalist.
East of China has such a cool vibe. It sounds like you are going through your Tin Machine phase.
My father in law will love the country tune, too. He's old. He'll especially like that it sounds like you pour a cold one and down 'er. The lyrics are brilliant too. I'm not sure if I would fix what has been pointed out with this song... it kind of adds to the vibe.
I never know what to expect from your posts. You never disappoint.
Alright, I'm gonna stop going on about how wicked you are now...
sammydix
03-05-2010, 12:56 PM
LOL!!! Kindaf. Can't wait to hear what your In-law thinks! The variety comes from 2 things: I listen to just about any style of music (that's good); and i'm just naturally a *bit* schizo. Oh, don't worry, haven't murdered anybody or anything....I affectionately call myself "functionally and harmlessly insane." Yeah, that about sums me up.
When i'm in my listening mode, one of my methods for choosing what i want to hear is to go to my mp3 collection (i have and entire 500gig drive devoted to that); squint my eyes just enuf so i can see what category folder i'm chosing from, but not the particular song; that way, when i've gotten enough, i'll be surprised by whatever i chose; i never know what's gonna come next. Typical for me:
NIN followed by Neil Young, followed by Can|Caravan|G.Giant|, followed by Snoop Dog or Soulja Boy (who i really like), followed by Steely Dan, followed by Hank Williams, followed by Alice in Chains, foloowed by Ella Fitzgerald, etc. This is NOT an exaggeration! And that's just to name the artists that many people have *heard* of which comprises only about half of what i have.
Lawrence
03-05-2010, 02:26 PM
The first song, East of China, was to see how far i could go with Reaper coupled with what i've learned so far.
http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8844147
Nice song. :) The vocals are disappearing a bit on my end though.
The second, well, don't record songs when you leave the club on Friday night. http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8844121
Nice. Vocals are loud and clear. Good funky country groove. :) Add a slide guitar and it's good to go. :D
sammydix
03-05-2010, 02:44 PM
Lawrence, that's the best avatar ever! ...and about how i looked when i recorded Don't Know.
Man, do i agree. i can hear a *real* slide guitar all over Don't Know. Matter of fact, it sounds empty to me now w/o one. You don't play do you?
Louie
03-06-2010, 07:20 AM
Hey Sammy, really creative stuff.
The guitar on the left side is loud in a couple of parts of Don't Know. It stuck out to me at 58 seconds. The high end is good.
I listened to both songs a couple of times. Very cool stuff.
sammydix
03-06-2010, 10:22 AM
thanks for your time, louie. Ok, looks like i can control the highs a little better and i'm more cautious of it now. Now i'm more aware of keeping things even.
Louie
03-06-2010, 10:57 AM
Anytime, Sammy. I enjoy your stuff.
ScalerWave
03-06-2010, 11:55 AM
Yeah, pretty diverse and interesting styles between these two. It's hard to comment on original stuff but...
The first tune seems like it could use a little more low end at around 130hz maybe, and the vox could come up a bit. If it were me, I'd pull the backing vox to the center some more and maybe even move one of the bking tracks to the left to balance it out. Are those loops of the flute and the voices in the middle part? The lead vox seems a bit dry in the beginning but maybe just a creative preference. My choice would be to make it more full sounding and add some verb. I liked the doubled parts.
On the second tune, the drums seem a little overly compressed. The vox harmonies sound very good. The vox don't seem to gel with the mix though. Some parts, the guitar sounds out of tune. Much fuller sound overall, in this tune.
sammydix
03-06-2010, 12:52 PM
much thanks, SW! Yeah, the flute/voice in the middle is a Chinese chant loop. Looks like i've been mixing like a left-heavy see-saw: too much hi and not enough lo (fullness-warmth). Difference now is that i'm seeing it thanks to the various feedback i've recvd. What doubled parts do you mean? The "bluesy" guitars?
ScalerWave
03-06-2010, 12:57 PM
I meant the doubled lead vocal parts.
What mic are you using?
sammydix
03-06-2010, 01:12 PM
an MXL V63M.
slightly "pumped" version with louder vocs.
http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8851225
ScalerWave
03-07-2010, 05:02 PM
It does sound a bit beefier. My urge is to pull down 300hz in the bass track about 4db and add about 60hz to the kick about 3db.
Are you purposely going for a thin dry sounding lead vocal in the beginning? I like the lead vox tone at 1:10 where it is doubled.
The lead vox at 1:35 could be a bit brighter to match the rest of the mix IMO.
The backing vox get a bit buried at about 35 sec and 1:15. I guess you're not into reverb or delay for the vox?
sammydix
03-07-2010, 07:33 PM
man u got good ears. i really appreciate you listening like that. Gonna adapt your suggestions and see if i can punch the mix up some more.
yeah, the dry fade in was on purpose. i like verb fine on vocs, i'm just overcautious of going overboard, i think. the "doubling" at 1:10 was two separate voices effected differenly.
A Remix using the suggestions:
http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8855411
ScalerWave
03-07-2010, 08:28 PM
Low end sounds better to me.
I like the backing vox panning in this mix. They are still getting stepped on in certain parts though.
Did you roll off the low on the lead vox? I think you could use some delay or verb to help it gel. Seems like it could be compressed some more too.
sammydix
03-07-2010, 08:33 PM
never done that (a proj file), but i'll look in the manual. thnx.
ScalerWave
03-07-2010, 08:40 PM
I mean the "China" .RPP file.
Here's one of mine...
sammydix
03-11-2010, 05:57 PM
SW's Mix:
http://www.box.net/shared/6cbc1kq2mq
Louie
03-11-2010, 07:25 PM
ScalerWave did a great job.
ScalerWave
03-11-2010, 07:42 PM
Heh heh thanx...
It was fun getting to work on Sam's tune a bit. I didn't know he was gonna send the raw tracks. I figured he'd just send the current project with the tracks and I would just tweak it from there.
I didn't even pick up on the fact that the guitar and bass were going thru amp sims until Sam told me about 15 minutes ago.... oops. So the guitar tracks are still a bit raw.
I was wondering why I was having such a hard time with them.
sammydix
03-11-2010, 07:59 PM
(evil laugh)....
thought so too, louie. not to mention fast. he did this in less than two eves with stripped tracks.
Louie
03-12-2010, 08:56 AM
Sammy, that's cool that you were able to get a different perspective on the mix. I'm sure this will be helpful for future mixes.
Louie
03-12-2010, 09:00 AM
I didn't even pick up on the fact that the guitar and bass were going thru amp sims until Sam told me about 15 minutes ago.... oops. So the guitar tracks are still a bit raw.
The mix sounds good regardless. It is well balanced and the rhythm section is really driving the song.
vBulletin® v3.8.11, Copyright ©2000-2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.