Old 01-03-2007, 10:55 AM   #1
bigwoody
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Default Fat Bottom Girls

http://putstuff.putfile.com/33259/3374707

I have been meaning to share this for some time. Yes it is a cover of the Queen song, but I did it to mainly push my on vocal ability in the studio from both a capture and a mastering perspective. I also mentioned it in a thread in the vst forums. I used the CH-2 Chorus vst from ag-works. This does have some issues when used with Reaper, (you cannot change any parameters while playback is happening or it will cause a crash), but I was pretty happy with the end results, so I figured I would share. I multi-tracked everything, there are no loops or midi. The drums are played from by Yamaha keyboard and in my opinion the weakest part of the song.

I have no plans to distribute this, it was entirely a "how far can I go with Reaper" learning exercise.
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Old 01-03-2007, 09:13 PM   #2
TerryW
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Cover or not, it's great... and yes i would replace the drumparts to Drums on Demand RX2 or EZdrummer (more live and real feel, (and loved to do it it for ye)).
Did this ch-2 plugin made in the Chorus parts of the song your vocal choir brighter (or backvocals) or did you use other tricks, because it's sounds nice and full.
btw a great leadvocal.

Regards Terry.
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Old 01-03-2007, 09:43 PM   #3
Contrahell
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Hey Bigwoody,

I checked this one out (actually listening right now). Performance sounds real good, nice cover of this tune. The one thing I'm hearing is the bottom end being quite heavy. I usually listen on my crappy Creative Inspiron 5.1 surround setup first as this tends to exaggerate any problem areas.
Seems to be real prominent in the 60-100 hz range so just for kicks I threw the mp3 into reaper, and put a cakewalk para eq on it first in the fx chain. Then added voxengo span as the second in the chain. With the para eq bypassed and monitoring the span while playing the song, I saw quite a bit of clipping in the low freq range. I then enabled the para eq and simply put a low shelf centered at 80 hz with a 10db cut on it, 1.5q, and voila...no clipping and the bass and kick drum were still kickass.
Other than the low freq issue though, I think this was a great cover of a great tune. Just out of curiosity, what are you using for monitors on this project?
Over the next day or two I plan on listening to this on all my monitor setups to see how it translates. I have been spending alot of my time lately trying to polish my mastering abilities, so songs like yours give me a great opportunity to analyze alot of different stuff that I wouldn't normally have access to.
If you don't have it I would highly recommend either Voxengo SPAN or another vst called inspector (by Elemental Audio Systems) for final analysis of projects. Both are very good for locating any possible problem areas and best of all both are FREE. I tend to like SPAN a little better as you can hold the cursor over an area of the spectrum while pressing ctrl key and it will isolate just that area in the playback. You can also sweep across the spectrum to quickly find any areas that might need a little tweaking (kinda like using an eq to sweep freqs for finding things that may be a problem or even to find areas you may want to bring out a little)

Hope this helps and keep up the good work, nice job overall. Best regards!
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Old 01-04-2007, 08:50 AM   #4
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Thanks for the feedback guys. Okay Terry first...On the lead vocal I used Classic Chorus with the "Rock Singer" patch (with some additional tweaking). On the chorus and backup vocal, there are 5 tracks of harmony. On each of those I inserted CH-2 with 4 "voices" selected in various panning and levels of effect. I was pretty happy with the results. There are issues with this VST, so you have to be REALLY careful, or it will cause Reaper to crash (at least on my system). My workaround is to not change any settings during playback. Stop playback, make the changes and listen again. Things work well that way. As far as the drums....I will probably put this one "on the shelf as I am now working on original stuff, but I have a good friend that does all my drum parts live, so maybe one of these days....

Now for Contrahell....Great detailed feedback. I too have actually spent the last month or so really focusing on mastering (this song was done before that). In that time I also discovered both Span and Inspector (they are both great) as well as the whole (very complicated) world of compression. I too will go back and "re-Master" this along with your suggestions. Great opportunity to learn this stuff. As far as the monitors, I have Polk Audio monitors. They are currently located behind me, and I know that I need to move them in front (room considerations). In general the song sounds pretty good to me in my car, on my home stereo and thru computer speakers, but an important part of this whole thing is training the ears......

thanks again to both of you the feedback, and especially for the constructive suggestions from a learning perspective....

WOW...I never heard that rumble until you pointed it out...it was HUGE....I took ReaFIR and used the EQ to cut at the freq you described above and it made a huge difference. Also with ReaFIR I got the spectrum display and the EQ in the same place (and it shows me the new output and the original signal in the display). I tried the same thing with SPAN and the Krystal Para EQ (I don't have Cakewalk effects). Thanks again...

Last edited by bigwoody; 01-04-2007 at 11:17 AM.
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Old 01-04-2007, 02:15 PM   #5
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Glad to be able to help Bigwoody. I love these forums as a way to give and recieve feedack and input. I personally wish this kind of info had been as readily available to me years ago as it is now...mighta saved me a few grey hairs..lol. I still learn new things every day from various forums. Like I said...keep up the good work and cheers!
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Old 01-04-2007, 04:53 PM   #6
Timothy Lawler
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Sounds very good. I don't know the original but I like the song and the performance.

If it were mine I'd reduce the level of the a capella opening section so at :24 when the guitar comes in it's at the same general level. The buildup after :40 is great. After 1:34 I'd reduce the limiting/compression just a bit.

All in all nicely done.
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Old 01-07-2007, 11:07 AM   #7
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Im not a big fan of burying the vocal in chorus. You sing it well....(not an easy feat with Queen) so why hide behind the crappy chorus?

Needs real drums.
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Old 01-08-2007, 02:02 PM   #8
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A great lesson for all of us. When it comes to effects, less is almost always better than more. A note to all, I have messed with all of the suggestions given (with the exception of real drums) and found them all very useful. I did this as a learning experience, and a combination of Reaper features and this outstanding user forum it has been great! Thanks again...Woody
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