humble me

alabama · Post by **alabama** » Fri Apr 15, 2005 8:03 pm

This file has expired and is no longer available here. The owner of the topic can re-upload the file, or post a link to an off-site file. <a name="planetz-tag"></a>Genre: Acoustic <a name="planetz-tag"></a>Uses: Pulsar Effects,Pulsar Mixers Norah Jones _____________________________________ This may be a totally inappropriate place for me to post this but... This is a sappy mainstream norah jones tune. (hey, this is coming from nashville!)

Would appreciate any comments regarding the mix, effects, the mastering job...(need to work on my skills!)

The guitar has vinco, chorus, masterverb pro. Keyboard is a yamaha s90. Vocals have masterverb. Final stereo mix has psyQ to brighten/enhance the sound. Mixing down in SFP. Recorded with sonar.

thanks for your time!

[ This Message was edited by: alabama on 2005-04-18 14:20 ]

[ This Message was edited by: alabama on 2005-04-20 00:29 ]

[ This Message was edited by: alabama on 2005-04-20 14:29 ]

emzee · Post by **emzee** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 6:27 am

Personally I hope you post freely and receive many varied comments. My initial reaction was..."nice sound....nice voice". The opinions below gradually developed, and hey, I'm a beginner.

I'd like to hear the mix again with the guitar level dropped back a bit... to bring the vocals forward more.

Through my headphones, I felt there was too much bass/mid on the guitar.... this was more pronounced on the chorus....got a bit muddy to me... I would have like them rolled back, particularly when the harmony kicked in.

I would have liked the backing vocal and the lead vocal to be a touch more balanced....bit tricky ...I felt the harmony could have been brought forward a subtle touch. It may have varied a little due to distance from the mike.

To me, your basic sounds are pretty darn good. Sounds like you're using a good mic/pre/guitar. That's about all I can comment on. I've got too much to learn myself. Chuck it in the bag as one opinion and discard it freely.

And hopefully you'll be honest with me when my time comes.

[ This Message was edited by: Mikka on 2005-04-16 07:51 ]

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 12:52 am

To me the singing is fantastic but the guitar playing is not so good. I would find another guitar player if I were you. The organ has got to go. It Needs slide guitar instead. The arrangement is sparse. Okay for a demo I guess.

Nora Jones is the daughter of Ravi Shankar.

King of Snake · Post by **King of Snake** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 11:09 am

Hmmm, the guitar sounds pretty decent to me, but that may be because I'm such a dreadful player myself

I think it's a very soothing track and I must say I have a sort of soft spot for country music even though I probably wouldn't buy a whole cd of this.
The singing is very good indeed, and the songwriting too. Good to hear such variety of music being produced on Scope.

alabama · Post by **alabama** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 12:15 pm

All,

Thanks for your responses. I think anyone who takes the time to download a song and crtique it deserves a gold star!

emzee: I agree, it needs a better mastering job. I am going to try to eq out some of the lows of the guitar and organ. I tried to do a final mix eq and to me, that result sounded a little too flat.

braincell: arrangement is too basic, right? Do you not like the sound of the organ, or do you just think a slide guitar would be a better fit?

k.o.s.: thanks. I wish I could claim credit for writing the song, but I cannot! Mainstream is definitely not so mainstream on this site. So, thanks for bearing with me.

p.s. - anyone know of good links for the basics in mastering techniques? (I think I'll post this request in the discussion area as well) Once you've spent several hours with a song, it's hard to remove yourself from the sound that you've become accustomed to hearing.

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 1:22 pm

emzee · Post by **emzee** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 8:22 pm

I have the same problem distancing myself from my mix. The other folks here recommend getting a cd you like in a similar style and working close to that mix. I think that's a great idea....(Maybe James Taylor CD.... golden ears on those) I think critique/other ears is sensible. Time away from the track just seems to give me another version of a mix...not necessarily better.

Also, I found some good info

http://www.homerecording.com/
http://www.digido.com/cdmastering.html

If your guitar playing is that clean on these simple chords, I suspect you're hiding talent..... hope to hear you cut loose some time.

[ This Message was edited by: emzee on 2005-04-17 21:28 ]

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 10:59 pm

A lot of us fix and quantize midi sequences and so we can seem like better musicians than we really are. You can't do that on the guitar, however you could record each phrase separately on alternant tracks. That way you could paste tracks too. Some people would be really against this. I'm a modern musician.

alabama · Post by **alabama** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 1:31 pm

New version posted. I eq'd the lows out of the guitar, tried to bring the vocals out a little more, backed off the reverb from the vocals to try and remove some of the blurriness, replaced the organ with a pad synth and put that in the background (eq'd that some too), added a simple guitar solo. The sound may still be a bit too heavy in the mid-freq range, but I'm afraid to eq the vocals any. Will do some further mastering research to see what else I can do. Thanks for your time!

emzee: Thanks for the links and your comments. (kindness always resonates, doesn't it??)

bc: still exploring my options, but I agree!

emzee · Post by **emzee** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 9:01 pm

I preferred this mix....changed the nature of the song for me....nicer.

My suggestions: Bring the pad up slowly from zero at 0 secs to whatever level you have it at around 40 secs.

Lead part in the middle up a touch .... needed a little something to come out bit more....not sure....

Alternate bass picking on chords would be better if you can.

Otherwise.. I hear a decent improvement. Needs the wiser ears around here for more comment. I think it's smart to start with a few tracks and build from there. I'd better do the same.

Liquid EDGE · Post by **Liquid EDGE** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 1:37 am

nice.. the production reminds me of a track thats been played to death on radio one recently (month or so ago)... but basically guy in a room with guitar.. nice stuff.

might be better without the vocal harmonies but thats just my taste..

i've said this before on other comments.. but i love the sound of acoustic guitar..might have something to do with hearing it constantly while i was brought up..

alabama · Post by **alabama** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 11:39 pm

no changes to the existing tracks with the latest post...all mastering-type mods. i tried to brighten things overall, remove the mud, experiment with optimaster, improve apparent sound level. still could use some work, but i think i'll move on for now. thanks for your time! (i'll try and comment on some of the other postings here...i have composed electronic music before!)

emzee, LE: thanks for your comments!

thermos · Post by **thermos** » Sun May 15, 2005 5:35 pm

great song, liked it alot.if i have to be picky the guitar sound wasnt how i would have wanted it. But ill take a good song over good sound any day.

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Mon May 16, 2005 7:28 pm

Lovely voice, very warm!

The guitar is too in the middle, and interferes slightly with your voice.

The second voice is not loud enough for me.

The EQ of the first guitar, when the lead of the first comes in, perhaps is too close to the second guitar. I would certainly EQ it differently to differentiate them more from each other.

A little more reverb for the voice would be nice too, but very little more.