My first song w/ ntrack

My first song w/ ntrack

http://soundcloud.com/jb1331/friday-night-song-stay-true-1

still working on the lyrics / vocals but the soundtrack is pretty much done… Still on version 5… will upgrade soon…

Very nice. I’ll look forward to the finished product.

here is the final version with vocals:

http://soundcloud.com/jb1331/stay-true/s-bne4f

I wonder why no one else is saying this but to me, the song is extraordinary all around. I first listened to your first post (just the music) and lyrics started popping in my mind. Then I saw your second post with the finished job. It really got me ! Commercial quality indie from my point of view.

All da best !

G

Yup. Really good.

Thanks guys… a lot of work figuring out VSTs…

I have much better sound on this mix as I am getting really familliar with some new VSTs…

http://soundcloud.com/jb1331/stay-true-improved-sound-sc

woah that is A LOT of sound! good song. my opinion on the mix is - through my earbud headphones at work i can’t hear the vocals or the drums enough, all the echo/reverb-orama U2 guitars are way too loud. it seems like a good song though so well done, maybe just revisit the mix? could be it sounds different in your monitors.

I still like the song a bunch but I do have to agree that maybe the guitars went a bit too high in the mix. I gave a little listen to the dryer last version and I kinda like it better, more of a garage sound. All the new effects are cool but as said before, I would turn the guitar down a bit (I’m listening directly through the speakers of my Mac). Bottom line though is that the song is real good :slight_smile:

thanks for the feedback… i basically took the original mixdown and added some additional compression on the master track… it really brought everything out, especially sustaining the delays etc…

I like the mix, but might need to tweak the compression sustain and vocal mix…

Now I see… I am way far from being good at mastering but I think that the original mix was pretty stable (even) regarding volume. I would not have added compression.

One question I have is about vocals. What effects did you use on the vocal track ? I really liked how it came out.

Gamma,

I asked my vocal guy the same thing… he responded:

"Mic was a condenser that we have in our studio. Forget which brand. and the preamp/compression is through Propellorheads Record. So I don’t know exactly which pieces we were using. XXXX engineered it for me so not sure what we had. But it’s presets we’ve built for our vocals from previous sessions. "

Thanks man… I was hoping it was recorded directly on n-Tacks. Sounds really good. Congrats !!!

I did use ntrack multiband compression and the delay throughout… both are very good vsts

If you have the time, please explain in more detail the presets you used, if you used them as send or insert (I am still grasping the difference), etc…

I am recording a vocal track and I am not happy with the effects. Any help would be appreciated.

G

For my vocals, I use the following vsts on the vocal track (playback only) in this order with a DRY FLAT signal in:

Tons of compression to smooth it all out and level… in the end sounds very natural:

All are free:

GSNAP (autotune)
ntrack compressor (soft knee)
dominion v1.2 (for a tiny bit of warm distortion, emphasizing harmonics, but in good way) a little bump on the highs will give you crisp ‘vocal exciter’ kind of efffect.
flux bittersweet (transient filtering)
ntrack mutliband compressor (vocal)
ntrack reverb (just a little touch)
ntrack delay (really short delay on one side with 100% wet on that side with no feedback, other side 100% dry) gives a nice stereo effect
ntrack delay (1/4 one side, 1/2 other side, feedback zero, 40% wet, 100% dry each side matched to the tempo of the song)

Experiment, listen, try different things until you find something that suites you.

Gee… thanks ! That is a lot of detail.

GSNAP is only for Windows (I’m on a Mac) but Dominion is both.

I’ll start my experimenting today. Thanks and again, congrats for the Stay True. I just showed to my wife and daughter and it seems like you have two more fans.

Yep - great vocal mix.