HI all
I played a bit with Ntrack a year or so ago but pc problems made me stop.
I’m now set up with a crummy Advent laptop running XP Home and Ntrack 4 recording into a Fostex MR8.
I have a Behringer FCA202 Firewire card.
This is a Thin Lizzy song that I and a mate Paul put together.
The drums are from my old yamaha PSR530 keyboard.
Paul Sings the lead and plays guitar, I do the rest.
Let me know what you think, Cheers Barry
Dancing in the Moonlight
Hi Barry,
These are really good vocal and guitar performances and the song is very tight - good work.
Listening here at work (with admittedly crap headphones), there is a fairly unpleasant frequcy spike to the vocal track. I reckon if you use the EQ graph in N you ought to be able to identify it - if you can reduce it in eq or with some multi-band comression it will be a really good improvement.
I think the overall spectrum could be widened a bit - maybe the high and low freqs have been rolled off a bit heavily for my taste.
Excellent work though mate.
Nick
Very nice work. I agree with stuntman that the spectrum can be widened. I also think that this mix makes every instrument (including vocals) pretty much the same volume, which results in nothing in particular standing out. I suggest bringing up the volume of the main instrument (guitar or vocals, for example) when it is in the foreground, or alternatively bring down the volume of the background instruments a tad to make the main theme stand out a bit more.
It is tough to do a good cover of Thin Lizzy songs because the originals are so good, but you two managed to do an excellent job. Other than how it is mixed I don’t see anything needing to be changed.
DC
Nick
Having listened to your work earlier, I’ll take that as a considerable compliment.
As a bit of a newbie I tend to mix by ear and feel and have a long way to go to get my ears where I want them. I know I need to work on using the technical analysis tools available in N as well. I’ll have a crack at your suggestions and I’ll post again when it’s done. Thanks very much for the positive help. Much appreciated.
DC Thanks too for your comments, now I’ve got two or three remixes to do! Cheers.
I’ve taken on board the help given by you guys and have remixed quite substantially. I’ve played around with varying volumes (subtly I hope) I hope it’s better - I’ve reached the point where I can’t tell anymore!
Cheers Barry
Remix of Dancing in the Moonlight.
I can hear a definite improvement over the original mix. It sounds really good now.
One thing I noticed when I listened originally but forgot to mention is the panning, or lack of panning. I noticed that the bass, the vocals and the lead guitar are all panned almost exactly in the middle. Experiment a little and try panning one thing 15% or so the right and another instrument 15% to the left. That gives you better separation between instruments and sometimes really improve how it sounds. I did notice that the backup vocals were panned to both sides at the end, so you already know to do that for effect.
One thing I hear during the guitar solo is this noise that sounds like a wash (can’t figure out how to describe it). It may be noise that is on the original take, in which case it may be difficult to get rid of it. You may try a low pass filter setting the knee up high to see if that helps.
You’ve made a great tune to listen to.
DC
I to ally agree with DC. The vocals sit perfectly now. It fits great now with the style. I like the extra high end too1 Good work mate.
There is definately a bit of noise on that solo track. If it is on the origianal take - I would try to redo that take. I think removing the upper frequencies of the solo may reduice it but take some of the required signal too.
Soudns great though barry - nice one.
Barry,
This weekend, I was pulling together a bunch of new music from some big name acts and some up and coming bands (the last group being from NPR songs of the day) that I had download from various sources on the net. My idea was to send them to my son at the University of Cincinnati, just to share stuff that I thought he would like. We’ve recorded together for years. He sometimes works as a studio musician there, and also still does a lot of recording himself, so he knows what to listen for. Anyway I also was putting together a CD that was sort of a ‘best of n-track’ collection. At one point I got the files mixed up, and to be honest, I could not tell by listening whether to put your track with the ‘best of n-track’ collection, or with the commercial releases, and I actually had to check back to the web site to make sure.
Lots of the music that has been posted on n-track lately is essentially indistinguishable from commercial releases. Amazing stuff.
T
HI people
I’ve been over in Spain for a while soaking up the sun, sea, sangria etc so forgive my lack of response. (At home in England now and ten degrees celsius cooler!)
Once again thanks to all for your comments and compliments, much appreciated!
As for the guitar solo it’s my friend Paul who gets the blame.
Listening to the track soloed I think he was sort of “hammering on” with his right palm by the bridge. (We pub players can get away with dirty playing habits but the recorder screams them out!). As engineer I should have made him re-do it until we were both happy but he liked that particular take and we’ve only just started working together so I didn’t want to play the heavy. (Need to work on my friendly persuasion technique)
I tried to eq some of it out but I agree that it’ll need re-recording with a cleaner technique. This time I’ll give him a stern talking to about the error of his ways and we’ll try again. He’s a great guy and has much more musically to offer than we’ve come up with so far. Due to other commitments we only have one evening a week to record so watch this space but don’t hold your breath. Cheers everyone.
PS
For newbies like me I say don’t be shy about posting your efforts here, do it sooner rather than later and you’ll get great help and advice. Cheers everyone
Got it. After blaming my poor old music partner it’s not the low level noise after all, it’s the ride cymbal over the solo. I shall delete it and replace with a better one. I’ve just bought PC Drummer and as soon as they sort out the balls up of not supplying a serial number I’ll get at it!