Mixing help?

[ThatDigiGuy]

surely... send to [email protected]

[tha]-[acksaw]

Originally Posted by Carl Kolchak

Sorry for the delay. This is for the version with drums by ]-[acksaw.

Carl Baby! I can't wait to get home and check this out. Thanks so much for being a part of this project. I hope this means more stuff to come. It would be great to keep this going with other tracks, just doing some playing around when everyone has free time. Really man, thanks!

So, to Rif and Guitar, I'm gonna have a look at Carl's bass stuff tonight. Depending on how much work it needs, I should be able to have a new session out within a few days, with the bass taken care of as well as a few other things.

I will also take Rif's Midi organ stuff and load it into the session. See if I can arrange something up with that as well. And I will load in the Rhodes stuff as well. I can't wait to hear all of this with the bass. It's gonna be great I'm sure.

Alos, I'm gonna try and add a 2 bar Stylus Loop. Maybe we can duck it under the current drums, so it just kinda grooves in the backround. I think those 16 notes will help out a bit. I also gonna add a 16th note shaker. That might help get some things moving.

Hey Guitar, if I send you a new session in a few days with all the stuff added and arranged, would you be able to start laying down Electric Guitar tracks following that? That would be sweet!

Then it's a matter of acoustic guitar and anything else anyone would like to add to this. Then we gotta pass it back to Therese for new vocals. Maybe we should have her do 5 or 6 passes at it. Then we can comp up the best of the best. Then its time for Rif to do his thing. Things are starting to warm up a bit.

Big thanks to everyone for making this work!!! And big thanks to Therese for allowing this happen.

Nick

[guitar486]

I've got some simple fingerpicking that I finished throughout the whole song. It's meant to be kind of in the background, low and panned but I think it adds some nice texture. I'll upload it soon. What are you thinking as far as electric guitar? Just little diddles here and there? I think I'd need to get the feel with the stylus loop to lay down something like that but I'll give it a go.

[Carl Kolchak]

Originally Posted by tha]-[acksaw

Carl Baby! I can't wait to get home and check this out. Thanks so much for being a part of this project. I hope this means more stuff to come. It would be great to keep this going with other tracks, just doing some playing around when everyone has free time. Really man, thanks!

No problem. Time permitting, I'm up for it.

Originally Posted by tha]-[acksaw

So, to Rif and Guitar, I'm gonna have a look at Carl's bass stuff tonight. Depending on how much work it needs, I should be able to have a new session out within a few days, with the bass taken care of as well as a few other things.

Hopefully it shouldn't require much more than a bit of compression and some EQ. I'm happy enough with the performance, as in I got down exactly what I wanted to play and I'm happy with the arrangement, but if you feel it needs some EA or you don't like the arrangement, then unleash the hacksaw .

One thing I should point out, I felt it really helped propell the song forward and change gear when I didn't play on the intro, instead leaving space for any other instruments. So when I said that there was that slight slurring issue on the 3rd beat of Bar 2, that's actually the 3rd beat of the 2nd Bar from when the singing (and Bass) start, so it's probably the 6th (or maybe 7th in this case) Bar, I can't quite remember.

I look forward to hearing whatever comes next.

Cheers!

[guitar486]

Here's the plucky guitar. Definitely meant to be low in the mix, just bring it in and out as you please.

http://depositfiles.com/files/j1uv9quhz

[RiF]

I have some MIDIs for the organ, a piano and a pad lying around here, but I want to check out Carl's bass and guitar486's guitar first to see if it fits. So maybe I will up some MIDIs in the next 48 hours.
hacksaw, definitely go for the Stylus loop. I tried putting a loop on this by myself and it sounded wonderful. Could get this into a Dido or Kosheen (roughly) kind of direction.

[RiF]

I've made a new mix/arrangement including guitar486's guitar and Carl's bass. I really dig both tracks a lot. At first I thought about the bass: "What is this? A 3 minute bass solo?" But after listening to it some more, it perfectly makes sense this way, but it needs some room to breathe (see comment about verse 2 below). The guitar is very cool too and must not be that low in the mix, IMHO.
Here are some thoughts and I request some comments about this, because I am pretty sick at the moment and cannot trust my ears nor my brain too much ;-):
- There's nothing new coming in chorus 2 and 3. I automated the vocals go get a bit louder in every chorus, but that's about it.
- The drums in the verses do not really groove IMHO, so I muted them pretty brutally. I like to have the song without drums until the first hook, but maybe some Lo-Fi loops could fill out the gap in verse 2. The]-[acksaw?
- The piano in verse 2 clashes with the guitar in verse 2 and the bass needs some room too. There's too much going on in V2 (gtr, bass, piano). Any suggestions?
- I came up with a lead guitar for the intrumental break. I missed one note a bit, but I kept it this way on purpose ;-).

The mix can be found here: http://drop.io/RiFDUCTherese2
The file is "2009-08-27 The Saints Sin (RiF. WiP).mp3"

EDIT: I just checked this back on my way to the doctor and I am glad that I have an excuse (being sick). The playing of the guitar solo sucks big time (very embarrassing, I have been close to deleting the file). So I will redo it for sure. I am not happy with the drums either... Luckily, I named it "work in progress...".

[guitar486]

I like the solo RiF, but yeah it should be re-tracked. Verse 2 actually sounded OK to me, with a bit more volume automation I think it would be just fine. If were actually going to have my guitar be the ONLY thing goin on in the beginning then I'll definitely re-track it, that was super sloppy! The mix sounded a bit overcompressed to me but maybe just my ears. Anywho, can't wait to hear those stylus loops nick!

[RiF]

Originally Posted by guitar486

Verse 2 actually sounded OK to me, with a bit more volume automation I think it would be just fine.

My idea is do let the bass dominate and to automate the guitar a bit down in the verses. Is that what you think?

Originally Posted by guitar486

If were actually going to have my guitar be the ONLY thing goin on in the beginning then I'll definitely re-track it, that was super sloppy!

If you call that super-sloppy, I will have difficulties tracking a non-sloppy solo .
I really like your fingerpicking stuff in the beginning and did not find it sloppy. But if you want to re-track it...

Originally Posted by guitar486

The mix sounded a bit overcompressed to me but maybe just my ears.

The whole mix or your guitar? I usually compress everything and being sick usually leads to too much of everything (compression, eq, fx, you name it)...

[guitar486]

My guitar sounded very compressed when it was the only thing going, but as I listened the whole thing sounded pretty pumpy to me. Maybe my ears are still playing tricks on me from the RX Bandits show I went to last night at the fillmore...

In any case, your solo sounded fine except for that missed note. I will see if I have time to retrack some of that picking stuff.

In the meantime lets use what I have and get that stylus drum loop(s) in there and I like the idea of a low-fi loop in the first verse. That would be sweet!

Seems like Nick has been busy but well just have to wait on him for the drums and percussion he was going to add.