Mixing help?

[Therese]

I could send them to you, don't have them here right now. Really great to hear other peoples mixes of my song a lot more fun than hearing my own :)

[Carl Kolchak]

Hey, If the other Bassist doesn't work out, I'd be interested in taking a crack at this, though stylistically it's quite different to my usual output, it's quite nice to step out of ones comfort zone and take on a challenge.

One caveat, I'm super busy at the moment, so I wont be able to devote a lot of time to the project.

[tha]-[acksaw]

Originally Posted by guitar486

I may have a bass player, but he's out of town until sunday so we'll see where we are by then. Therese, I'd be willing to do the guitar if you want to send me a rough chord chart. I could probably figure it out but I want to be sure. Thehacksaw can then send me the drums when they're done.
Btw heres my rough mix: http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.php?id=19991
I really like the lyrics therese!

Nice mix dood! The upfront guitar has more of a studio feel. The vocal came out great. I'm amazed at the different approaches you both took. I would have gone in a differernt direction myself. I guess thats the beauty of this whole thing.

Aside from hearing some great new music, this Thread has opened up a great door to future topics. It would be so so kewl to have all the DUCers sending sessions out to everyone, and allowing us to mix and remix stuff. What a fun thing to do when not PTing for "work". I just added this new song to my Myspace page. If anyone wants I'd be willing to send out the session. It's a pretty FAT acoustic number. Lots of great percussion, a vocal, a few acoustic guitars and a dobro. Anyway...

Originally Posted by Therese

I could send them to you, don't have them here right now. Really great to hear other peoples mixes of my song a lot more fun than hearing my own :)

A Chord Chart and written lyrics would be great. When you have time. Thanks so much!

Originally Posted by Carl Kolchak

Hey, If the other Bassist doesn't work out, I'd be interested in taking a crack at this, though stylistically it's quite different to my usual output, it's quite nice to step out of ones comfort zone and take on a challenge. One caveat, I'm super busy at the moment, so I wont be able to devote a lot of time to the project.

Carl, we gotta get you in on this man. Whatever it takes!

This is gonna be fun!!!

Anyone have any thoughts for the Drum parts where the acoustic guitar gets punchy? Around 40 seconds. Where the lyrics end in "but he'll survive", or something of that nature. The current arrangment kinda has this roll feel to it. Like you could play down the toms in patterns following the guitar. Should we "down tom" in those parts with drum stops that follow. Or we could go straight ahead pop, keeping the drums steady and plusing? And work a new acoustic guitar around that?

Any thoughts? I'm messing around with the drummer as we speak.

Nick

[Carl Kolchak]

Cool!

I'll check back in here tomorrow to see how things are moving along.

I'm going to have to go to bed now. It's 1:40am and I've got an absolute ton of donkey work to do, cataloguing and recording some FX in the field tomorrow.

see ya!

[guitar486]

Nick, as I said earlier in this thread I'm almost ALWAYS down to mix someone elses music. Gives me good practice in styles I wouldn't normally play myself. If you want to send me the session of your new work I'd definitely love to mess with it. Donno if I can do anything better than what you've got though, your mix on myspace sounds great!

Originally Posted by tha]-[acksaw

It would be so so kewl to have all the DUCers sending sessions out to everyone, and allowing us to mix and remix stuff. What a fun thing to do when not PTing for "work".

This has been done on homerecording.com with much success. Someone writes a song and sends the session out to the masses. People mix it a bit, add their own stuff if the like and send it back. You end up getting lots of cool mixes with various instrument additions and you can then combine 'em all together to make a masterpiece!

As far as drums go, my first instinct was some sort of Bush-like drums; lots of tom work and snare buzz, but the straight ahead pop approach would work very well too.



Milbrae/SF huh? About an hour away from me here in Mountain View.

[tha]-[acksaw]

Originally Posted by guitar486

Milbrae/SF huh? About an hour away from me here in Mountain View.

LOL... WTF!?! How does that happen. Some many DUCers so close to home. I'm pretty sure that Dr. Ford grew up in Redwood City or Palo Alto or the like. Amazing!

So, I have an up date, and some problems!!!

So, ya, I'm working like mad on this track. My buddie laid down three sweet passes on the drums, doing different stuff each time. Never even got to the grooves I wanted him to lay down for me. LOL. We worked on the song, and then I kicked him out so I could start editing. I didn't have him play to the song itself, cause it would have been a bit rough (he's a real techincal guy, likes his click track), so we worked using some Stylus Loops that fit well with the intro and first verse of her song.

I tried EAing around the acoustic to match the drums a bit. I had a bit of luck, but only for a 16 or 20 bars. The tempo over all is very consistent. Its just the little beaks hear or there that throw it off just long enough before it snaps back to timing a bit earlier or later then grid. I ended up forgetting the acoustic and just cutting up the vocal and moving it to fit the drums (Thank you Kenny Goia!). I'm just playing acoustic along myself. I'm working in 4/4 @ 73 BPM. I think the tempo is no way near right, but the drummer was looking for this off beat high hat groove so he wanted the Stylus Groove to move a bit more.

Everything is going fine, but I'm having the typical problem that I do with Folk/Americana styles. I'm a trained music guy. I like my math, if you know what I mean. And lots of artists these days work straight from creativity, putting the math to the side. Maybe where it belongs!

Anyway, the seconds verse for instance. The seconds verse which starts with the "and he cries and he cries and he cries" lyrics. The first verse is 8 bars on the nose. But, the seconds verse is 9.5 bars. And the last verse is a bit more then that, but I'm not all the way sure cause I'm still working.

So I'm sure you can understand the dificulty I'm having making all the production decisions up front. It's not like I can't work with the extra 1/4 notes. I just second guessing where to throw the fills and rolls that my buddie laid down. He did in a solid 16 bar verse / 8 bar chorus, working a fill in each 8 bars just to give me options. Of course I didn't have time to map out the song structure before hr came over. I made the assumption that everything was 4/8/16 ect.

I'm gonna patch up what I have tomorrow, and try and send it out by tomorrow night or the next.

And guitar486, if you ever feel like coming a bit North I'm really about 30 min from you. One of my vocalists live in MV. We make the trip back and forth all the time. Its a quick shot! You are always welcome to come through!! Show me some chops, on PT or the Guitar.

Your band is sick!!!

Nick

[RiF]

Great idea! I loooooove online collaborations! And working on such a great song like this is pure fun. Therese, did you WRITE this song, too? If yes, obey obey obey, respect!

I would love to do the mix, too. It would be an honor. It can get even better if I am allowed to use "my real stuff" (UAD, McDSP, Massey, IK MM).

As I play a bit keyboards, too, I could (try to) lay down some hammond organ parts (think of Rick Rubin-produced Johnny Cash albums).

[Therese]

I wrote it. However not so impressing is the way I wrote it, I guess I've gotten used to doing things the way I like them so the chords are just written over the lyrics. Since you already know the melody and its an easy song to play I hope it doesn't matter. Here is the link for the lyrics and chords:
http://depositfiles.com/files/q2hu10p5m

So now anyone who wants it can get it :)

[RiF]

Originally Posted by Therese

I wrote it.

Congrats!
Therese, you pushed the creativity of us with posting your song here, so please stop us if we tend to rip it apart by trying to add too much stuff to it you might not like ;-). Some nice drums here and there (not talking about throwing in Techno-loops...) and a subtle organ in the chorus could help, but it should not get over-produced, IMHO.

I just checked back my mix on my way to work and to be mild with myself: I can do better than that. Guitar level is too low and there are still some frequencies left I don't like in the vocals (some low-mids and the s's, but I hate de-essers). The overall loudness is too low, too. The song somehow cries for my vintage gear emulation plugins: 1176 or LA-2A on vocals, some sweet Fairchild grit on the master, some AC2 tape saturation here and there, a glueing buss compressor, a lush UAD Plate reverb..., but I will hold myself back as long as I can to keep the project portable for all contributors.

[guitar486]

Originally Posted by tha]-[acksaw

And guitar486, if you ever feel like coming a bit North I'm really about 30 min from you. One of my vocalists live in MV. We make the trip back and forth all the time. Its a quick shot! You are always welcome to come through!! Show me some chops, on PT or the Guitar.

Your band is sick!!!

Nick

Thanks for the praise, my band is just getting on our feet and looking for a studio to record our first album! The track on there was recorded in my buddies garage and in my home, but good enough for demo quality . I donno if I could show you any chops on guitar OR pt but I'd love to come through some time and check out your place, it looks very nice.

Theresa, I got the chord chart and lyrics, thanks!

Rif, a Hammond would be sweet!

Can't wait to get the drums Nick!