Nov 19, 2007 11:53 am Very cool tune. Vocals could be more present, fatter. Maybe too much reverb on everything? Needs more bottom. Enjoyed it!
Dead On The Inside- Everyone but Bluesdues
Posted on Nov 19, 2007 05:25 am
Keith Warren
Mans reach exceeds his grasp
Member Since: Oct 23, 2007
Just kiddin Blues. The ending's done for ya.
I wanted to get some input on a song I completed last night, it's posted in my profile. It was made using a headset microphone and my stock sigmatel sound card, so be gentle. thanks in advance for your feedback :)
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Nov 19, 2007 11:53 am Very cool tune. Vocals could be more present, fatter. Maybe too much reverb on everything? Needs more bottom. Enjoyed it!
Nov 19, 2007 05:11 pm Hey, that is a very cool tune. Top notch. I could feel the thing on the vocals too but didn't have a good suggestion. I don't know if its the level, perhaps EQ. I guess it was just a bit of clarity loss at points. But I would find myself throwing that one in the player in my regular music rotation. Sounds like your getting a whole lot from a little thats awesome.
Nov 19, 2007 06:36 pm Keith, the new ending works great.
Now onto the critique part. AS I stated before I love the tune, very cool and some power there for sure. I personally like the way the drums are set back a bit, but you could bring the kick itself forward just a bit and give it a bit more thump to fill things out there.
Possibly bring a Bass guitar up without any verb on it at all, or a very small room type reverb. Again this will help fill out the bottom that Dungbeatle is speaking of.
The guitars are nice as is, real shine to them.
On the vocals, I am keeping in mind that this is a headset mic as you have already stated and I think you can work with that. I really like the almost hollow sound that it is getting. But you can fill that out and give it more presence as well pretty easy.
You should have the VC64 pluggin in Sonar. It is a big monster of a Vintage Channel like set up and has a killer tone to it. You could try starting out with the Breathing Vox preset and work your way around with that. It is a pretty cool tool when you use it right. And it can really add punch to anything really. You could use it on the kick as well to punch it up.
Overall, I love this tune for sure.
Nov 20, 2007 12:22 am Thanks for the comments, I appreciate your critiques.
It's hard to mix it right using only laptop speakers and a pair of earbuds, but I'm trying to make due until I can get a toneport and some proper monitoring equipment. I was a little wreck less at first and tossed all my monetary eggs into the software basket :(
I'll try the Vox, bass, and a couple other things out. I felt the vocals to be a bit too present, but thats a side effect of my monitoring situation.
Thanks again for your astute opinions.
Nov 20, 2007 05:28 pm I think the only reason the vox seem to stand out a bit is due to their tonal quality. As I stated, if you mess around with it a little bit with the VC64 or any EQ and compressor you will find that they may mellow out without turning them down at all.
Its just a matter of finding the right amount of EQ and compression to get them setting in the mix. The reverb on them as they are now is pretty good so I would not mess with that until you need to.
And as I stated, I kind of like the way the headset mic made them sound. It seems to fit very well like that for some reason. Maybe its the slightly gritty sound of it.
Nov 20, 2007 06:38 pm I'd like to second one of Noize2u's points. That vocal has a gritty gut feeling that is a perfect fit.
You for sure don't want to lose that.
Nov 21, 2007 02:00 am That's just my voice though; I've found that even really high end microphones tend to sound 'cheap' with my voice behind them. I guess I have a decaying effect built in, lol.
I tried a few things, but the noise floor is so great on the vocals and guitar that touching them with anything ruins the mix. I need to win the lottery or something and get my interface an mike(s) so I can get past this whole issue. I'd even go buy a USB microphone right now if I had the money, just to bypass the noise floor. It sits at about -23 db and jumps to -17 db every 8 seconds or so, as if the noise is caused by programs running in the background.
Because of the above issues, I cant bring it to a normal, 'standard' level without introducing the noises prominence. Any advice, or should I give up until I get decent equipment?
And on a side note, does anyone know of a free sonic maximizer/ enhancer VST? Or maybe a cheap suite of something along those lines? All I can ever find is BBE or L2 maximizers, which are both very far from my 0$ budget; I should have held off on Dimension, but lesson learned I guess.
Nov 21, 2007 02:27 am Also, am I defeating myself in thinking that for a solo act a computer can be a "studio in a box" with the right external interface and mics? Am I being pretentious or forth-right in that train of thought, or is plausible?
Nov 21, 2007 07:33 pm Keith, if you go here, www.kvraudio.com/get.php and put in the search criteria to narrow it down you will find tons of free goodies that will help. Some are better then others of course.
As for thinking you can do the studio in a box thing. You are correct in the thinking of the right interface and mic will get you going very well. I did not start my digital recording with a ton of stuff. Most of my gear at that time was outboard. But I still kept doing the work as I progressed farther into the digital side of it. And at that time I was making commercials doing scoring and still recording as well. And all that with just a few bits and bobs.
So no, your not defeating yourself in thinking that way. I know a couple guys who actually got some great recordings with a $50.00 PC and one of those cheapo plastic mics. So it can be done.
I actually did some of my best beer commercial work on an old Packardbell 133 MMX PC with the first Midiman audio card called the D-Man digital. It was a simple stereo in and out interface with a midi port on it as well. Although I still used analog outboard stuff as there were no software synths at that time. And I even did several video game sound tracks back then with the same machine.
So long winded answer is yes you can do it so don't get discouraged at the start. This is the time to learn with what you have and then when things get upgraded and fancy you will have a better grip on it.
PS, if you need some help searching KVR let me know.
Dec 05, 2007 11:09 am Taking another listen. I don't know if this is the same mix as before, but I'm gonna just listen from scratch and possibly contradict myself... :)
Definitely a cool tune here. I dig your voice, I dig the message, the darkness. Sounds to me like the bass guitar needs to come up. And maybe the drums too (definitely the kick as noize said). I still think there's something with too much reverb, but it's not your vocal. Maybe it's the drums. I think they're just a little too far back anyway... :)
Great job on this!
Dec 08, 2007 06:15 pm Very nice tune. It has a lot of power and passion behind it. I think the vocal was great. If you could pick up even a relatively cheep mic like an SM58, it would radically change the recording quality for your vocal. Very good job. Look forward to hearing more stuff from you.
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