Lil Stevie J. is back...

[LittleRedChurch]

Andy!!! Just like old times!!

No one's going to like this but Steve asked for organ and a ahem.... cough cough... a vocal ahem ahem...cough GAG...harmony... so, I tried a high 5 or 4 on top of the lead.

Andy, I know about that voice thing. I'm NOT auto panning anything!! ...or am I . I just pasted what was given. I'm not one to pass the buck but BLAME STEVE!!!! It's ALLL HiS FAULT!!! The game is young. We can fix this.

Mr. Dance

I tried that trick kinda. I love the idea but didn't have time. What I DID do though, was loosely just try to keep the snare audible. Rather than messing with IT maybe if I can take things or eq things around it, it'll stand out. It in this case being the snare drum...it..

Andy!! Check back again, my old friend?? I'm going to talk to Steve tonight and see what's up with the voice
http://soundcloud.com/graham43/wrong-ti ... place/edit

WAIT! Latest sucks. Please don't listen. Fix when back...Must swim. Talk soon.

All the best all of you!!!!

Fun

On behalf of Lil Stevie, thanks for the heart...

G

[VanderBoegh]

Graham!! I'm with Andy on those vocals. To me is sounds like they're wandering around the stereo spectrum like a wayward horse... Just grazin' along, first to the left, then to the right, and back again. It was a bit distracting on my ears. I think it would be much better just to send them dead-center and leave them there.

Also, check out some vocal glitch at the :58 second mark. Probably a crossfade that isn't sitting right.

~~Matt

[SteveJCurtis]

Goodness me!
LRC - you are doing such a fantastic job on this track! Will email you seperately.

Everyone:
First, thanks so much for all the fab input. G told me that he'd put this on P2P but I had to go to a gig and couldn't comment earlier.
Ref the vox - Lord knows what I have done there !!
I didn't record it in stereo - just used my Audio Technica AT 3035 into Reaper via my Line 6 KB 37 interface,
Graham has done wonders with what I sent him and should be praised greatly. I think some of the problem may lay in the fact that I am currently on a tiny island, having to try and upload wav's via WiFi in a local bar. It certainly is a different approach.
Anyway, I will check the vox track out thoroughly and re-do or re-send to the amazing LRC.

Thank you all
Steve

[LittleRedChurch]

Alright

It's a good sign when you're listening to a mix with a lump in your throat isn't it??

Don't know what was wrong with the initial vocal but I took the whole pluggin strip, voice and all, and transferred it to a specifically made, 'mono' track.

Man I love this song. I'm too sentimental with this kinda thing but I swear this whole experience just MOVED me!

I'm willing to listen to thoughts but by my reckoning, it's gotta be close??

Let me know!!

Crusoe, this is one of the best songs... period...Can't say enough. And for the record, she's all yours. I owed ya... My honour!!

https://soundcloud.com/graham43/wrong-time-wrong-place

Friday

[eeoo]

Just a thought here, might not work at all but what about letting the bg vox sustain at the end of the chorus on the word "place" so that they trail into the next section, kind smooth the transition a bit? They could even go up in pitch so they outline the C chord?


Great work lads, stellar tune!

eo

[funsongs]

"Chalk Outline"... what a killer phrase...
(pun intended...yeh, you betchya, eh?!)

[SteveJCurtis]

There are times when we can be guilty on here of slapping eachother on the back a bit too hard, but truthfully and honestly, I have learned SO much from a lot of people on here, and been amazed by their generosity of spirit and talent, and in particular I want to thank Graham for lifting this track up to where it is and making it so much better than I could. I owe you man!
Best/Steve

[rdance]

gotta say again, this song is so strong...it's got contemporary country hit written all over it. it supersedes the 'bro-county' category, cause it's got an old soul element brought by the hammond and slide style, and the lyrics demonstrate sophisticated metaphor...devoid of those tired cliches and yet instantly relate-able to a large audience.

i'm pretty sure there are some taxi members who are wired into nashville heavyweights...maybe start by checking with michael laskow for direction. this one has a real big chance. the key is to marry it with the right recording artist...take your time, find the right deal.

of course it sounds great with you singing it, and graham did a great mix, so it could definitely be used 'as is' for film/tv. but a major artist will want to re-record it at that stratospheric studio level. imagine how good that would sound! regardless, it has a huge future with the right business savvy applied. i'm really excited for you little stevie j!

[andygabrys]

man its a great tune and the performance is pretty good.

the things i hear are all the little things....

vocal harmonies are not hitting exactly at the same time (various places) - IMO fine edit those guys
Vocals are panned wider and possibly a little loud compared to the lead vocal - IMO pan 'em all dead center, and eq out the parts of the harmonies that stomp on the lead. So that the lead is all there in its glory, and the important parts of the harmonies are just poking through - like obviously the highest harmony can have a lot of bottom cut out of it. This will also help the harmonies and vocals in general not stomp on the instrumentation which seemed to be happening especially in chorus 1.

relationship between kick and bass changes going to monitors to cans - sounds like on cans there is plenty of kick, but the bass is pretty absent except for the higher fills, where on monitors it sounds like there is a little more bass and less kick. the tune "it's 5'oclock somewhere" is more consistent, especially when switching between monitor systems. The kick is probably a little thick in the 100-300 hz range (maybe even 400 hz could be dipped to make it a touch more transparent) and the bass could use my old fav the parallel distortion to help it be audible.

drums.....I dunno. The kit you are using is a little on the lo-fi side to me. Its got a wooly distant snare sound, but at the same time the hi-hats sound really crispy (is that master eq? did you jack 8 khz on the maste?). If it were me, I would be looking for a modern nashville sounding kit. Superior Drummer Nashville deal, or maybe native Instruments Modern drummer, or I am sure Addictive drums has one that is a great kit of this kind of music.

If this is the drum that's gotta be, I would be looking to pull out some frequencies on the snare and on the over heads (cause there is snare in the overheads and just whacking the snare drum with eq won't change the sound all that much). I am guessing there is some 200-800 hz on the snare that is making it sound a little dark, and maybe some 1.5 khz that also sounds a little boinky. It doesn't need to be brighter necessarily cause if you jacked highs on the snare its going to sound brittle without getting much clearer.

masterwise - you have plenty of level. Its a little harsh sounding comparing again to "it's 5'oclock". I would be doing some surgical cuts and sweeping them around to see where the harshness is and make it a little sweeter. It might be more effective to do this on the individual instruments once you have an idea where the harshness is.

arrangement wise - its sounds like all the parts are there to make this mix big - it seems like the choruses could have the instruments up a bit louder (especially the stuff that is hard panned) to make that cocoon for the vocal especially in the choruses.

and then the same thing - fine automation rides to make everything present without making it too loud. like L side guitar at 0:42 is a lot louder than similar phrase on R guitar at 1:36 (which feels better leveled to me).

my 2 cents anyways. Nice!

[LittleRedChurch]

John

Thanks for commenting and yeah, amazing player. If you're not familiar with Lil Stevie, you are now...

Thanks


Fun

Death sells...


Richard

You're scaring me. i actually have Michael's email, too...

Eo

Cool call... man, sounds like work mind you... Still,.,,,

Andy

Oh Andy...The fat lady sings... Unfortunately you're right, of course, on all counts, especially the drums. But that'll mean starting with a clean slate because I didn't set the tempo where Steve had suggested I set it. Till now for drums I've been using a recorded wave file. (He DID send a midi...) And now, when I try to slow it to the required tempo, it messes the whole song up... Still, if may be worth it to do it again. I can just save the pluggin settings... Thanks, A. Great, detailed read. It'll be worth it..